Barnacle Baby

This is my sweet baby -my sweet, sweet baby.

She's so much a part of me -formed from me, grown in me...  She hates being away from me.  Putting her down is hardly an option.  We co-sleep, we co-live, we co-everything. 
And I like it.
She's my barnacle.  And yeah -technically, that makes me the whale.  But let's not think about that.

I love watching my baby follow her instincts.  They're all she knows.
When she's hungry, she eats.
When she's sleepy, she sleeps.
When she's uncomfortable, she cries.

Her's is a life of ultimate simplicity.

When did I forget?
When did I stop following my instincts?
When did I start ignoring my gut?

My baby is completely dependent on me for her well-being.  She relies on her parent.
Somewhere along the Line of Life, I drifted away from my dependency on my Father in Heaven, and I shifted it to dependency on the Natural Man.

Making my way back has been a painful journey.
But the longing keeps me going -the longing for confidence, for trust in myself, for simplicity...

She reminds me.

Taking it Away

A few hours before church started on Sunday, I was snuggling on the couch under a heavy blanket with my sick husband. After arresting a man with a cold, he'd come down with it. I'd kissed him when he came home from work, and then I got it. He was in the thick of it and I was at the start of it. There was nowhere we'd rather be than under a heavy blanket together, our herbal tea nearby.
We were so busy snuggling that we didn't hear our daughter sneak in the room, slide open the door to the bird cage, pull her bird out and take it back into her room with her. She's not supposed to take her bird in her room -she knew it... hence the sneaking.
Minutes later, we heard a wail from her room. My son came bolting out of their room and pronounced, "Her bird just DIED."

We flew out from under the blanket and rushed to our daughter's side. Her eyes were filled with tears, her hands were holding a limp blue parakeet.

 "Blue just DIED," she said, bawling. Blue had been very special to our family. My smarty-pants barely five year old had trained her all by herself. No one taught my daughter how to finger-train parakeets... she just figured it out. Within a few weeks, she had her bird hand-trained. She loved her bird. She played with it and talked to it -it was her favorite. It turns out that she thought it would be funny to SIT on her bird. She had no idea it would kill Blue... she was just trying to have some fun.

We sat as a family around the limp bird. And we all cried. My daughter cried because she was experiencing loss. The rest of us cried because someone we loved was hurting and it was REALLY hard to watch it and not be able to take it away.

My husband went into the city the next morning for a quick appointment, and he confessed that he'd almost stopped at Petco to buy a new bird.
"But we can't do that," he said, "She needs to experience this. It just sucks."
I agreed. But I think "it just sucks" is a gross understatement.

My daughter stayed up late Sunday night and talked with me.
"She was my own daughter," she said through tears, "and now I'm just so heartbroken!"
To hear a six year old say those words is heart-wrenching... seriously.

 "This must be how Heavenly Father feels, to some extent, when we make bad choices," my husband said after we'd finally convinced our daughter that her body needed some sleep, "He could have a hand in all of this -make sure bad things never happen to us as a result of our mistakes, but He doesn't. He respects our free agency."
My daughter is in the process of earning money to buy a new bird. I could buy one for her. In a matter of hours, I could put a brand new blue parakeet in our bird cage. But she needs to suffer the consequences of her actions. You can't SIT on a bird, suffocate it, and then get a new bird in the morning. It would be better to go through the emotions and natural consequences of the choices you've made and feel the PRIDE that comes from earning your way to a new bird. And so we must all earn our own way and feel the emotions and suffer the natural consequences... the ending result is worth it.

Over a year ago, my husband was listening to the Mormon Channel. He was taken in by a talk that discussed the differences between trials and afflictions. I wish I could find the talk -I've been looking for it for the longest time! In essence, the talk said that trials are what happen TO us... afflictions are what we happen to us as a RESULT of our choices.

 2 Nephi 2:2 says:
Nevertheless, Jacob, my first-born in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.

 It is so humbling to know that God will consecrate our AFFLICTIONS for our own gain. I wouldn't blame Him if He didn't -I've done some pretty ridiculous things, made some pretty bad choices that resulted in many afflictions.
And yet.
They've all been for my own gain, and for that: I'll be eternally grateful. I hope my little daughter can learn from this -she's so tender and beautiful. I want to mend her broken heart RIGHT AWAY. But I know she's learning and growing. To take that away would be doing her one of the greatest disservices as a parent.
Dear Heavenly Father,
I understand your ways little more today.
Love,
Alicia

Father

Barbara Streisand

I attended a make-up class once -it was being taught by a man who had worked closely with celebrities.  He admitted to having an obsession with Barbara Streisand, and couldn't believe his good luck when he found himself in the same make-up room with her.
He wasn't assigned to help her, but when he noticed she was applying her own make-up, he offered his services.
She told him she always did her own make-up.
And then he watched her take a streak of highlighter and put it down the front of her nose...
Have you seen her nose?

 

via fanpop.com

As a make-up artist, this man was trained to study facial features: he was an expert at making little lips look plump, hiding flaws, blemishes, and enhancing beautiful features.

He couldn't believe what he had just seen.

Everyone KNEW Barbara had a big nose... what would drive her to accentuate it by applying a straight line of highlighter down the center of it -bridge to tip?

He couldn't think of one plausible explanation, so he asked her.

"It's my trademark," she said, "It's who I am -it's how people know me."

I thought about Barbara Streisand this morning as I did my dishes (and consequently ended up singing, "Hello, Dolly!" but I digress...) and I thought about a saving conversation I had with a trusted friend last night.

My mind has been a mess lately -it doesn't help that I'm sleep-deprived.  I've tried talking things through in prayer, in writing, with my husband... and I couldn't make sense of anything that was bothering me.

My friend easily sensed this, completely understood my situation, and brought me to a healing realization:

I've come to a broken bridge on my journey.  I can't cross the bridge, and I have NO IDEA how to fix it.

It's time to take some inventory and take it to the Lord.  He alone can fix it.  I need to get to the other side of the bridge, and the Savior will make that possible.

Then she gave me some Step 4 advice: make a list of WHO I AMs... list characteristics and traits that are inherently mine and given to me by a loving Father in Heaven.  She suggested praying for guidance and referencing my patriarchal blessing.

As a teenager, I went through a lost phase.  Didn't most of us, as teens?  I fell into the wrong crowd -I'm not using that cliche to say the kids themselves were wrong, but they were wrong for me.  

Their lifestyles, habits, music, clothing... all were different from mine.  I tried to mesh in.  I REALLY tried.  It was a painful time for me, and the harder I tried to be something I wasn't, the harder my life was.

I went through a depression that kept me home from school on a few days, had me sleeping my Saturdays away, and left my parents completely at a loss.

I started cutting myself -not for attention.  I honestly had no idea how to properly handle emotions, and I never cried.

To quote Pop Princess Taylor Swift, "like, ever."

I felt emotions down inside of me.  I wanted them out.  I didn't know how to get them there, so I found a way.

And it worked for me.  It was a terribly unhealthy coping mechanism, but with my razor on my side, I could find a mutated sense of balance.  It became easier -I thought -to spend time around my new-found friends.

It turned out what I thought was a medicine for my depression was only a poisonous salve.

I still didn't fit in with my friends.  It was an uncomfortable fit... I tried to push it away, but it soon became apparent that they were just as uncomfortable around ME as I was around them.

They didn't feel comfortable asking me to lie.

Or smoke.

And they felt an obligation to keep their language cleaner when I was around.

I did my best to make them feel more at ease around me... I abandoned my own style and tried to take on theirs.

One day, I woke up feeling great.  The heavy cloud of depression had lifted temporarily.  One of my new friends called and asked if she could pick me up to drive around.

(Remember when it was cool -and financially possible -to just drive around?)

I told her to come right over, and I made a decision after hanging up the phone... to be comfortable.

I didn't sift through my clothing to try and mesh with her.  I pulled out my overalls.  I put them on over a plain white tee.  And then I curled my long, brown hair.

My new friends never curled their hair.

I smiled as my bouncing curls dropped around my far and behind my neck -I felt so much like myself.  And in one daring move, I swept up the top half of my hair and put it in a barret.

My friends would not approve, I knew it.

But I felt so at home -so at peace -so comfortable that I didn't care.  I wasn't worried about making them uncomfortable or not.  I was just myself.

My friend pulled into my drive, I got in, and she looked at me.  

I pushed down every urge to make excuses for my get-up (which fairly reeked of country twang), and was surprised when she said, "You look really good."

I muttered out a thank you.

We made our way to her friend's house -he was "of age" and she'd pick him up once a week for a cigarette run.  

She was underage and had her own car.

He was of age and got around a bike.

Theirs was a friendship born of necessity.

(I'm sorry, I just peed my pants a little.  I'm so glad I'm not 15 anymore.)

He sat in the backseat and ran his fingers through my curls.

I was 100% uncomfortable -despite my trusty overalls.  Throughout the entire drive, he consistently made comments that made me uncomfortable.  Whenever we were out of the car, he wanted to be near me, to touch me somehow.

I realized then I needed to get out of there.

And by "there" I mean the world where my friends went to school with blood-shot eyes and lied to their parents about drugs and school -the world where I was completely uncomfortable in my own skin.

That was my Barbara Streisand Day.

That was the day I highlighted my overalls, my lanky long legs, my farmer's tan, my country girl hair.

They're my trademarks.  They are how I know ME on the outside.

Today -tonight -tomorrow I'll be on a journey to see how my Heavenly Father knows me, what he's given me... and then I mean to Barbara Streisand the HECK out of those qualities.

Broken

via legnanekorb.blogspot.com

Awhile back, I read a post on Andrew's Rowboat and Marbles blog that was a game-changer for me.
I can't find it to link up to it, but in the post, Andrew explains how people with addictions have broken brains.
It really hit home with me.

Up to that point, I'd been grossly judgmental toward my husband.  And I honestly assumed that he just wasn't as good as me.
Ugh -it's so painful to be 100% honest.  It's hard to type things like "he just wasn't as good as me."

I don't feel that way anymore.  I feel terrible that I ever felt that way, believed those words...  like I hadn't ever done anything AS BAD as pornography addiction.

It still hurts me, and reading Andrew's post didn't suddenly give me a heart of resilient steel.
But it suddenly gave me a heart of understanding, and it set me on a new path, a new journey... I'm forever grateful.

Lately, I've been battling some weird issues related to what I THOUGHT was my husband's addiction.

But this morning, something dawned on me.  I'm not having issues because my husband has an addiction.  I'm having issues because I have an addiction TO HIS addiction.

MY brain is broken... not just his.

I have a concrete mound of "truths" in my head that are all lies.  I've been whittling away at the mound for two years, but it still stands.  It took 6 years to build.  As disheartening as it feels to say it: I believe it will take about that long to heal.

Today will be full of pen-to-paper writing and knee-to-carpet praying.
The kind of brain surgery I require can only be trusted to the Master Surgeon.  

The Plan

 

Two years ago, I left my husband for a weekend.

Telling him what I was doing was one of the hardest things I've ever done.  My addiction to codependency had a strong pull (what addiction doesn't have a strong pull?), and going to my husband to TELL him what I had decided to do even though I knew it would make him uncomfortable was hard.
I'd spent years avoiding things that made him uncomfortable, even if they made me uncomfortable.

I couldn't look him in the eyes when I said it, "I'm leaving for a few days.  Alone.  I'll need money for a room and food.  I won't be calling or texting..."

The look in his eyes cut me to the core.  He felt abandoned and alone.  Forsaken.

But I left anyway.
I spent two days in an upstairs room of a Bed and Breakfast.  I went to a temple session to start my weekend off, and then I went to my room.  I cried in my room.  I prayed in my room.  I wrote pages and pages and pages.  I meditated.  I took deep breaths.  I napped.
I cried angrily out to my Father in Heaven.
I had never cried out in anger to anyone before -not since childhood when I lived with three older tormentors brothers.
And before going home, I attended one more Temple session -my heart full of questions and confusion.

I reached out to my Heavenly Father in prayer, asking him how HE did it.
"How do you handle it all?  How can you watch so many of us -so many of your well-loved children stray?  Disobey?  Cry out in anger toward you?  You are the perfect parent -You understand love perfectly.  How is it done?  What would Thou have me do?"

And my answer was found in the story of Adam and Eve.

Father loved Adam and Eve -they were his special children.  He loved them and wanted what was best for them.

He provided them with a home -a lovely home, a home above any other.  It was beyond beautiful.  He spoke with them -He was in their presence.  He taught them and instructed them.  More specifically: he instructed them not to eat the fruit from a certain tree.
But no matter what: He made it clear that he would respect their free agency.

Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit.

When He was made aware of what had transpired, Heavenly Father didn't yell.  He didn't raise his voice in anger, He didn't try to manipulate them, He didn't cry, and He didn't shower them in a blanketing guilt trip.

What DID He do?

He withdrew.

He let them feel the natural consequences of their actions.

"But HOW?" I asked Him.  "HOW were you able to do that?"
The answer came in the form of a voice... and the words that were uttered in that temple on that day will forever be etched into my mind.

"I had a plan... and the plan is beautiful."

Tears spring to my eyes at the very recollection of this tender mercy.  I left the temple that day, and I began to form my own plan.  It's been a work in progress -a trial and error based plan.
But it is working.  My boundaries keep me safe from indulging in my addiction to my husband's addiction.

My plan isn't perfect. 
But I have a plan.
And it is beautiful.

Home

   

via teacherweb.com

"Tell me something about yourself, and the country you came from," said the Scarecrow, when she had finished her dinner.  So she told him all about Kansas, and how gray everything was there, and how the cyclone had carried her to this queer land of Oz.  The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said,
"I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."
"That is because you have no brains," answered the girl. "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful.  There is no place like home."
The Scarecrow sighed.
"Of course I cannot understand it," he said.  "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all.  It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains."

~L. Frank Baum, excerpt from The Wizard of Oz

I've been reading The Wizard of Oz to my kids.
I've read it before and seen the movie countless times.  I always loved the line, "There's no place like home."  But I read it with new eyes a few days ago.

Is my addiction my "home"?
By the above description, YES -my addiction is my home.  I'd rather be stuck in the gray than let go of my own will and move to The Beautiful Places waiting for me.

It's interesting to me that the Scarecrow is the wisest of all the Oz gang.
His life motto may have well been Socrates' famous line, "I know I know nothing."

I feel a lot like Dorothy.  I don't want to give my addiction up.  I mean, I DO.  But I don't.
I like the idea of giving it up tomorrow, you know?  And, like Dorothy, I feel I know better because I have BRAINS.  I, like, know lots and lots of really cool stuff.
Right?
I like to THINK I do.

But really: I know nothing.
I'm going through the 12-steps, and it's helping me to develop humility, or as I like to think of it: my inner Scarecrow.  The more I realize my own nothing-ness, the farther I will go.
Maybe someday I'll end up in The Beautiful Places.

And so I say, jokingly but seriously:
"It is fortunate for [Little Debbie] that [I] have brains."
Can I put brains in quotes? It should be in quotes.  I have "brains."

My "brains" also -along with soul-searching recovery insights -thought this up while I read.

 Yes.
I'm a regular brainy-ack.

Strange Addiction

I worry a lot.
I worry excessively.
It can be a real problem for me if I don't get a grip on it and handle it in the right ways.  Having a brand new baby around, I have to focus on distraction.

Netlix is my friend. 

If I watch Netflix while I nurse, I am a champion nurser.
If I focus on my baby while I nurse, I worry.
Is she getting enough?
Am I making enough?
Too much?  Not enough?
How long?  Too long?  Too short?
Tension builds up in my body and it doesn't help anyone.

With Netflix on my side, I have a chubby, pink, beautiful baby.
I also have a long line of "recently watched" flicks and television shows.  A few nights ago, I noticed that Netflix added a television show to their streaming plan.  It's called, "My Strange Addiction."  I clicked on it, and I've been able to watch a few episodes over the past few days.

 

Having lived with someone with an addiction -and having loved someone with an addiction -it bothers me that this show is out there making a spectacle out of people with addictions.  But apparently, it doesn't bother me badly enough to stop me from watching...
Bad Alicia!

It's really interesting to me that although the addictions themselves vary, the common threads in thinking do not.
They're all too familiar to me.

"It's not hurting anyone."
"It's not a big deal."
"I don't think I can change."

You can watch clips HERE but please.  for the love of your lunch, do NOT watch the clips about a woman who is addicted to drinking her own urine.

I will say that because I've studied up on addiction, this show is really, um, funny.
It isn't supposed to be, and let me assure you: I am not laughing at the addicts.  It's the SHOW.  It's the way they portray the addict and the addictions.  It's SO dramatic -the music, the worded descriptions that beam up and explain (oftentimes statistically) just how awful the addictions are.

The show is begging you to judge the addicts.  That's what bothers me most about the show.
Sure, she eats couch cushions.
Yes, he works out 6 hours a day.
And yeah -her puppets ARE her children, okay?

A few months ago, our Stake President got up during an adult meeting and encouraged the congregation to be more accepting of addictions -of addicts.  He said some of the addicts he'd met with were some of his favorite people. 
"They're honest, they need help, and they're getting it," he said, "What isn't to love about that?  Shouldn't we all be more like that?"
He then went on to say that we would all benefit from attending the 12-step addiction recovery meetings.  The congregation chuckled.
I didn't. 
Because it wasn't funny -he wasn't trying to be funny.  The 12-step program can seem ridiculous until you give it a try -then it becomes gospel... because it IS gospel.  It's the Atonement, broken down into 12 applicable and approachable steps.

He then posed the question, "What if, every time each of us acted out in our own addictions, there was physical proof?"
He listed a few options: what if our eyes glowed red for three hours after we viewed pornography?
What if our tongue turned blue for four hours after we gossiped?

Would we be more accepting of addiction (and addicts) then?  I'd like to think we would. 
Strange or not, addiction is a part of our mortal experience. 
It gives us the opportunity to look DEEP inside ourselves and search for the "why" under it.  It's an enlightening search that can build us, reform us, TRANSFORM us.
But not without work.
And WE can't do it.  We can only hand it over.  That's the hard part.
At it turns out it's hard for a lot of us -whether it's porn or sugar or furry suits -it seems it isn't easy to let go.

I recently read THIS blog post on Nate's blog, and I absolutely love it.  It's wonderful.  It's definitely a classy literary version of "My Strange Addiction" and I'd rather watch a cinematic representation of THAT than another episode of "My Strange Addiction."
Because really: no matter what the addiction is, I feel like I'm watching a rerun.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

Have you been on facebook lately?  Pinterest?

Everyone is a buzz with one thing -one object: Happiness.

A facebook friend of mine posted a picture that had something to do with happiness with the caption, "Happiness is everything." 
It's the modern theme of our society!  If not happiness, then... what?
I have issues with this way of thinking -it bothers me.  It didn't used to, but hitting rock bottom and starting recovery has taught me something about happiness: it's optional.  it's a choice.  it's no one's responsibility to give it to you.  it's not the WHY of life.

A few months ago, Reader's Digest dedicated an entire issue to happiness.  I hesitantly cracked the cover and was excited to find an article that played devil's advocate.
I can't find it online to source, but the article stated:
The minute we utter the words "I just want to be happy" we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. 

It was a breath of fresh air to read those words.

All over the Internet I see artsy images that read, "Be with someone who makes you happy!"
I want to red-pen the heck out of images like that.  BE someone who makes you happy!  Be!  BE!

In a recovery meetings months and months ago, a woman I dearly love mentioned she had been studying up on happiness.  She'd read of a 100 year old woman who was asked, "What's the biggest change you've seen in your lifetime?"
Her reply was different than what you'd expect, "In the 60s, people started saying 'Have a nice day.' Before that, no one ever expected their day to be nice.  They just expected it to BE, and they did with it what they had to."
(I'm paraphrasing, not direct quoting.  Please forgive.)

This morning, I came across an article written about Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist who survived WWII in a concentration camp.  He wrote a Best-Selling book in nine days titled, "Man's Search For Meaning."  And guess what?  It's NOT about happiness.
The article (There's More to Life than Happiness) is a great, great read.

As I've thought about happiness and what it is... I've thought about joy.  Men are that they might have joy, right?
I had always thought happiness and joy to be one in the same.  But they're not!
Joy can be found in unhappiness.  Joy can rum rampant no matter where you are, no matter your circumstances.  JOY comes through living the gospel.
Happiness can come through living the gospel.

My oldest brother lost his nine month old daughter to a heart condition.  He wasn't happy about it (imagine that!) but his JOY was full and complete because he knows that she is not lost forever.  She is bound to him forever through the sealing ordinances offered in the Temple.

Letting go of the pursuit of happiness has been one of the greatest joys of my recovery.
Incidentally, letting go of Expectations of Happiness has actually brought me more happiness, more joy.  Taking the responsibility of my own happiness into my own hands has made all the difference in my self-esteem... it's built me up, it's empowered me, and it's relieved my husband.

It's a learning process -one that requires ample soul-searching.

And so I leave off.
Have a nice day, if you'd like.
Have a hard-working day, if you'd rather.
Or have a lazy day, or a adventurous day, or a quiet day...
It's all up to you.

Founding Fathers

I love the website artofmanliness.com.

It's everything I love about life... it's old-fashioned and classy and masculine.  I just love a good, hearty dose of masculinity.

Want to learn how to carve a turkey?  tie a tie?  date a woman?  artofmanliness has your back.  

I don't spend much time reading their tutorials, but I love what they have to offer -and I can't get enough of the atmosphere of the site... I swear I can *almost* smell cologne wafting from the faux-wood background.

And I love it.

Yesterday I came across their Founding Father Motivational Posters, and I'm bound and determined to print them out, laminate them, and distribute them to everyone I know.

That includes you.

It's a virtual FEAST for your soul:

 

I should mention that I've been REALLY struggling with my own sugar addiction.  I'm nursing and I'm starving all. of. the. time.  My sugar addiction is running rampant.

 

Today I'm determined to try harder -aren't we all determined?  

But today I did something I haven't done since the morning I found out I was pregnant (in APRIL)... a Jillian Michael's work out.

It never ceases to amaze me how thirty minutes with Jillian makes me feel exactly like I have the flu: nauseated, shaking, weak...

 

I hate Jillian.

I also love her. I have her to thank for all the inches I lost last year.

 

And after spending thirty minutes with Jillian, I'm less inclined to eat the cinnamon rolls on the oven and more inclined to pour myself a bowl of ma's homemade granola.

 

 

The granola will make better milk for my baby.  Children are great motivators. 

My six year old daughter stood by my side during my work-out.  Fifteen minutes in when I was weakening and slacking, she was going strong.

 

"Mom, this HURTS," she said.  Yes, darling.  Jillian is mean.  But she means well.

   

And she is one of my tools -my tools to overcoming my own addiction.  My addiction has me so wrapped, so willful, so physically poisoned.  It seems a light thing -a sugar addiction -but what I'm dealing with is something more awful.  

 

It's moved beyond the realms of physical ramifications and breached the territory of my mind.  It is not something I can just... stop doing.  At this point, I am powerless.  I have been for a few years now.

 

My husband is worried about my physical health five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years from now.  He's worried I will die -physically.

Much like I am worried he will die -spiritually.

 

And so today is a day of tools -Jillian, my children, the words of the Founding Fathers!

I can eat right today.  

I won't think of tomorrow.

 

 

For more motivational posters from our Founding Fathers, please click HERE.

I only included those I felt applied to my situation today.

And I'll leave off with this one.  For no other reason than I have a slight obsession with Benjamin Franklin (have you READ his autobiography?  It's rad) and I love it:

Drink It Up

Yesterday was a hard day for me -it's been a while since I've had one, so I guess its my turn?

Triggers are funny things.  They seem to sneak up behind you, jump on your back, cover your eyes, slap you silly and then run off... leaving you hurt and crying and wondering if you should get a divorce or not.
EVEN if five seconds prior to the Trigger Slap, you were completely content with your life and marriage.

We took our baby to church for the first time yesterday because my brother (who is in my ward) was being put in the Bishopric. 
Babies are wonderful excuses, aren't they?
You can use them as an excuse to buy something "for them" that you would never buy for yourself alone (Disney movies!) and you can blame stink on them...
And you can use them to leave the room and go off on your own.
"I need to feed the baby..." you can say.

And then you can be alone and free and sit in the mother's lounge and have a good cry.

 

As I rocked and fed my baby, I thought about the WHY of my tears.  To be blatantly honest, I was feeling victimized.  I was feeling like I'd been robbed of things that I felt I deserved in a husband. 
I hated that I felt this way.  I've learned so much and come so far to overcome Victim Thinking... but there it was, tears and all.
So I rocked and I prayed.  I rocked and prayed, prayed, prayed.

Before seeking refuge in the Mother's Lounge, I had stayed for the Sacrament and Sacrament Hymn... I am a Word Nut, and when I come across a really well-written hymn, I'll read it over and over as if it's a poem standing alone with no music to accompany it.

Yesterday we sang, "Behold the Great Redeemer Die" written by Eliza R. Snow.
I read through and through the verses, and one phrase really hit me.
"Father, from me remove this cup.

Yet, if thou wilt, I'll drink it up...

I've done the work thou gavest me;

Receive my spirit unto thee."

 

Yesterday, I sat with a newborn in the Mother's Lounge and wondered -honestly in prayer -if I had made a mistake when I married a porn addict.  He was a porn addict when I married him.

He didn't realize it.

I didn't know it.

But our Father in Heaven MUST have know -must have realized!

Knowing it, WHY would He tell me that my husband was the one I should marry?  I'd prayed while I had dated him, and asked Heavenly Father, "Is this okay?  I really like him... I'd like to keep dating him, please let me know if it isn't Thy will."

He never let me know, so I kept on keeping on.

 

I knelt with my then-boyfriend-now-husband one night, and we prayed and asked together if we ought to get married.  The answer was overwhelming and undeniable... YES.

 

I know because of the answer I received during that prayer on THAT day... marrying my husband was no mistake.  

So, why?  WHY?

 

The lines from the Sacrament Hymn came to mind.

Father, from me remove this cup.

Yet if thou wilt, I'll drink it up.

Heavenly Father's job isn't to protect me from pain or grief or sorrow.  It isn't His job to make sure I'm always comfortable -in fact, it's His job to make sure I'm NOT comfortable, to see how I can handle life when it gets difficult.

Everything I've learned in recovery has helped me to realize shortcomings I didn't know I had... and it's teaching me how to fix them.

Heavenly Father didn't WANT the Savior to suffer, but the Savior HAD to suffer.  It was non-negotiable.

He doesn't want me to suffer either, but the way I'm suffering and everything it's teaching me is essential to my salvation.  Would I have learned it some other way?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

It doesn't matter now.

I came home from church and hit my knees again.

And again before bed.

In the Mother's Lounge, I had to admit to my Father in Heaven that I didn't want to let go of my pride.  I wanted to be hurt.  I wanted to wear the Martyr Badge.

But I didn't WANT to want to, you know?

I told Him that, and He listened.  I asked Him to bear this with me, to take the sting away.  I conversed with my Father in Heaven, and by the end of the day, I was content again.

My questions were resolved.

My prayers were answered.

Oftentimes, I rely too much on outside sources to "help" me through when I've been triggered.  I'll go to the forum and vent, rationalizing that I need to "analyze my thoughts and get them sorted" before I go to Him in prayer.

Or I'll phone a recovery friend and seek the all-satisfying validation I love so much.

 

Yesterday I skipped all that and went straight to the source.  It was easier, less painful, and felt much better.

My burden was lightened.

 

I don't feel like a victim today.

I'm still hurting, but I've burned my Martyr Badge in an imaginary recovery fire.  Today will be a day of more prayers, probably a few more tears as I pick myself up, and a whole heckuvva lot of gratitude.

 

This is my cup for now.

There are many ways to drink it up.  

The manner in which I drink it up will be a mark on my character for eternity. It has the potential to wreak havoc on my progression or teach me qualities that will last beyond the grave- the Take It With You kind.

Knowing all of this:

How will I drink my cup today?  

 

 

Hard Workin'

image via allposters.com

I spent an hour and a half yesterday on my hands and knees, mopping my mom's tile flooring.

My mom has arthritis.
Clean floors are important to her.
It was her birthday.

It felt so good to crank some tunes (the Children's Folk Station on Pandora is about as funky as I get now), get dirty and sweaty and GET A JOB DONE!

My Dad is a firm believer in work.  He lives what he believes.  He owns his own mechanic shop and farm.  He raises horses and cattle.
When my husband's addiction reached a point where I HAD to let my parents in on what was going on, he confessed that he had his own addiction... to work.  I pretended to be shocked. 
Or not.

There was ALWAYS something for me to do growing up, and if I wasn't always doing something productive, Dad wasn't happy.
We butchered beef together, pulled weeds together, milked cows together, branded calves together, rounded up herds together, planted gardens together... work was what we DID as a family.

We were always early-to-bedders.
We were always caked in mud or grease.

The prospect of work was awful... getting up out of bed before the sun was never fun, especially when it was freezing cold outside.
But once we got out there -once our hands were in the dirt and we were side-by-side putting our shoulder to the wheel, it wasn't nearly as bad.  We had each other.
We quoted movies and sang, "Daddy won't sell the farm" at the top of our lungs. 
And honestly -hard work feels amazing. 

Pregnancy is hard work, but it isn't the kind that you can really get your hands on -the kind that makes you sweat and stink for a few good hours... the kind that can be showered off in one cleansing, glorious experience.
But pregnancy does make THAT kind of hard work pretty much impossible.  I've really missed it.
And on my hands and knees with my track pants rolled up over my knees, I found it again.  I sang "Yakkety Yak" and scrubbed and scrubbed.  My son was by my side, making me laugh.
I was sweating and I was stinking.

Mostly, I was surprised and how GOOD it felt to be back in the game.  I drove back home when I was done with a small, euphoric feeling. 

I wish addiction was something we could man-muscle our way through.  I wish we could get down on our hands and knees, scrub it away with our sweat, and then take a hot shower to wash the remnants down the drain forever.  But it isn't.  It's so much more than that.

But the little euphoria that comes with our victories -no matter how small -is the same. 
I had a small workforce in my siblings (six of us all together), and I have a small workforce in all of you.
Getting out of bed to DO it isn't easy.  The prospect of leaving the warm, familiar comfort of our beds is awful.
But once we're out there, side-by-side, up to our elbows in the recovery fields... it feels amazing.

I'm grateful for all of you.
I'm grateful for my Dad and the opportunities he gave me -despite the fact that I was the butt-end of "old fashioned" jokes at school (seriously?  who milks a cow? you know they SELL milk, right? *guffaw*)
I'm grateful for fields of all kinds.
I'm grateful for you.
And in my own way, I'm grateful for addiction.

Sight-Reading

 

via squarepianotech.com

I have a degree in Music Education.
I don't use it for much, but I do teach piano lessons.  I love teaching -I absolutely LOVE teaching.  Teaching is one of my passions in life.  It doesn't matter if it's music or gospel or preschool or whatever... I love it.  Right now, I have small children at home and that's where I focus my teaching.  I hope to someday teach as a career, but right now I settle for what little cash I can make as a piano teacher.

I took a break from teaching piano lessons during the month of December.  This week, I've started back up again.  It's been so refreshing to see my little students again.  It's also been much easier to teach without having to get up to use the restroom every 15 minutes.  I can lean forward and bend over and my tolerance level is back up where it should be.

My first students to return came yesterday.  They are two sweet sisters (and my cousins) -the older of which is in high school... we'll call her Micayla.

Micayla is musically inclined.  Music just MAKES sense to her -she gets it.  I never have to explain anything twice.  She isn't musically proficient, or anything... she just gets the language of music. 
It should make her easy to teach.
But she isn't easy to teach. 

Yesterday, I put a piece of music in front of her that she had never seen.  I do this every lesson with each of my students.  It's very important to teach piano students how to SIGHT-READ a piece of music.  Very often in life (and especially in the church) piano players are called on to play a piece of music they have never seen before.  Sight reading is a vital skill for a piano player.

"Sight read this," I said, and I sat back.
"Okay," she said.  She squinted her eyes, her body tensed, she leaned far forward and she played it as flawlessly as she possibly could.
I never, ever pick songs that my students could easily pluck out.
I challenge each of my students based on their skill level.

As I watched Micayla, I realized that she was striving for perfection -absolute perfection.  She wouldn't have anything less.  With every mistake -and there were many, which was to be expected -she groaned, she stopped progressing and cursed herself before moving on.
I watched her and wondered... why hadn't I realized it before?

I don't want a perfect sight-reader. 
If I had a perfect sight-reader, why would they bother with a teacher?

Micayla, I realized, doesn't want to LEARN from me so much as she wants to IMPRESS me.
She wants to come to her lesson and impress me with all the work she's already done.  The thought of coming before me -her teacher and older cousin -and MESSING UP was just too awful to fathom.

But I don't want perfection.
I want to give her a challenge, something she's never come up against, and see how she handles it.  I want to see where she makes mistakes -see what passages slow her down.  Then -together -we can work on those difficult passages.  I don't condemn her mistakes.  I don't condemn HER.  In fact, I WANT her to make mistakes so we can learn more, reach higher, and attain a higher skill level.

While it's fun to sit and listen to her play songs perfectly, it nullifies my job as a teacher.

As I watched her curse herself through a song she'd NEVER SEEN, I realized that I have the same tendency.
I don't want to mess up because I know the Master Teacher is watching.  I want to IMPRESS HIM with how well I'm doing with the challenges in front of me.
As a co-dependent, I'm looking for validation -for a pat on the head -for approval.
As a human, that's exactly what I DO NOT need.

I'm slowly learning this.
Last year, I let go of perfection. 
This year will be the year I learn to let go of my need for approval and validation.

I want to come before my Master Teacher covered in bruises and bumps and scrapes and say, "I did the best I could, but I messed up at this point and this point and THIS point is just impossible... can you help me?  Will you teach me?"

I will not nullify His position as Master Teacher. 

 

Subtle

The Three-Headed Man and the Two-Faced Woman

 

Apparently, we are our own circus side-show.
My husband ready my blog two nights ago. I've always told him he's more than welcome to read it, but I strongly discouraged it. He understands my need to have a safe place to write, and he agreed that his reading it wouldn't benefit anyone.
Well.
Curiosity killed the cat.

And the next morning, after he'd been up almost half the night tossing and turning, he asked me if I wanted to stay married.
Of course I want to stay married.
He said reading my blog was like seeing another side of me -like I had two faces. It didn't sit well with him, and he said that if he was expected to be 100% honest, the least I could do was be honest as well.

For years, I wasn't honest. I didn't even realize I wasn't being honest. When he came to me with a confession of a slip or relapse, I would hold him and tell him I loved him and say things like, "WE can do this!" Inside -all the while -I was screaming. I was angry. I was devastated. But I didn't let on... until I hit rock bottom.

 At that point, it was a free for all. I was hopeless. I stopped saying, "WE can do this" and started saying, "You better do this." I started letting my emotions show, and our marriage had a rough go of it for a long time.

I feel like I am being honest now. I also feel like I definitely need a safe place to write, to sort, to let loose. This is my place to write about the part of my husband that is addicted.
This is my safe place to write about living with addicted person.
This is where I let loose.

As I've said many times before, my husband's addiction IS NOT my husband. I also live with a great, loyal man. He loves our children. He's nuts about me. He works hard to provide so I can stay home with our kids. We laugh together, cry together, dance together, sleep together, play together, vacation together, watch movies together, discuss everything together, hate money together, learn together, grow together, and attend the temple together.

He's my best friend. He's my favorite.
Especially since I officially divorced the part of him that is addicted to pornography.
I guess you could say this is my divorce blog? Ha. I do write publicly about the other parts of my husband (the other two heads) on our family blog.
"You should be reading that instead," I said. He agreed.

But it's his choice.
This is my ugly face. My healthier face blogs on a different site -a non-porny site. I've never thought of myself as two-faced before, but I am. Aren't we all, to some extent? And thank goodness! Because who wants to go out to dinner with another couple and talk about the heavy issues going on behind the scenes? There's a time and a place for it.
For me, it's here. It's support group. It's online meetings. In the meantime, keep a prayer in your heart for my husband. He's feeling assaulted, I think. He sought the attack out, I'll give him that. But he could benefit from a few extra prayers on his behalf.

He's a fighter, but he's tired right now.
To answer his question: I do NOT want to stay married to the part of him that is addicted.  But the rest of him?  Oh, boy.  Just you try and tear me away...

Resolution

My husband and I love talking with each other.  His job allows him to text when he'd like, and I'm able to send him messages and call whenever I need to (or want to, really).
There's only one problem: we generally talk about other people.
It isn't always bad.  But it bothers me that our conversations are so lacking in depth.
We don't constantly talk about other people, but we do it enough that it bothers me.  I want to change it.

Thanks to addiction recovery, I've learned that if you want to rid something rotten out of your life, it helps to replace it with something uplifting and good.

So.
My New Year's Resolution (though I hardly ever make them) is to read one wikipedia article every time I catch myself using other people's lives for conversation fodder.

It's January 5th, and I'm three articles behind.

Hopefully 2013 will be a year filled with better, more uplifting conversations.

Here's where you come in... I need wikipedia recommendations!  What do you love to study/read about?
Wars?
Movies?
Science?
Music?
Health?
Food?

I need three fresh ideas ASAP!

Great Granny

I was named after my great grandmother, Alice.
She died when I was 11, but I was lucky enough to be able to get to know her pretty well before she passed away.  I only lived a few miles from her, and I spent time with her at least once a week.  She was incredibly fond of children, and we always felt so important when we were with her.
She was a story-teller and she lived through (even thrived through) The Great Depression.  She didn't throw anything away.  She gifted us with sock monkeys made from great-grandpa's worn out red heel socks.  She cut the bottoms from her plastic household cleaners (think Downy), tossed in a bunch of yarn and ingenuity, and made tiny baby cradles for all of us grand girls.  She crocheted.  She loved to write. 
She saved all of the pictures from her old Lawson Wood Monkey Calendars and used them to creative fanciful stories to tell us on Sundays.

via animationresources.org

We'd gather around her old mustard yellow rocker as she pulled out monkey pictures... she always made the BEST stories and did all of the voices.

Soon after she passed away, I was given a school assignment to write a poem.
I got REALLY into it.  I was really thrilled with the project, and I put my heart into it.  My teacher was so pleased with my poem that she read it out loud to the class.
A few months later, we were asked to write a short story.  My classmates groaned -but I couldn't WAIT to get my hands on a blank sheet of paper.  Ideas flew through my head as the day went on, and in the end I handed in a 10-page "short" story about a pioneer girl named Alice and her little brother, Hal.  My parents loved the story so much they paraded it in front of my relatives.
As my relatives read, they remarked how I was turning out just like my great-grandmother.

The older I got, the more I heard it: I was turning out just like great-grandmother. 
I acted in school plays in high school and was approached several times by older members in the community -they told me watching me was like watching Alice in her younger years. 
After I was married, I got my hands on her journals.  I read through them and found that I was more like her than anyone else knew... even the way I wrote, my sentence structure, paralleled hers.
Her tendency to worry to the point of irrationality -her sentimentality -the way she was so interested in individuals and their stories.
We aren't anywhere NEAR physically the same.  She was short and frail.  I'm tall and corn fed.

At a Family Reunion last summer, I remarked how small she was -how she probably worried all her weight away.
My Dad's cousin was sitting next to me and she sort of chuckled.
"Well, that and the laxatives," she said.
"The what?" I asked.
"You know..." she shrugged.
"I don't," I said.
"That was a problem for her -her weight.  Her sisters were always kind of big.  She didn't want that.  Even when she was hospitalized, she would sneak off and throw her food up in the bathroom."

I had no idea.
My great-grandmother is my Illusion.  She's my Perfect Person that I admire and look up to in so many ways because I can relate to her so well.
And I suddenly loved her so much more: she struggled with her appearance -with vanity.

Step 4 has taught me just how much I struggle with vanity -how much of a road block it is for me spiritually. 
After hitting rock bottom and starting my recovery process, I came to really love myself no matter what I looked like.  I started to love my weird birth mark, my stretch marks, my pointed nose...
It was a gradual process, but the more I learned about true Christ-like love and the Porn World, the more I loved my natural body -my natural self, just the way it is.  I suddenly abhorred the idea of implants -something I'd contemplated getting in the past, thinking maybe if I was bigger I would be "enough" for my husband and he wouldn't NEED to look anywhere else anymore.
Yeesh.
Hollywood is proof that no matter how good lookin' you are, if he's going to cheat, he's going to cheat.

It surprises me how often I'm triggered with my old vanity though.

A few days ago, we went as a family into the city.  My husband took us all out to eat at a nice sit-down restaurant.  There was a 30+ minute wait to get a table for our now family of 5.
The restaurant was packed, and our family waited near the front entrance of the restaurant.  There was snow covering the ground outside, and it was freezing.  Literally.
Families were coming in clad in snowsuits, boots, heavy coats...
And then a woman came in with her boyfriend.  He was covered in a heavy Carheart coat, thick jeans, and sturdy boots.  She was wearing a see-through black lace blouse, tight jeans, and sexy boots.
When she sat down with her back to us, her shirt revealed her back.  Her bare back.  The shirt was slit up to her black lacy bra.
I looked down at my Mom Bod that just made and cranked out a baby not three weeks before.  I was feeling pretty good about just barely fitting back into my jeans. 
And I was triggered. 
Amid the chaos surrounding us, I texted my husband something along the lines of "Why can't she cover up and give us old married ladies a fighting chance?"
He texted back validations, which I'll admit, I was fishing for.

And there in lies my problem: I want to see women in tight jeans and see through blouses and NOT go to my bad place where I suddenly hate my amazing body.
I mean: I just GREW a tiny, perfect human in my body... what's to hate about that?  Would I trade it for tight jeans and sexy boots?
NO!
Is it my job, as a 27-year old MOTHER of three, to be in a "compete" mindset?
NO!
Do I need anyone's validation?
NO!
So why do I seek it out?  Why do I automatically revert to unhealthy thinking when a young, beautiful woman walks by?
I never used to feel this way, but I can't blame it on my husband's porn addiction.  This one is on me... it's on my vanity.  The addiction merely brought it to light (just like it brought my co-dependecy to light).

Unlike Great Granny, I have steps to help me overcome this.  Thanks to my husband's addiction, I've been led to a guiding light.

Because of the Atonement, I have the opportunity to NOT end up with a cabinet full of laxatives. 
All I need to do is take action.

Good Cop/Bad Cop/Better Cop?

via thehut.com

Throughout my entire marriage, excepting perhaps the first few blissfully blinding months, I have lived with two different men.
One was thoughtful, sentimental, and funny.  He laughed easily and helped around the house.
One was angry.  Small incidents would set his temper off, and he was grossly intolerant.

For the past month, I've lived with three men.

I still have my two Ol' Men hanging around with me... one making me laugh, the other making me want to shove Ensign articles about anger next to the toilet so he'll find them (you know you've done it).

But the third?
He's new.  I'm still getting to know him, but holy crap.  He's amazing! 
He picks up on my emotions without me having to say anything, and I find him time after time doing small acts of service so naturally that  I hardly think he realizes he's doing them at all.  When my daughter lost her very first tooth, she was beside herself with excitement and absolutely DEVASTATED when she dropped the tooth somewhere in the house...
It was late, and I was exhausted (and nursing for the 30 millionth time that day).
"The Tooth Fairy always knows the minute a tooth falls out and she starts heading our way," I said, "She'll be here tonight.  We'll just leave her a note telling her what happened.  She'll understand and leave money anyway."
I'd much rather make up a creative lie than actually get off the couch.
A few minutes later, I noticed my husband on all fours in the hallway, searching side-by-side with his daughter (who was still a mess of tears).  And they found it.
My husband used to do things like that so I'd see -so I'd notice that he was doing well.  Now he just DOES them because he wants to.
He's also been talking with me about recovery.  A lot.  A LOT.  I don't bring it up anymore.  I just live with him, and sit by him... and I hear all about recovery.

I wonder about this third head.

I'm still getting to know him, and I'm still hesitant to trust him.  But he's put a spark of hope in my heart.
I recently confessed to my husband that I felt like I'd gone from living with two men to living with three... to which he replied, "I feel like I'm getting to know a different side of me."
Will this third head squelch the other two?
I don't know.
It's got me wondering about my own heads.  How many do I have?  And how many of those are pleasant?  How many need to be squelched?

It's something I'll research (probably while nursing).
Recovery-wise, I'm in a good place right now.  I certainly hope it's because of the work I've done and not just because my husband seems to be doing well.
I'd love nothing more than to be in a good place, even when he isn't.
But hey.
I'll take this third-headedness any day.