Old dogs, new tricks

College didn't work out for me. Is it terrible to say that I didn't like school? Don't get me wrong - I was all about making 3:00am Cool Ranch Dorito runs and wearing pajamas to music theory first thing in the morning. I was very into my friends, hot guys and stupid shenanigans, but the school part - meh. Not so much. It's not that I don't like learning - I simply prefer to learn in more non-traditional ways. While I may have my Masters in Life degree from The School of Hard Knocks, pursuing education after my attempt at going to college was never on my list of things to do. 

About a year after I left college, I worked as a Sonic carhop. This was back in the glory days when we made regular minimum wage and everyone tipped the carhops, and when we could literally eat or drink anything we wanted while on shift. My lunch every single day consisted of two chicken strips on a hamburger bun with cheese and ranch dressing and a small side of tater tots that I dipped in their barbecue sauce. I have quite the sophisticated palate. 

I worked there until I had enough cash saved up to buy my first on-my-own car which was a teal green 1994 Chevy Beretta that I affectionately named Buttercup after the green PowerPuff girl who was known for being a little mean and feisty. My first real grown up job was as a secretary for the sweetest old man named Ron. My dad knew him from the HVAC business and knew he had a need for someone in his office to answer phones and do administrative work. I'll never forget how important and adult I felt the first day I drove up to my very first office job in my black slacks and silky work blouse holding my to-go mug of coffee. I was bright eyed, bushy tailed and 20 years old when I entered the work force.

His office is where I got my start in bookkeeping. While I started out as a secretary, I ended up teaching myself how to use Quickbooks and eventually started taking things off of the bookkeeper's plate. When she had to leave, I was primed and ready to take the position and managed the whole tiny office all by myself. Over the years, I've worked for different companies, primarily small businesses, in mostly full charge bookkeeping positions. I've mostly enjoyed my work which seems strange to say. While I have this very outgoing and bubbly personality, I like to stay busy and keep my head down at work and I love that as a bookkeeper, I do the same thing every month over and over again. It might sound boring to some, but I've appreciated the predictability of my job as everything outside of my job is anything but predictable. I've been doing this for twenty years now which is a pretty damn long time.

At the end of 2021, which was in all actuality one hundred and ten times more horrible than 2020, I decided that it was time for a change. I want to do something more fulfilling with my work. Now, I love my current job and my boss and co-workers. The place I work now is the best, but I'm also burnt out and I want to do something new. Since December, I've been researching and reading about different writing opportunities on the internet: copy writing, content writing, ghost writing, articles and blog posts. After talking with a couple of professional writers and checking out dozens of hilarious and amazing copy writers on the internet, I decided this is something I could see myself doing and being good at.

It seems a bit foolish to try something new at my age though. Isn't it true what they say? "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."  Pursuing an entirely different career in this current world climate and economy - I've had my own doubts, especially with my lack of fancy degrees, about my ability to do this. And at the same time, I feel like I'm right where I belong and I would be more foolish not to try.

I have a plan, a brightly colored website, a supportive boss (because I'll be writing for him too) and a pocket full of small business owners I'm slowly reaching out to. I've been setting things in motion for weeks now and honestly, it's kind of weird to have a goal and then doing things to achieve this goal. I've never been one to dream lofty dreams and it's only been since my late 30's that I was able to start imagining a different life for myself. With 41 quickly approaching, I decided it was time to follow my greatest passion and I've been doing just that. I sent off my first application, portfolio and cover letter this morning to work with an organization that other companies use for all of their writing needs. Now, I'm fully prepared for a full on rejection, because who the heck am I to land anything on the first try? But, I felt pretty damn accomplished when I sent off an application for something I've been dreaming of and working on.

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? I'm about to show the world that you absolutely can.

Splits: Church and Marriage

*Okay, so - I had planned on continuing my "Faith, Church and MORE nonsense" post, but this came out instead and I'm rolling with it.*

The great unraveling in our marriage gained speed in 2015 when our church went through a major split. Until that point, we had the sweetest community of friends we called framily (Sprint totally stole that from me by the way). We were in ministry together, had barbecues, girls nights, accountability groups, Bible studies and we would always come together if anyone was in need, donating of our time and ourselves to love on our brothers and sisters. I remember how good it felt to belong somewhere especially when I didn't feel that way in my own marriage. 

For the churchy folks reading this, the split was caused by usual church politics garbage where deacons felt like the elders and pastor weren't being leadery enough or preaching the right/relevant things. For the non-churchy folks, some people threw a fit and decided they didn't like this place anymore and used Scripture and prayer as a way of making themselves feel better about deserting the church to go to a "better" one. Many conversations were had about church problems that we were never apart of, so we were blindsided when we heard friends were literally just up and leaving. We felt led to stay while our huge group of friends at this church felt differently and moved on.  As a result, all of the friendships that were made at this church started to fizzle out and the people that we once shared countless meals and intimate details of our lives with, had basically vanished in a matter of weeks. 

Do you know how hard it is to explain a church split to a six year old? All Tommy knew was that he didn't get to see his friends anymore and he was sad and didn't understand what had happened. It broke. My. Heart.

It was devastating to me. This hurt and loss caused a major rift in my relationship with God, and without the distraction of friendships and things to do, all that felt broken with us as a couple seemed more tangible somehow. I lived with this ache in my throat, like I could fall apart at any moment in despair. I was incredibly lonely and having a large group of friends made me feel less alone. I didn't realize how much of a crutch my friends were for sustaining our marriage as long as it did. 

As it would turn out, we ended up leaving this church about a year later after I had become "too noisy." I was being much too vocal for a woman in the church, as women are supposed to be restricted only to children's ministry and other women's things, to sit and be quiet and look pretty and to absolutely not have any kind of voice of influence with the serious and spiritual men. I still have the email from the elder who when repsonding to my thoughts and concerns about the youth group and the teens I had worked with for years, told me that things were simply going to be his way. I was to remember that he was an elder and was speaking on authority of the Pastor and that as a woman and church member, I had to submit to him and his decisions. So I said no. I actually didn't have to submit to this man in any way. So, I waved good riddance and sobbed the entire way home on our last Sunday there. I deserted a couple dozen teenagers after everyone else had left them the year before and I felt like the worst person ever. It was awful. It made me want to be done with church entirely. 

Fast forward another year and a half, the same people who disappeared in the church split, were the exact same people who crawled out of the woodwork to rebuke me for wanting to divorce my husband. Mind you, I hadn't seen or spoken to these people IN A VERY LONG TIME. They had deserted us when everything was falling apart. At the time I was very angry and I told most of them in ugly, angry ways to basically leave me the hell alone and work on their own damn marriages since they had it all figured out. Not my finest hour, but I was very not okay and I pushed everyone else who gave an actual sincere damn away from me because I wanted to feel something other than sad and miserable. I was convinced that mirrors and truth-tellers would keep me in my marital misery. 

It broke me to leave there and it ended up breaking us too. Without the community of people we had grown accustomed to doing life with, there was little left for me to hang on to. I had tried to be as godly as possible and throw myself into every Bible and church activity I could be a part of hoping that I just needed a spiritual kick in the pants to keep me committed to my marriage. The things that usually worked for me didn't work. It took us ages to find another church to call home, and even then, I felt cautious and weary to get involved with anything outside of Sunday morning service. When our marriage ended, there were only a few people that knew or noticed. Our Bible study group frantically tried to keep us together but then ultimately wrote me off because I had no interest in anything other than getting a divorce. Everyone seemed shocked that I wasn't willing to "let him work on some things," and I wasn't "giving him a chance." All I have to say to people like that is: SHUSH YOUR MOUTH. You don't know what you don't know.  

Sidebar: FYI, people going through divorces aren't okay. Realize you don't know the whole story and offer them some unconditional support and encouragement. Regardless of the circumstances, what God says in Scripture about how He hates divorce, or your personal convictions - there is so much going on that you cannot, will not and don't need to understand or know about. Just love people without judgement. And if you can't, then SAY NOTHING and go about your business. 

I went about everything all wrong when it came to my divorce and social media. Shortly after I had filed, I met Travis and we went public with our relationship before my divorce was final. Again, not my finest hour or wisest choice, but there's no going back and undoing what I did. Meeting Travis though was extraordinary and I cannot convey in any amount of words how good it felt to be HAPPY. 

Was it so wrong to want to be with someone new and feel happy after a very long time of not knowing happiness in a relationship? If you ask a churchy person, their answer would be a loud and very holy-sounding, YES. That is wrong. And for good measure, this statement would also be added: "God doesn't care about your happiness Jennifer. He only cares about your holiness." I felt like I had to make a choice between God and being free from a life-less and sad marriage. So I chose freedom.

What I didn't realize then, was that I never had to choose.

Faith, church and nonsense

I grew up in the church - actually and literally grew up there. My Grandfather was the Pastor of the church I went to as a girl so we would be there on Sunday mornings for church service, Wednesday nights for prayer and Friday nights for Bible study. My dad was a deacon and led worship with his guitar with music from those old 80's Maranatha praise song books. My very own aunt and uncle were real-life missionaries and I always thought I was especially Christian cool because not many other kids I knew had actual missionaries in their families.  My mom sang "special music" almost every Sunday, her voice as powerful as the great Sandi Patti. My Sunday school teacher Alice taught Bible stories with paper figures on felt boards.  We always had to memorize a verse every week and recite them first thing Sunday morning for a gold star. My daddy read me a story every night out of The Big Storybook Picture Bible and Grammy made all of my Sunday dresses in precious patterned fabrics where there was always a white collar and a bow.

When I was in middle school, my Grandfather took a Pastoral position in a rural country town and we found a new non-denominational church to attend. The church building was made of white stone and nestled in dozens of huge oak trees that created a canopy to walk under with dark green ivy peeking over all of the sidewalks between the different buildings on campus. I grew up with Christian friends and my closest friends were always from youth group and Sunday school.  To this very day, I am still friends with a guy I've known since the 7th grade and somehow we've always stayed friends because "Friends are Friends Forever." (If you know, you know.) I sported my WWJD bracelet and Christian tees that were supposed to communicate to the world, I'm a really good Christian. I have several friends on social media that I went to church with in middle and high school, with memories of playing Barbarian Women at youth group, moshing to Jesus Freak by DC Talk, scavenger hunts, car washes and spaghetti fundraisers where we served meals and hoped people would donate money to go on a "service" beach trip which was actually a beach trip where on a Saturday afternoon, we washed cars for free in parking lot except for a couple of the bad kids who snuck off to make out and buy sno-cones. Youth group was a whole thing that looked like teenagers learning about God, but in reality it was all about who was crushing on who and who was wearing what, strange, hilarious games, Christian rock music and junk food. Tell me I'm not wrong.

Everything made sense then. Even God. Rules felt clear. Doctrine was black and white. A woman's "place" in the church was understood and rarely challenged. There was always a tasteful balance of hymns and modern worship songs to satisfy the old folks steeped in tradition. Kids obeyed their parents and families all lived in clean suburban neighborhoods where they hosted barbecues and Bible studies and Fellowship Feasts and pre-marital counseling. You didn't associate much with anyone you didn't see outside of Sunday mornings.  Those people were politely and nicely looked down on because they obviously weren't serious about their faith. That was never spoken out loud, but it was clearly seen and understood, even by my adolescent self.

I always got excited when I met another girl who didn't fit the churchy box in the neat and tidy ways that were acceptable. I felt more connected to someone who also liked things that weren't necessarily approved of in Christian circles like Beverly Hills 90210, secular music and collecting Troll dolls because they were cute (not because they represented some kind of evil or witchcraft and yes I was told this). Once I made a friend named Molly who was the coolest chick I'd ever known.  She loved the Beatles and had all of these random things plastered to her bedroom wall - magazine clippsings, art, movie stubs, restaurant napkins, deflated mylar balloons. I ended up modeling my own bedroom just like her because I wanted to be Molly-awesome. She was the coolest and she also said shit sometimes and I loved how she seemed to not care that I heard and she didn't act embarassed that she had used foul language in front of me. She had opinions and vocalized them.  And sometimes, SHE TALKED BACK to her dad. In front of me. The girl was an enigma.

At nearly every retreat, camp and conference I attended, I would "recommit" my life to God. I was mostly good and good at making all of the goodly good choices. I learned I had to cover up my boobs, not wear anything too short that highlighted my butt, and keep my purity intact until my wedding night. Pornography was presented as a man's struggle and was greatly frowned upon, however, "girls didn't have to worry about that, because porn is a guy thing." Women were expected to submit to their husbands no matter what and I always wondered how that was okay, when one boy always came to church with bruises and black eyes because his father physically abused him. I checked my boxes and knew all of the phrases, Scriptures to quote and all of the perfect spiritual answers to give at Bible Study.

Problems were always and only solved with prayer. We would lay hands on someone sick or hurting, and for major illnesses, church pastorswould anoint others with oil. Anyone who went through any kind of trial and hardship were told things like - God has a plan! God won't give you more than you can handle! Stay strong in the Lord and you will get through this! There was always a Scripture to quote that was supposed to uplift and encourage one another and I often wondered why things felt the opposite of what they were saying. God has a plan - but literally, what the hell? I definitely feel like I have more than I can handle on my plate right now. If I don't stay strong in the Lord, will He leave me and I'll be left to figure this out on my own? Is He even here helping me? Others words of encouragement ended up making me feel like faith was so much work because I had to remember to read my Bible and pray every day, not to be anxious or worry about anything, go to church every time there was anything to be there for, maintain my purity, dress appropriately and always be as good as possible. 

A specific and well defined worldview was expected of all Christians. All of us were supposed to be conservative republicans, vote pro-life and view all non-heterosexuals as an abomination. We could go to church and fellowship with people of other races, but we white Christian folks better only marry other white Christian folks. (I found this out in my early 20's when I had shown interest in an african-american man). You were supposed to always tithe 10% of your income to the church and it was rather embarassing if you had nothing to put in the plate that was passed around. The Bible said to care for the poor, the widow and the orphan - and churches did that, as long as it was with the right organization that had bylaws and mission statements that aligned with theirs. It had to fit neatly into the church budget and didn't cost them too much of course.

Everything was understandable and if you didn't understand it, you simply needed to study your Bible more. There was an underlying theology that while we have been saved by grace and salvation is a free gift from God, we absolutely had to maintain said salvation so we always appeared as the good, holy and fruit-bearing Christians we said we were. I lived most of my life believing that what I was doing wasn't enough and maybe I sinned so much because I wasn't ever really saved like I thought I was. I asked God to save me a thousand different times just in case it didn't take the last time I asked.

All of this was etched into my DNA from the moment I came into this world. I didn't question any of it because it all made sense and everything I heard was from my Grandfather-Pastor, Christian parents, church members, Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders and obviously they were right about everything. 

All of this worked for me though.  

Until it didn't.

(To be continued...)

around the table

It's true what they say: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." This can be true for many things, but most recently, this has especially been accurate in regards to our dining room table and not having one.

Last September, our previous landlord decided to put the house on the market to take advantage of  sky-rocketing home sales and we found ourselves needing to find a new place to live within 45 days.  All of that was a monumental headache that I don't care to revisit, but the story has a good ending considering we found a bigger, better, newer home for only $45 more a month than we had been paying. God paved the way to make it all happen for us, we secured the house and moved in last October. However, since the move we've been dining room table-less as we scrapped the set we had because all of it was falling apart.  We ended up using a card table and folding chairs in the new house so the kids would have a place to eat and we grown ups have been sitting on the couch eating on our own. It's not ideal, but it's been a temporary solution until we were able to save for something new.

The neighborhood we moved into is a brand new, cookie-cutter housing development full of simple yet nice homes. Our neighbors are pretty great and relatively easy-going. I feel like we walked back to a place in time where neighbors talked to each other, and asked to borrow a cup of sugar on occassion like the 'good ol' days.'  One of of my neighbor-friends picks Jacob up from school every day and we've been invited to a few get-togethers and parties. But our neighborhood is neighbors helping neighbors with any number of things and it's the first sense of community I've had in a very long time.  The subdivision Facebook page is where we all go to chat about all of the neighbory things - like when the farm next door accidently lets their cows out again and they walk over to eat everyone's perrenials from their neatly landscaped front yards. This group has become especially important to keep up with as all delivery services in this neighborhood seem to have a difficult time deciphering address numbers and street names and we are all picking up and taking packages to correct addresses on a daily basis. It helps that everyone is friendly and packages make it to the right place eventually.  

Just two weeks ago, my youngest came to me and asked if we were ever going to eat together as a family again because he missed it. Waves of guilt came over me because I had no idea when we were going to be able to purchase one and naturally, I have had my eye on something specific and expensive. Saving for what I really wanted was going to take awhile, yet here was my child asking me to be more present with him in the evenings around the dinner table.

Saturday, someone posted on the neighborhood page about selling their old dining room set.  He said it was a bit worn out, 15 years old, but still in great condition and wanted $100 bucks for a large rectangle table AND all six chairs. I reached out to him immediately to claim it and to our delight, he was only a few houses down on our street so we were able to carry everything from his house to ours. It's the exact shape I wanted and since it's all real wood, I can sand it all down and paint it to my desired color which is still undecided between ivory or a very, very pale light blue. I've also never refinished anything before, so this will be interesting. (Stay tuned)

We had our first meal all together around the table since we moved into the house last October.  Travis threw some burgers on the grill, I put some tater-tots in the oven, set out carrot sticks and made a huge pitcher of Koolaid. We sat at our new-to-us table and ate our simple meal on paper plates and we laughed and talked and told stories. I could tell that all four of our children were happy to be sitting together with us and each of them had something to say about what it felt like to sit around a dining room table again. There was nothing fancy about the table, or the meal we had prepared, but the simplicity of sharing a meal brought joy and contentment to all of us in one way or another.

If the last couple of years have taught me anything, it's to take nothing for granted; people, health, income, family, air conditioning, cars with good gas mileage, friendships, school-teachers. COVID has had to grow and stretch all of us in uncomfortable ways, and for me, finding contentment in what I have, and being at peace with where I am have been the biggest places of growth for me. Travis and I have been in crisis-survival mode since the week after we got married due to one unforeseen hardship or another.  He recently started a new job and we both finally feel like we can see the light at the end of a very long tunnel, though the state of the world right now makes us both acutely aware that we could lose our desired way of life at any moment just like we did in 2020.

I'm over the moon about this dining room set, even if it's my most unfavorite color of wood and I don't like the fabric on the chairs. I'm grateful to have back what we had lost. Because now I know, exactly what we have. 

First Kiss

Below is a small excerpt from my memoirs (not published - yet). The boy's name has been changed to protect his identity because I feel like this story is equally embarassing for the both of us. To this day he is still my Facebook friend and we occasionally comment about our children and reminisce about the good ol' days of the 1990's.

~~~~~~~

In the 7^th grade I had a huge crush on a boy named Brandon who went to church youth group with me.  He was a "bad boy" and I was drawn to the rebellious edge he had going on. He had spent weeks leading me on, talking to me on the phone, telling me I was pretty, and I was full of all the pre-teen hope that he would ask me to be his girlfriend.  One spring night at youth group, I pulled him outside and asked if I could tell him my birthday wish.  I confessed that the only thing I wanted for my 13th birthday was for him to kiss me.  I had never been kissed and I wanted him to be the one. Somewhere in my adolescent brain, I believed that 13 years old was the time I should start my kissing journey because that's simply what teenagers did at that age according to Party of Five and 90210.  Even D.J. Tanner was kissed at her 13th birthday party.

“Well, I have like potato chip stuff in my mouth, so I dunno.”  This was his thoughtful 13 year old reply to my kissing request.  

“Not right now.  Just soon, sometime.  My birthday is next week and I want to be kissed.”  He smiled and said okay and I went home that night and wrote everywhere in my journal “I love Brandon” and how excited I was that he was going to kiss me. 

Now, it's important to note here that I practiced tongue kissing.  A lot.  

I usually practiced on my hand in bed at night when I was dreaming for some amazing boy to fall for me like Steve from Full House.  I gave up practicing on my pillow because it just got wet and that was absolutely disgusting.  The bathroom mirror was my favorite place because then I could practice as if another person was getting close to my face. Essentially I was kissing my own reflection and I've never brought this up in therapy about what that could possibly mean but I'm wondering now if it's worth delving into. *face palm*

Mirror kissing was working out well until my mom noticed a giant open mouth print on the mirror and asked me what the hell I was doing.  I tried to pin it on my brother at first, but she quickly realized he wouldn’t have been able to reach that spot on the mirror.  Once she figured out I was attempting to practice french kissing, she laughed (and boy, did she laugh) and told me to at least clean the mirror after I was done.  Of course I never did that again because how embarrassing for your mother to comment on your giant open mouth print on the bathroom mirror.  My kissing practice after that was restricted exclusively to the outside of my hand and sometimes a wall where no mouth print could be detected. Bless my heart.

Exactly one week later was the night of my big first kiss. My birthday was in three days and the youth pastor’s wife had made cupcakes for me.  I was styled to perfection in my tapered hunter green jeans, a white button down blouse and these cute floral tennis shoes I got at the Payless.  My mother had started allowing me to wear lip gloss AND mascara when I started school that year, so I was all the 13-year version of hot I could be.  

With butterflies in my stomach, I attempted to be nonchalant all night, borderline ignoring him. But then, it finally happened.  A group of us had been outside and everyone was starting to head in. He was hanging back waiting for me and I knew that this was finally my time.  I was about to know what being kissed actually felt like.  

He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me close to him. For some reason I was looking down which was probably because I was 13 years old and was slightly terrified of losing my kissing virginity.  He put his hand on my chin and brought my face up to his and we kissed, just like I had wished for him to.  It was all kinds of wonderful, except for the fact that he did this really weird thing with his tongue and it didn’t feel anything like I thought it would or how I had practiced it on my hand every night. He moved his tongue around in this rapid, quick motion and it was weird. I only wished that it had felt slower and lasted much, much longer like in Little Women when Laurie kissed Jo.  Before I knew it, the kiss was over and sadly, so was his interest in me.  Perhaps I was an awful kisser because Brandon didn’t acknowledge me much after that until he was a senior in high school. By then, I completely ignored his interests in me as I was now 16 and had my eyes set on the youth group's golden boy Derek, who was crushed on by EVERY other girl at church.

Somewhere in a box in my garage is a cassette tape of my 13 year old self reading all the letters I wrote to Brandon about how much I loved him and wished he was mine.  I wrote dozens of letters that I never gave him which are nothing short of mortifying to read today. The tape is also accompanied by several mementos I collected during my Brandon obsessed era: a soda tab, a silly picture of him, a gum wrapper from a piece he gave me and a conversation heart from 1994 that reads "KISS ME." It was probably for the best that he lost interest in me and moved on because I was the boy-craziest crazy that ever crazied.  

As my life would turn out, I wouldn't kiss another guy until I was 18 and in college.  And that kiss, was life-changing.

Does this thing still fit?

Many, many seasons and stories have come and gone since I last visited this space.  I almost feel like I don't belong here, as the woman who wrote here so regularly before isn't the same woman writing today. I'm still figuring out exactly where I belong on the interwebs and I suppose this blog is like a pair of old jeans I havent' worn in a while.  I'm trying "Seasons and Stories" back on to see if it still fits. Will I need to make some adjusments or go shopping for something brand new altogether?  If this blog is anything like my ever changing waistline, I'll probably be going shopping for something new soon.

Looking back at old posts, I remember my old life and nothing is the same accept for my struggles with anxiety, weight and having to wake up early in the morning.  I used to have so many friends and write about sunshine on a regular basis and take pictures of table settings for whatever I was hosting. After recently moving into a new house, I threw away placemats and napkin rings because they seemed silly as my current life has no need for such things.  In the past few years, I've also gotten over my need to impress people or want them to like me, and my napkin rings were a reminder of the old me that wanted to be accepted.

My boys are older and bigger.  Praise the Lord we survived the little years! Jacob grew out of his need to scream about everything and only does that on special occasions now.  His fashion sense and personal style is ever-evolving as he's very into having longer hair, leather bracelets and plaid flannel shirts to wear over EVERYTHING.  Tommy is an inch taller than me now and my once joy-filled boy is now a mess of hilarious joke-telling, complicated feelings and crazy hormones as he is about to head into teenager land in a few months. He recently earned third chair in All Region band for middle school as a SEVENTH grader and I am still so stinking proud, you would have thought I was the trombone player.

I got divorced.  It was very awful and sad.

I married (after I swore off marriage) a man named Travis who is the cheese to my macaroni.  He's a big bearded man who curses like a sailor and has a heart of gold. We haven't stopped going on adventures, we both love the beach and recently we've become passionate about going to bed at 9:30 every night.  He likes to talk.  I like to talk.  He's funny.  I'm hilarious. He's a romantic and I like to swoon.  We're both very into sex. It's working out pretty well so far.

I have two more bonus kids with my husband now and entering into the role of step-mom has been overwhelming.  Only recently have I felt like I'm finding a groove of step-momming. One of my bonus kids is a bonus DAUGHTER, so clothes shopping for kids has become infinitely more exciting.  Except she's getting to the age where she doesn't like anything I pick out and she is only 10.  Lawd help.

I've become a dog person and have my very own dog named Chester - and if you would have told the woman who wrote here six and eight years ago that she would have Pit-Lab mix that she slept with every night and fork-fed salmon to, I would have laughed in your adorable face. He is the best dog in the history of dogs and I love him like he's my child.

Most of my friendships were a casualty of the divorce including those that I thought would be in my life forever. I have no "best friend" other than my husband Travis.  I miss female friendship and it's also weird because I am not lonely - not one bit. 

I stopped doing so many of the things that I loved because my heart was utterly wrecked and everything I thought I knew about faith, God, family, and friendships flew out the window after the divorce.  I'm back at the beginning of something new which makes me tired if I'm being honest. Picking myself up after going through all that I did has been the hardest I've had to work for anything in my life. But, here I am doing it. 

It's 2022 and I turn 41 in March. I have zero things figured out, and my ducks have long wandered off, but I'm grateful to be living and breathing and present here.

Some things are better.  Some things are harder. Some things are just entirely different. And it's time to write about all of it. 

Eighteen and Thirty-Seven

Eighteen years old and at my mother's funeral, I refused to go into the sanctuary until they had closed the casket.  After watching my vibrant mother self-destruct to drugs, alcohol and depression, I had watcher her morph into another person and couldn't imagine seeing her dead body dressed up inside  a box.  I had to concentrate to muster up tears that day.  I couldn't cry.  Everyone came up to me tearful and full of sorrow, saying how sorry they were for me.  Yet, I remained stoic and numb.  Tears that ordinarily come easily for me did not come that day.

I had already mourned my mother's death in the two years prior to her passing.  Watching her change and succumb to addictions and several asshole men was a devastating thing to watch as a teenager.  I knew she was dying a little bit more with every passing day.  All of my tears had already been cried, so the day she died I almost felt relieved.  Some of my pain would stop because now my mother was dead and gone, not just avoiding me and cutting me out of her life because it was too hard to see me.

My marriage was like that.

The day I went down to the courthouse and filed for divorce, I pressed inward to search my feelings but I couldn't find sadness.  There was peace and then guilt for feeling peace.

According to some of my family and most of my friends, I should definitely not be feeling peace when I am stepping out of God's will and ending the covenant I made to my husband before God.  I was afraid to ask Him why I felt that way.  Had it come from Him or had He left me now that I had committed what some believe to be an unforgivable sin?  Does God allow us to feel His peace when we've committed the magnanimous sin of divorce?  I was scared to hear those answers.

Thirty-seven years old, no tears fell on the day I went to finalize the divorce.  Seeing the words "decree of divorce" with our names written in black and white brought more peace.  I breathed deeply and that familiar feeling of relief set in as I knew some of my pain would stop because our marriage was officially and legally over.  All that I had been holding and living with was no longer a burden I had to bear.  It felt good to let it go.

Now I hold the tension of relief and sorrow.  My ambivalent feelings of abundant happiness and dark sorrow have been difficult to navigate through.  Daily, I feel the weight of the pain and hurt I have caused my ex-husband, the boys and our family and friends.  Those are the places I easily find my tears again.  I've held both of my boys in my arms weeping with them saying I'm sorry, over and over again; giving them permission to feel whatever it is they do, even if it's anger or hurt towards me. I imagine that is something I will always carry as this was a decision that I did not come to quickly or easily.  And it was costly - just as costly as I imagined it would be.

Maybe we're all given a certain amount of tears meant to be cried over one thing or one person.  Or maybe the lack of them, or the running out of tears means our grief has moved into the phase of acceptance and something inside us moves forward with surprising ease.  Because during the really, really hard times, we felt our feelings and cried our tears and screamed our screams.  We didn't stuff or suppress them or numb them away with too much pizza or tumblers full of vodka.  We gave those feelings words and paintings, tattoos and photographs because we learned to turn pain into beauty.

Remaining present in the sad, gray moments and feeling my longings collide with reality was a daily fight for me, especially in my marriage.  But I fought, and I felt it and I know in the depth of my heart that I gave my all, my whole heart and whole effort to my marriage.

The shift came and the hard decision I wrestled with for so long was made, my soul was finally at rest.  And regardless of what anyone else thinks or believes or assumes - there is peace.