caution

the summer after i turned 18 i was taking the maximum number of credits and working for the science department at a local community college. i was getting ready to graduate with my associates after completing the fall semester, so i could transfer to a four year college.

that summer i learned that my mother had cheated on my father at some point. i also learned some very sad things about each of my grandmothers' childhoods. My maternal grandma's dementia was beginning to show and she was very mean and accused me of random cruelties that never happened.

my parents went on vacation and while they were gone something got in the chicken shed and killed half of our chickens by ripping their heads off. that happened twice while they were gone.

i did not handle these things well. life seemed to be continuously cruel. i felt responsible for things that i had no control over. i lost perspective.

food didn't taste good, but i ate because the act of eating was comforting. i had a hard time sleeping at night and a hard time staying awake during the day. memorizing things became nearly impossible. school, which had always been easy, was a struggle. my eyes were always brimming with tears.

the beginning of september i felt like i couldn't take it anymore. i wanted to stop hurting. i started thinking about ways i could kill myself.

i sat my parents down on september 5th and told them how i was feeling. we made an appointment for me to start seeing a counselor.

September 11, 2001 - thousands of people died in the terrorist attack on the United States.

i recognized that the parts of my life that seemed cruel and overwhelming were minuscule compared to what had just happened to millions of people.

i met with the counselor until i moved in january. i worked hard. i learned techniques to help me sleep. i could see the light at the end of the tunnel. life was looking up.

now 11 years later, i've fallen into too much responsibility.

i have my families normal goings on. same as everybody. i have been helping out with the neighbor girl: feeding her when she asks, brushing her hair when her mom's too high to do it, giving her clothes  to wear. But my other neighbor had been carrying most of the day to day weight of caring for the girl. now the girl's mom has lost custody and the clueless grandpa is in charge. also the neighbor lady (who had been carrying the weight) left her husband and isn't around anymore.

now i have the little girl every weekday and i also have the teenage girl and elementary school-aged boys from the neighbor who left her husband.

i have 4 extra kids after every school day until after my own girls go to bed. and the neighbor girl has started coming over before school also.

I DID NOT OFFER TO DO THIS.

but when these kids (that are too young to care for themselves) knock on my door i let them in.

i'm afraid i'm heading down that same road again. i can see the signs. i need to get a handle on this now because i have people depending on me.

my oldest girl has started having notes sent home by her teacher. i forget to check if she has homework or ask what she did in school each day. i feel guilty that i only have a few minutes a day that are not dominated by someone else's kids. i'm not coping well.

i need to get a grip and stop crying long enough to tell these parents and guardians that i can't help them anymore. and i need to do it today.

crapity crap crap

i am very irritable lately. there are many possible reasons, but really it is because they are all compounding on each other.

1. i have less than 206 days until my best friend moves to St. Louis.
2. my parents' divorce is getting more real.
3. my neighbors are splitting up and i won't ever see their sweet boys again. also their mother will not be around to help me with the neighbor girl anymore.
4. i have been watching a neighbor girl because her mom is in rehab for meth and lost custody. she takes a lot of energy because she is coming out of a very sad and disgusting situation.
5. our potential move is up in the air and the not knowing is bothering me. 
6. i want to get more involved with the amazing church we go to, but my husband doesn't see the point since we may be trying to move this summer.
7. i know that this turmoil in my mind is a sign of where my relationship with God is right now, because none of these things are new but they are starting to really affect my mood.

i feel so blessed that i have my husband and kids and our family is functional and healthy. however, they are not filling the void i feel in my heart and i know why, but i haven't begun to do anything about it yet.

divorce, a story of love

My father was 19 and my mother 20 when they met on Midway Island, February 9, 1973. 

Mom was the only woman in the squadron training other Navy enlisteds on something to do with the P-3 Orion sub-hunters.

Dad was the only guy on the island who didn't drink gamble or cuss and offered to walk mom to her barracks. They ended up walking the beach and talking all night. Dad shipped out the next day.

They were married June 9, 1973. Four months to the day from when they met. Mom barely had time to sew her wedding dress.

Dad couldn't/wouldn't marry someone who wasn't a Christian, so mom studied up and was baptized at some point before the wedding.

It sounds like a fairy tale. If they had known each other for longer (or known themselves) things may have turned out differently. 

Dad was shipped out three weeks after the wedding and was gone for six months. The first three years of their marriage was spent this way.

When Mom got pregnant she was given an honorable discharge from the Navy and had my oldest brother. 

Dad's enlistment was up soon after. They had plans to use their GI bills and balance college classes with jobs and watching the baby, but on a visit to Mom's family in Nebraska Dad's fear of the unknown overwhelmed him and he took a job with an irrigation company. That job wasn't a good fit, so six months later he took a job with Burlington Northern Railroad. His electrical training in the Navy was valuable to the railroad and eventually he was able to work up to Signal Supervisor before he retired. However, in the beginning they were required to move often. Sometimes they averaged moving every 3 months, for 17 years.

During this time they added another boy. Mom wanted to try for a third baby, but it took 5 years for Dad to agree.

So six years after my brother, they had me.

From the outside they/we appeared to be and ideal family. Breadwinner, Homemaker, good strong Boys, and a little Girl. A Faithful Church-going family.

My brothers remember more than i do, but we don't talk about it. i only have snippets of memory and the stories to go by. 

My father was gone monday through friday for years because of the territory he worked on or was in charge of.

There was abuse. There was infidelity.

My mother was raised in an abusive household with a philandering gambling father and had absolutely no coping  mechanisms. Left alone in the plains of Nebraska she unwittingly repeated the pattern she had seen as a child.

Her actions are inexcusable, but in order to love her like God asks me to, I must excuse them. Learning not to repeat some of them is at least as hard.

The years have been hard. My oldest brother fell into drugs and trouble at 16, but was pulled out of it by his baby at 24. My middle brother struggled with anger in his adolescence and had a baby at 22, but is unbelievable successful now. I still get overwhelmed by anger with little warning, but i have the most amazing partner helping me grow in God.

My parents made it 39 years exactly before they decided to officially divorce. Things had been bad for a long time. I never remembered them being good.

My mother has been living as a single woman for a decade. Going to cancun with friends, going to clubs, hanging out with singles - except that she had a house-mate that paid the bills and (oh by the way) was her husband. 

Neither of them has worn a wedding ring for at least 15 years.

The reasons things went bad are complex. Both bear the responsibility for failing. Its easy to take the side of the one that never hit you and never cheated. But is that the best thing to do?

I hate the failure. I hate the fact that they won't let God win. I hate the situation, even though i have longed for it since i knew what divorce was.

it is exhausting to think about all of these things. i have more to write, but it will have to wait for another time.

8 out of 30

8) what are 5 passions you have?

• being an authentic disciple of Christ
• my marriage
• my kids
• art
• enjoying life

7 out of 30

7) what is your dream job, and why?


my dream job has always been teaching at a college or university level.


i adore the idea of choosing my own textbooks and watching the students' minds click when everything they learned in high school starts to click. 


i only have my bachelor's degree right now, so obviously i would have to get some higher education before i can make this a reality.

6 out of 30

6) what is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?


this question seems almost impossible to answer. who has not been through hard things? at the time didn't they all seem like the hardest thing you had been through?


in order to give some kind of answer, i will say my miscarriages. i lump them into one thing because they occurred within a 6 month period. the pain from the first one blurred into the second one and swallowed my life for over a year. 


up to the moment my youngest daughter was born i was convinced that i would never have another live birth.


i allowed the differences in perspective between my husband and i to become a wedge in our marriage for years. 


i have blogged extensively about this before, so i'll leave it at that.

5 out of 30

5) what are the 5 things that make you most happy right now?

1. my kids
2. my relationship with my husband
3. my friends
4. my dog
5. my church