Love Lessons

 

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It's February.

Wal-Mart is bursting with pink and red and bins full of gigantic heart-toting teddy bears...

Valentine's Day is coming. 

I loved Valentine's Day when I was a little one.  I loved to give and see the pleasure my giving gave in the eyes of those I loved most.   But then I got a little older. A boy gave me a big envelope FULL of every kind of Toy Story valentine he owned.  I didn't know how to handle his BOLD gesture... we're talking SIX valentines from ONE boy.
That's the grade school equivalent of a marriage proposal, folks.
I handled it the best way I knew how... I HID the stuffed envelope and lied when he asked me if I'd received his valentine that year.
"Nope, never saw it."
"Really?"... the poor kid spent a good 30 minutes searching our 6th grade classroom for it while my cheeks flamed red with shame over my untruth.

High school raised Valentine awkwardness to an all-time high.  High school sort of has a way of raising EVERYTHING awkward to an all-time high.  But anyway...

By the time I made it to college, I was indifferent toward everything Valentine's... except for the cheap bags of conversation hearts.  Gosh, they're so good.

Once I met/married my husband, I had a total eclipse of the heart.  I was in LOVE with LOVE.  I made a shirt with puffy paint and wore it all over campus for my first Valentine's Day with my husband...

 "This item belongs to: [insert husband's name here]. 

 If found, please return to: his arms."

He waited outside marching band practice with a dozen red roses and made all the other piccolo players jealous.

It was Valentine's Day when his addiction first hit our marriage.  I'll never forget it.  It's another one of those ratty anniversaries that I try to forget but can't, no matter how much I want to.  After that, I became devoted to the study of what-I-thought-was love.  I read books on marriage and love and how to be a marital success.
I put into practice methods that I knew -I KNEW -would bring us closer, improve us!  I studied up on sex.  I scoured the Internet for dating ideas for married people. 
We would be the BEST EVER at being MARRIED and IN LOVE and porn, no matter how strong it was, would never break us.

But porn DID break us. 
It broke us physically apart.  I didn't want him to touch me.  I didn't want him near me.

Two months after his biggest disclosure and my rock bottom, I walked into Wal-Mart and I saw pink and red and teddy bears and I sneered a great sneer.
Love.
H.A.

I'd invested so much into Valentine's Day's version of love, and I was through -absolutely spitting-mad THROUGH.  My investments had given me a corral full of crap in return, and every good cowgirl knows when investments go bad, you check out.

I was able to find recovery in small steps, and recovery DID help me check out -not from my marriage, but from his addiction.  I appreciated that, but I still didn't bother with love.  I liked my husband well enough, but I wasn't about to Valentine's Day LOVE him.

And it was okay.  I knew it was okay because when I prayed about it, I felt love.  I felt my Father in Heaven telling me my feelings were okay, I was a good person, and He loved me very much.
There.  THERE was Someone a cowgirl could trust and put her faith in.
I went to Him in prayer more than I ever had before, and He led me and guided me through my emotions... and something unfurled... something very unexpected unfurled.

It was love.

It started in low, and it started to grow.
(can't resist throwing in Dr. Seuss whenever possible.)

It wasn't the love I knew before... it was different.  There was a sort of purity to it, and it was limitless.  I felt it toward my children, my mother, my father, my Bishop, my friends, the woman in line in front of me at Sam's Club, the crying baby at the end of the church hallway...
and yes.  I felt this unadulterated love for my husband.

It's Christ-like love.
I feel as if I've only tipped the infinite iceberg of Christ's love.  It's the most beautiful unseen element on earth. 
It's the point.
It's why we're here -to prove our ability to love.
It is the greatest commandment, yea the SUBJECT of the first four commandments.

And it is February.

I find myself a little more like the child I used to be -the one who understood Christ-like love better than I ever hope to again in this life.
I'm so looking forward to giving valentines to my parents, my grandparents, my kids, friends, neighbors... and my husband.

There is only one kind of love. 
There are not different versions. 

This is what He wants me to learn.
This is what He wants me to put into practice.

Love is what He feels for me.

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.