Daddy's little girl and Mom's best friend

I consider my a grown up. I mean, I'm 36, I have a job, pay my bills, have handled some crazy stuff. 

Then I go on a date. 

And the guy has a scar on his lip. Kind of a big scar. I'm imagining a knife fight, a motorcycle wreck, something crazy, right?  So I guess he caught me staring at it, rude, I know, and he touches it and tells me what happened. 

He got bit. By a horse. On his lip. I mean, tragic and scary. But all I could do was picture this and I'm pinching myself not to laugh at the thought of a 2000 lb horse biting this man's lip and I realize I'm not completely mature.

Today I had to make a very grown up decision. And I didn't even realize I was making it until I got in my car to go to my parents and found myself on a road leading me to a place I haven't been ready to go to. 

I found a peace. I knew I was ready. And I was proud of myself for doing it. Until I couldn't. So I do what every grown, adult person does, and called my mom, crying, asking her to tell me I was making the right decision. 

She didn't tell me I was. She didn't tell me what to do. She listened and she prayed and she talked me thru one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And I did it. And then went to my parent's house and cried on my dad for a little while. 

Not very grown. 

But hugely important. 

I've never doubted whether I could go to my parents for anything. Sometimes I've gone to them for probably too much but I've never questioned whether I could or not. 

So I'm 36 years old, sitting on my parent's couch, first time out of the house in nearly 2 weeks, opening an Easter basket, talking to my parents about very real, very hard, very honest things and I realized I'm not ashamed of running to my mom and dad. Never have been, never will be. 

Life has handed me a lot of really hard times but the one thing that had always been a constant, a sure thing, a never have a doubt about, is that whether I'm 36 or 63, I will never stop wanting, needing or appreciating the 2 most beautiful, real, most selfless people I've ever known. 

My parents did a lot right and here I am, one of them.  They have given me the tools to get thru things they've never faced, they've given me a soft place to land when I needed it, tough love when I didn't want it and a never ending supply of unconditional love. 

I love deep, I forgive always and I trust without ceasing and I'm who I am because 2 incredible souls believed in me!  

I have a lot of voices in my head fighting for attention. Keep the comments to yourself. But of all the voices that speak doubt, fear, rejection and confusion, the voices of my parents speak the loudest. And the moments I question whether I can keep going with the pain, the hurt, the confusion and fear that life brings, I know I can. 

Their voices speak loudest and I've never doubted what I hear. 

I'm blessed. For so many reasons but for most of all them!   

If you have parents, grandparents, the person that's your inner voice, maybe call them, love them, tell them. 

They deserve to know. 

Mom, Dad, how much do I love you?  More than you could possibly ever know! 

When you belong nowhere, 2 years later...

My March article for Still Standing Magazine.

"In two years I've grown.  I've healed.  I've spread my stupid wings and have seen where they can take me.  To some beautiful place where all that is missing is everything I wanted with me. But 2 years later, I'm Standing.  Still."



http://stillstandingmag.com/2015/03/two-years-later-belong-nowhere/

Driving the Struggle Bus

Am I happy?

More so than I've been in too long. 

And it feels fab! 

Truly. 

Fabulous. 

I've taken a break from social media and it's made me look at life differently. After living my life in such a public way, taking time to live privately has been cathartic. 

I've got my divorce papers. I was ready for them. I was strong and ready and anxious to sign them.  

Then I opened them and had a complete and total good ole fashioned go to pieces.  

Seeing the name of the person you married in that context of ending something that was so much of who I was was harder than I wanted it to be. 

But...it's ending something that no longer is. I'm divorcing someone that no longer is to me what I fell in love with and someone I no longer am. 

That's heavy.  It's a very heavy load I've been shouldering, alone, for far too long. 

I recently saw some people I haven't seen in awhile and they all showered me with hugs and love and kindness. And the words, spoken from a lovely soul who has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever known said, "I've missed your smile, it's so good to see it again." 

I can't even say how incredibly good it feels to truly have it back. 

Life isn't easy, things fall on you that are meant to break you and the beauty that comes from walking away with your head high is a powerful thing. 

My head's not always high. I'm grieving the ending of something I didn't expect to end. I'm a lover, I'm a forgiver, I'm someone who needs answers and the struggle bus I've been driving is because sometimes there just aren't answers. And that's hard. 

What's harder was having so much inside me that was unfullfilled for so long. For chasing a love that died a long time ago. For running after answers that would never come and even if they did could never truly make sense. 

There's a peace in making a decision. 

And I feel like I've let the weight of the world and so many unfullfilled promises finally slip off my shoulders. 

So many decisions have been made for me and the control freak in me fought it at every turn. 

It's hard letting go of a dream you had. Even when the dream no longer fit, no longer was a benefit and no longer brought me anything but pain.

I don't have a happiness that lights my smile. Happiness, I know all too well, is fleeting. 

What I have found is a joy that cant be denied. I haven't had the luxury of Facebook to tell me job well done. I haven't had Instagram to tell me that I'm going to make it. 

What I've had, what I found, is that as much as I miss being part of something, the healing I've found with finding myself has been healing in a way I didn't know I needed. 

Dang, that feels good. 

With that understanding, I also know I'm meant to be part of something. I'm better when I'm part of a team, when I have someone else to love. 

I haven't had that but I found something really special I wasn't looking for. 

I found a love, a pride, a peace that can only come from not only believing in but loving yourself. 

What I went thru, what I've faced should have damaged me more than it has. But God has placed an impossibly strong belief that His plans are bigger than ANYTHING I can imagine for myself. 

I lost a lot. I gained even more. And I'm excited, I'm hopeful and I'm ready to see what the next chapter of this crazy life brings me 

Devastating day and the prayer of a stranger

Today I had to do something that I've been dreading for the year we've been discussing it. I had to meet my soon to be exhusband, that I haven't seen in 8 months, to sign a form destroying the 10 frozen embryos that we have. 

Devastated. 

I was shaking, I was crying, I was damn near close to hysteria and I was completely shattered.  I am one of the lucky parents who got to hold and see both of her babies after they were born. A lot of parents who lose premature don't get that gift. I saw that Tucker looked like me. For so long I'd wondered what holding a baby that was part of me would look like. And I held him. And he was perfect.  Then weeks later, I held Fletcher. And he looked just like his Daddy. 

The embryos are my last hope of having a baby that has the characteristics of their brothers. It's a hope I've held onto for a long time. 

The thought of destroying the hope I had for each one of those embryos broke my heart in a way no one can understand unless you've had to face that impossible decision. 

Do I want to be tied to a man who walked out on me because life's hurts were too much?  No. Do I want to have babies that are siblings of my boys?  

More than anything.

I begged, pleaded and cried with him to let me have them.  He was ok donating them to other families so they wouldn't have to go thru the hell we went thru. He was ok knowing he may have children walking this earth that he doesn't know about, but he won't allow me that. I offered to move out of the state, country,

sign away all rights, he won't agree. He's fine with other people having our kids, just not me. 

I sat outside the dr's office with that form, head on the steering wheel, my body racked with sobs coming from a place of despair I didn't know I had. 

I couldn't turn the form in. Not yet. It's too big of a decision that I have absolutely no peace about. 

I reached out to some friends and family and asked them to pray for me. Of course my loving, selfless prayer warriors circled around me and one specifically asked that God would give me a word, a song, something specific that would help me thru this. 

I went to Walgreens and had my head down, trying to cover my tear stained face and hide the tears that were falling and I wasn't speaking to the cashier but I heard her talking. Then I realized she was praying. Out loud. She was praying for me. I looked up, tears running down my face with a look of total loss and she said, if you agree then just say "Amen."  I looked at this beautiful lady who had no idea the gift she had just shared with me and whispered, "Amen."

I've had some exciting doors open for me over the past week that have given me a hope and peace for motherhood that I haven't had in a long time. Naively I thought that would replace the brokenness of losing the hope of what the embryos held for me. 

Life is heavy. Way too heavy sometimes and today I was literally crushed under the weight of decisions that are being made for me that I have no control over. 

And I lost it. 

And in that brokenness, the kindness of a stranger and her heartfelt prayer that God would hold me, guide me, keep me and love me until I can see the light at the end of the tunnel lifted some of the weight that made me feel like I was drowning. 

I don't know what tomorrow holds. I know that sometimes the circumstances we face today are so devastating it's hard to see past. But I also know that in my darkest hours, the moments I've felt completely alone and forgotten, God uses the most unlikely people to speak to my heart. 

The prayer of a stranger, spoken out loud in faith and belief gave me the push to keep walking forward. 

What does divorce really cost?

So, divorce. That's fun. In a kick yourself in the teeth kind of way. I've been trying my best to hold it together, the past week I think I've cried more tears from a place of pain I didn't know I had. It's funny, how tears come from different places. 

I have been so close to losing my mind I can't even tell you. And I'm not being facetious, I'm not being self depreciating, when I say I've been close to losing it, I mean it.  I've often thought of driving myself to the closest mental ward because they would have to know what to do with a crazy person like me. Better than I know what to do with myself.  But I don't even know where those are. Which I guess may be a blessing in disguise and keeping me out of lockdown and a padded room. 

Divorce sucks. It's the ending of something that I went into without a contingency plan. I never even considered one because I knew, finally, I'd found the person I was meant to be with forever. Who would protect me, love me unconditionally and be beside me through everything good and bad that life brings. And let me love and take care of him, too. 

I didn't expect that to end. 

I don't think I could have handled losing my husband with a fully intact heart. That my heart was already completely shattered, I can say, only by God's grace have I not given up.  

Laura Story sings a song called "Grace"

that I heard the other day and it spoke so strongly to my torn and beaten spirit. 

"And each time I will fall short of your glory, how far will forgiveness abound?  But you answer: "My child I love you, and as long as you're seeking my face, you'll walk in the power of my daily sufficient grace." 

Dang. If that doesn't answer every question of "how am I still breathing with a brokenness I don't know how to maneuver" than I don't know what does. 

Divorce is expensive. It robs you of all kinds of things that go beyond splitting this and that. 

What has it cost me? 

My Sanity- 

When you basically have an entire family erased from your life and you are left with only yourself, feelings of insanity are a constant companion. 

My Self worth-

When you're told by someone you trusted your heart with that you're nothing, you gave nothing, you did nothing and you ruined everything, it's hard to feel like you have anything to offer anyone.  And this is what's been hardest for me.  Because I know in my heart who I am, what I have to offer, but if the person you're trying to give everything to doesn't want it, how can you be blamed for not doing enough?  My old self would have said "screw you, I'm pretty fantastic and it's your loss for not recognizing what I am."  My current self screams, "please love me, please tell me that I was worth something, anything."  Sigh. 

My Dignity-

When you scream and cry to an empty room because you are desperate to matter to someone, when you beg to not be ignored and looked thru as though you aren't important enough for a second glance, your dignity flies out the window. 

My Health-

When you internalize every failure, every hurt, every what might have been, it takes it's toll.  When your resistance is already down from a year of trying to keep from drowning, stress can manifest itself in all kinds of ways that make your body hate you.    

My Appearance-

I used to feel pretty more days than not. Now I feel lucky if I don't scare small children. I'm haggard and I'm wrinkled. The past 2 years have not been kind to this gal. 

My Pride-

When you fight for every conversation for a year, when you have to defend every nasty, hurtful, cruel thing that's been said about you, and you continue to go back to the source of pain in hopes of finding a glimpse of what you are losing, pride is the last thing you feel. 

Today I had a series of much needed light bulb moments.  Thoughts were flooding my mind like a movie I was watching, memories of good times, devastating times, confusing and frustrating times. Tears fell as I thought back on so many things. 

Did I fail?  Am I worthless?  Did I never make him feel like he mattered or do anything nice for him or make him feel special?  

No. That's not accurate and I'm speaking truth to this so that I can move past it. 

I had a friend, she was self admittedly very overweight. And she joked one time that she was anorexic. The group we were with all kind of stopped what we were doing and looked at her like, "huh?"  She said, with a big smile on her face, "I know I'm anorexic because everytime I look in the mirror I see a fat girl looking back at me."  

It was a "duh" moment but she was making fun of herself and saying hi to the elephant in the room before anyone else could point it out. 

I've often felt like saying "I'm an abused woman because no matter how poorly I've been treated by those who are supposed to love me, I still only see the best and good in them and I keep going back for more verbal assaults. But they must really love me, somewhere deep. Maybe he's just confused because he couldn't possibly believe the horrible things he is telling me about myself right?!"

Duh. 

Abuse is a big word. I don't use it lightly and it kind of punches me in the gut to admit it.  Abuse can range from a multitude of things but emotional and mental anguish, cruelness and verbal attacks are very real. Sometimes they don't come from your spouse, sometimes they come from people connected. It's still wrong, it still leaves marks and it's not acceptable. 

I'm guilty of losing my temper, obviously. I've thrown things, I've hit things, I've screamed and I've cried.  Desperation brings out the ugly. Dignity and pride gone, remember?  I'm certainly not proud of that. 

I failed at a lot of things. 

But my marriage didn't fail because I wasn't good enough. I didn't lose an entire family because I didn't make anyone feel special or do anything good for them or I didn't grieve fast enough. 

It failed when it became more work than being easy and the scales were tipped and I didn't measure up.  The realness of me and our situation and the work it would take to get us back to healthy wasn't as appealing as erasing me completely from their life.  When things got hard, he left. Me sobbing on the floor. Over and over. He took the kids, he left and he hasn't looked back. 

It's made me feel like I was losing my mind. For 5 years they had consumed every part of my life, every memory I have.  So when every. single. thing. I was used to being involved in was taken from me, of course I was lost. Of course I was emotional. I didn't have my husband I loved more than anything, my life partner to talk thru the daily struggles with, laugh with, love with, I didn't have baseball games, football practice, dance competition, school projects, homework, vacations, never ending laundry, a dog that was in the middle of everything to keep me busy enough to forget what left me. 

I only had me. And after so long of having total chaos that being married, with 3 kids and a dog brings, the silence was absolutely deafening. 

I've been beaten down. I've kept going back for more, shame on me. And every single time I've lost more of who I am and what makes me me. Because I gave someone else the power to control my feelings, my emotions and turned my belief from knowing who I was to feeling that I wasn't good enough. 

I've been scared. So fearful of living a life without them that it's made me blind to the fact that, for a long time I haven't had them and I'm still surviving. And the only thing the memories and thoughts and attempts at making sure I was remembered and important and revelant in the lives that mattered so much to me, didn't change that I wasn't as important to them as I thought.  

Devastating. 

But that's not a failure on my part. I gave absolutely everything I had and left my heart on the table. 

I realized tonight that I tried everything I could to make it work and I wouldn't be able to close this chapter of my life, as painful as it is, if I didn't try everything I could. But the only way it ever got ok was when I made myself smaller.  I stopped talking about God because it made him uncomfortable, I stopped laughing so much because he couldn't understand how I could be joyful when life was sucking so bad. I had to accept unacceptable behavior from others because that's just how they were. 

No. That's not ok. You don't perpetuate bad behavior, you grow up and make better choices. 

I know this, more certain than anything else, I outgrew him. And a friend threw me a lifeline today that she didn't even realize she was throwing. She told me "Don't let  anyone dim your sparkle."

I've spent too long fighting the voices in my head that remind me that I failed, that I grieved too long, that I'm an attention whore, that I'm selfish. And me going back to the source of my pain that adds new verbiage each time is no longer acceptable. When you know better, it's time to do better. 

The chapter is closed. It's over. And as painful as that is, it can't hurt anymore than being attached to someone who told me and made me believe that I wasn't worth it.

God gave me a huge gift today in the way of removing the rose colored glasses that inflated all the memories to better than they were for a long time to how life is right now. 

I'll never regret loving him and giving him my heart. Because when it was real and true, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever been part of. I'd never felt more beautiful, more special and more loved. 

He decided I wasn't good enough. That's on him. I'm still me and I'm still full of so much that I want to give someone who is capable of loving me back. 

When I'm ready, there will be someone else who will love this crazy, blonde, haggard mess. 

What does divorce cost?  A lot. Ask anyone who has been thru it. 

But what have I gained?  A lot. Ask anyone who knows me. I'm constantly seeking for truth, for the strength to be better tomorrow than I was today and I've never let anything make me doubt that God has a plan. 

Divorce- $1500 that I made him pay for

Botox to help the haggardness -$400

Boxes of wine- $50

The peace that comes with knowing that you are closing the door on a part of you that no longer brought anything positive- 

PRICELESS. 

I'm going to take the advice of a very wise and loving aunt and I'm going to be selfish for a moment and take care of me. I'm going to love me and cut myself some slack for not losing my mind or my smile. Most days. 

What am I fighting for?

What am I fighting for? 

Been asking myself that a lot lately. 

So why do I keep fighting?  Besides the obvious I guess of having no real other choice?  I've always had a strong determination to survive, this is testing the limits. But I've never really seen an alternative to not surviving because I'm not sure as an adult what other choice you have than to figure life out and make it work. 

Doesn't mean it's done with grace. Doesn't mean it's done with a smile on my face. More times than not lately I have tears rolling down my face. I'm not sad all the time but I am so completely raw and the emotions are overflowing. 

What am I fighting so hard for? 

It's not to prove anything to anyone else anymore. It's not for validation from people I so desperately wanted to see and acknowledge a strength in me they always questioned. 

I wasn't sure what my fight was for. 

Then I heard a song that made me realize it. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-86J8l8c5bc&autoplay=1

I'm fighting so hard because I'm a mother to two babies who never stopped fighting.  And I have to believe they got that from their mama. 

You hear of parents learning more from their kids than they teach them. I think it's pretty incredible how much 2 little boys I only held for a moment continue to teach me. 

I don't consciencly think of them everyday anymore and I know there has to be se healing in that but it's also hard to let that go. When I do think of them, I think of them as they are now.  And I don't know if people in heaven can see the ones left behind but I have to believe their spirits are around because their hearts are with me everyday. 

The fight has been hard lately. Really freakin hard. I have wanted to give up, throw in the towel and call it a day like a million times but I can't. 

Because I have a lot of life to live. Here and now. I'm slowly putting the pieces of my brokenness together and the light shines thru the cracks in different ways and seems to touch people where they need it.  And I don't know that until I share my pain and struggle and hear from them that they understand because they are facing it too. It may be the light of faith shining that I believe God hasn't forgotten me. It may be the light that I can live a good life thru grief that changes and the pain that lessens as each day I wake up without Tucker and Fletcher. It may be the light of a very lonely woman going thru a divorce from a man she loves and misses everyday. It could be the light shining thru the cracks of worry, anxiety, despair. Or maybe it's the light of hope and faith and belief. 

My life is transparent, I have a ton of cracks and what is inside me shines out. Sometimes bright, sometimes dim but the light of love and hope has never been burnt out. 

Why do I fight so hard?  Because I want to be the best of me I can be. For the people around me but most importantly for my babies who I know are beside me. 

I heard this song and I've listened on repeat.  Heaven is far away when what you want is waiting but my life is here and I'll continue to fight the good fight here so that when my time on earth is over, I will spend forever with my babies. 

"Homeward Bound.."

I will run

I will run this race

And I will do it all for love

Your love compels me forward

You love controls my heart 

And I just can't

I cannot get away

So I will fight

This good fight of faith

And I will do it all for love

You are my great reward

You're so worth fighting for

And I can't wait to see your face". 

I can't wait to see my babies. I see them in my dreams, I feel their arms around my neck, I can even hear their voices. Which is the strength of a mothers loving desire as I never even heard them cry.  It's real though. It's so real. 

But when I open my eyes they disappear. 

I'll run this race, I'll fight the good fight of faith and I will do it all for the love of my

boys. When we'll never be seperated again. 

Their mom isn't a quitter. I can't wait to see their faces when I will know without a doubt that my boys will be proud of their mama and I can run with them and never again have to be apart. 

Period from hell and 3 pints of ice cream

Life needs to freaking let up. Not joking, not being facetious, not being woe is me. It just seriously needs the let up for 5 seconds so I can catch my breath. 

If I have any male readers, feel free to stop reading. 

So you know how every mother always says that the pain of child birth is forgotten the moment your baby is laid in your arms?  

I believe that's true.

Except for when it's not. 

I'll never forget child birth. With both boys, I remember every. single. pain. I remember every detail, I remember it all like it was yesterday. 

Mainly because I go thru the pain all the time. I've always had horrible periods, always. The dr's have told me since I was very young that once I went thru child birth, the pain would get better. 

And it did. For a year and a half my body was normal.  I mean, except for the breast milk I still had up until about 2 months ago.  But was mostly normal til one day it had decided I'd had enough of a reprieve and the flood gates of hell opened up once again. 

There are 3 types of people when it comes to period hell. Men who haven't a clue.  

Woman who have some cramps here and there, some moments of wanting to hurt someone during PMS and then the group of woman whose lives are put on hold during the worst times of their lives.

Every. Single. Month. 

Except I'm not normal so for the better part of the last 120 days, I've been living this hell. Some days it's ok. Some days I want to kill people. Other days I eat my face off.  Some times I wake up 11 lbs heavier than when I went to bed because of fluid retention.  Hand to heaven truth. Other days my face looks like a proactive commercial and then the really amazing days I am curled in a fetal position with a heating pad cursing the fertility gods that cause this pain that remind me I'm still not pregnant and they really want me to realize that. 

That's been me the past week.  My dr's have told me I'm one of the lucky few that goes thru true labor pains more often than most during their cycles. It sucks on a normal day.

Other times it's devastating. 

To be laid up, in excruciating pain, reliving the worst two times of your life is simply devastating. Because it's not just the physical that is too much to handle. It's the memories that play like a movie in my mind of when I truly was in labor. And how that ended. 

My dr has me on different meds trying to make my life less hellish. And that backfired and for 3 months I had a constant period.  Life has been fun around me let me tell you. Then I get a 3 week reprieve and out of nowhere a few days ago I'm knocked on my back. 

Literally. On my back with a heating pad and 4 heavy pillows on top. I have heating pad burns. How do you even explain that if I had to go to the ER or something? 

Please, someone, tell me it's not that bad. I promise I will slice your tongue out. 

Sometimes all the stars line up in life and just make you want to check yourself into an all expense paid trip by insurance and copay into the closest mental ward you can find so you can get a moments peace. 

I'm transparent, remember? 

So, what have we learned today in my blog?  

I'm hormonal. I'm still half past crazy and I'm a mess. 

But I'm trying my best to not let the crazy take over every part of my life. I like to spread it out evenly amongst all areas. 

You know, like talking to your ex about the divorce papers that are "in the mail." 

Hot mess, party of 14 personalities checking in. 

If it's not one thing it's 15437 others but so far my rack record of getting thru the crap is 100% even if the ways I get thru it are pints of ice cream, 3 heating pads and a box of Kleenex with a whole lot of caring people who allow me the grace to be myself. 

Right now I feel like a big fat lump of charcoal and that the light at the end of the tunnel is a speeding train headed right for me.  

But I know it's not accurate. Tomorrow I'll wake up with a better attitude than I have today and most likely, with an empty pint of ice cream laying beside me and a heating pad burn to remind me I made it another day!