Gentle, Stinging Lessons

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The Lord has been teaching me hard things about myself.  He's gently shown me how I fear men more than God.
He's taught me that I've feared my husband more than I have Him.  Incidentally, my husband has feared ME more than his Savior.  He cared more about MY forgiveness than Christ's forgiveness.
We had replaced our Savior with each other, and we hadn't even realized it.

He's taught me the detrimental extent of my vanity.
He's taught me how manipulative I've been.
He's taught me I've been codependent for most of my life -it wasn't something I developed because of my husband's addiction.
He's taught me that I've spent most of my life playing the victim.

He's teaching me WHY I manipulate (without meaning to) and WHY I play the victim and WHY I've been codependent and WHY I'm so blanking vain.

Along the way, he's teaching me about the good in me as well... and thank goodness because if I hadn't been able to see any good in me through all of this, there's no telling what I might do.
Maybe write a one-hit album full of angst and anger and darkness and RAW emotion and then overdose on something-or-other?  Who knows.

This week, through lots of tears and emotions completely amplified by my pregnancy, I have been taught that I'm not here to be seen.
I'm simply here to be faithful, to keep the commandments and develop "take it with you" characteristics.

He has called me to be faithful.
The simplicity of it is freeing.

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An Anonymous Letter

Dear Sister,

You know me.
You go to church with me.  I teach your children.  I brush shoulders with your parents.  I see you on the street and at the store.  We've been inside each other's houses.  We've served together.

And in all that time, I've never told you.
My husband has a lust addiction.  He looks at porn.  He likes it when he does it -he gets caught up in the moment and he stares at other women, lusts, leers, and lingers for hours.  He flips through their pictures, studies their videos.
And I sleep.  or do the shopping.  or take the kids to the park.

I wish I could say I was blissfully unaware.  I'm not.  I know -much like the woman who knows her husband is cheating on her though she may lack physical proof.

I can't tell you that because you wouldn't understand.  You would think he was a pervert -a bad, disgusting sex maniac.
He isn't.
He is human. He's a great father, a protective husband.  He's a caring, thoughtful son. He tries.  When he isn't acting out, he hates his addiction.  He hates himself.

Our home is a sanctuary only so far as I can make it.  I can set up filters, throw out DVDs I don't feel comfortable having... but where there's a will, there's a way.
He can upset the beautiful sanctuary of my home in a few clicks of a button, a few taps on a screen...
And the sacred sanctuary is obliterated.
Our home is infiltrated with filth.
It doesn't matter how much I clean, organize, or let light in... the spirit of porn settles into the cracks, as filthy as nicotine stains.
I crave true sanctuary.
I close my eyes and imagine myself walking the halls of the Temple.  I can feel the cleanliness and purity surround my soul, and all is well.

I weep for sanctuary lost.  I weep because no matter how hard I try, I can't keep lust out of my own home.  And I'm angry because I can't keep lust out of my church building.
I'm angry with you.
I shouldn't be.  I shouldn't be angry with you because it isn't Christ-like.
But you're making my life so much harder... you're so beautiful.  I can't compete with you, and I refuse to try.  I'm not glamorous.  I won't wear flowers in my hair the size of cantaloupe.  My heel-height is limited by my already towering frame.  I will never own a pair of shiny red stilettos like yours.
You're married, and your children are so beautiful.  Of course they are -they get it from you.
You're married.
You're MARRIED.
So why?  Why is your skirt so tight that the fabric is stretched to the MAX over your perfectly fit and plump booty?  Why is your blouse cut so low that we can see down into the valley?  Why is your make-up so smokey-eyed?
Do you know the young men are looking at you?  Did you know they're preparing for missions?  Do you know they HATE that they want to look at you?  It makes them feel dirty -it makes them feel bad.  They're staring at the body of a married woman.  They're good boys.
Do you know that my lust-addicted husband is looking?
It irritates him that you dress like that, and at the same time... it's HARD for him.  He attends church for sanctuary.  He does not find it.
What he does find is a thong line, perfectly visible through a tight khaki skirt.

I watch you jog by my house.  You're wearing a sports bra, or a tight tank top.  Your shorts are so short.  So very, very short.
You are tan, and your body is disciplined and taut.
I wish I didn't know all of that.  I wish I didn't know what the bottom of your rear end looks like -what your stomach looks like, what the top of your breasts look like.
I don't need to know all of that.
After I come home from church or see you run by, I have to face myself in the mirror.

For years, I battled not being good enough... not being sexy or glamorous or taut or tan.  It was ugly, very very ugly.  Today I'm much better, but the old feelings return now and then, usually after I come home from church or see you run by my house.
I spend an hour in front of the mirror trying to give myself smoky eyes, and in the end I only end up with a look that screams "battered hooker."
I try to put on my tallest heels, and I totter slowly forward and stumble and finally kick the damn things off.
I'm too pregnant to be sexy.
I have tight clothes.  I put them on, thinking, 'I could pull this off, right?'
But I can't.  Literally.  Once I get them on, I can't pull them off.

I want to feel badly about the whole thing, but when I look in the mirror again -when the make up is gone and I've got my style of clothes back on and my ballet flats back on: I feel that old familiar homey comfort and I'm home again.  I'm me again.  I love me.

You aren't healthy for me to have around, and I want to tell you to stop.  I want to tell you to go shopping for new, looser clothes.  I want to tell you that PORN and LUST are running rampant and that you're feeding the beast.
And when I say "I want to tell you" what I really mean is "I want to YELL at you."

Is it your fault my husband looks?  No.  It isn't.
Am I still angry at you?  Yes.  I am.
Is it your fault you're gorgeous? No.  It isn't.
Am I still angry with you?  Yes.  I am.

You would understand if your husband had spent your entire marriage looking at other women -lusting for them, wanting them, dreaming about them...

It's a horrible ride.

Please look in the mirror and ask yourself why you do it and BE HONEST.  Are you trying to look your best for YOU?
I don't think you are.
Are you trying to look your best so men will notice?  I do believe so.

Please understand that we are all susceptible to lust.  Please understand that someone just like you almost lost her entire family to a flippant affair.
And she was just as beautiful, just as fit, and just as church-going as you are.
Her skirts were just as tight.
They made me equally uncomfortable.

I wanted to write this letter to her, but I never did.  She's a good woman.  You're a good woman.
But I'm still angry.
I don't expect my anger to be validated...
I just expect to air it out in this letter and be done with it.

I also expect it to be renewed every time you run by my house in a sports bra and cheeky shorts.

If you're not doing anything today, would you mind reading THIS? and then THIS?
I don't believe you are oblivious to what you are doing, and that makes me angry.
I also don't believe you realize the extent of the horrible effect you are having, and that gives me some degree of compassion... but not enough to override the anger.

And so I say, because I can't say it to your face:
Cover up!
You're making a spectacle.

Regards,
Me

The Opposite of Co-Dependency

Every Saturday night, my Grandpa tunes into pbs.  He watches Lawrence Welk.  Just as soon as it's over, "Keeping Up Appearances" comes on and Grandma joins him on the living room couch.
Every opportunity I have, I join them.  Last Saturday as I watched Keeping Up, I noticed that Hyacinth -the main character, is the absolute opposite of co-dependent... and she drives me and everyone around her crazy.




I've had a hunch the past few months that some degree of co-dependency is actually healthy.  To depend on mankind around us... to be aware of them and to risk making ourselves uncomfortable for their sake -it isn't all bad.
Knowing how to to toe the line between Turning the Other Cheek and Emotionally Healthy can definitely be tricky... at least for me.
So long as I find myself somewhere between a doormat and Hyacinth, I know I'll make it out all right.  Should I ever end up like one or the other, THEN I'll be worried.

Illusion Marriage

I went through a real mourning period early last year.  I hadn't lost anyone close to me, but I had lost -forever -what I thought was my ideal romance.

 

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I'd dreamed of it as a child.

I'd completely planned my wedding before I reached the ripe old age of 9, and I held fast to it all.  When I met my husband, I knew... I just KNEW: he was The One.  He was the one who was different.

When his porn "problem" reared it's ugly head in our marriage, I battled it with all the energy of a scorned woman.  PORN was the Other Woman in our marriage -she had infiltrated my fairy tale.  She needed to be demolished.  Our house needed to be purified, sanitized, sterilized.

You should have seen me at work.  I was a full time Master o' Control.  I checked the computer, his phone, our DVD collection, his brain... and I never let him shower without making sure he wasn't acting out.  I never made a trip to the grocery store without texting him at least 5 times to make sure he wasn't acting out.  If he was tempted, I had a list for him.

How To Be Perfect, by: Your Loving Wife.

I dropped my friends, my hobbies, my interest... MYSELF.  I put it ALL into the Porn Eradication Act.

Five years later, my husband came to me with a confession.  He'd been acting out.  He'd been lying.  I sent the kids to my mom's and when he got home from work, we sat together over a Large take-out pizza and discussed everything so matter-of-factly.

"So it is what it is," I said, "Let's just do this.  We know what we need to do."

"Yes," he nodded.

At this point, I had eased up on my policing.  His sobriety had improved.  A few months went by, and I lightly and jokingly asked how he'd been doing.

I expected him to lightly joke back.  I expected a good report.

Instead I got an immediate countenance change -hung shoulders, hung head...

"I'm not doing good," he said to his shoes.

This time it was MY turn for a countenance change.  I was floored -decked -utterly shocked.

"WHAT?!" Was all I could say.  My tone surprised him.  He looked up and immediately moved forward to hold me.

I balked.  I refused to let him touch me.  I began to cry... the kind of startled cry a child produces when their pet parakeet is suddenly 'et up by the neighbor's cat (totally happened to me once.  No lie).

"I had no idea..." I sputtered, "I only asked... I didn't think..."

And then I fled -Disney Princess style -to the bathroom.  I locked the door.  I sat in the tub.  I pulled the shower curtain closed and I cried myself senseless.

How was I supposed to preserve My Fairy Tale?  The Porn was beating ME and I wasn't the one with the porn problem!

At that point, I gave up.  I quit exercising (what was the point?).  I quit watching what I ate (what was the point?).  I quit cleaning (what was the point?).  I quit socializing (what was the point?). 

I gained ten pounds (his fault).

And I saw no hope in my future.  

I'd planned my entire little life to get married and live my ideal marriage... and through no fault of my own it had been snatched from me.

I was a GOOD PERSON.

I deserved a GOOD MARRIAGE.  I deserved to have MY IDEA of a GOOD MARRIAGE.

And it slowly dawned on me that I would never have it.  My husband's porn problem wasn't a problem.  It was gripping addiction.

How I hated the word -it rolled so destructively from my tongue. 

I married Prince Addict.

It was disaster of epic proportions.

There was a movie made in the Good Ol' 90's titled "Sabrina."  It is a modern remake of an old black and white starring Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.

 

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Both movies have their own appeal, and I love them both equally.  But the modern one has a line that I love with all my heart.

Sabrina is in LOVE with David.

David notices Sabrina in the way a neighbor might notice you got a new car.  Might.

 

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Sabrina's father is so concerned with her infatuation that he ships her off to Paris for awhile.  While in Paris, her boss notices that Sabrina seems distracted.  Sabrina confesses her LOVE.  Her boss tells her that David sounds like an illusion.  She then goes on to say, "Illusions are dangerous people.  They have no flaws."

My Illusion Marriage was dangerous to me... it had no flaws.

I sort of lived out my Illusion Marriage when I was enforcing The Porn Eradication Act.  I would sometimes pretend there was no porn, and he would pretend there was no porn and we would swim around the sharks with ease and glee.

During these times, I would get upset.  I would get grouchy.  I would have bad days.

He would call me on them -it wasn't okay that I was upset... not in the Illusion Marriage.  

In the Illusion Marriage, we took turns playing victim and rescuer.  On my bad days, I was the victim.  He would pull me up OUT of my bad mood because it was his job.  When he tried and I still stayed in my bad mood...

Well.

That wasn't allowed.

And it went both ways.  We behaved that way, you understand, because we LOVED each other.  We loved each other enough to pull one another up.  What a gloriously wonderful responsibility!

But later on... later on when I had ran weeping from the shark-infested waters, I sat on the shore, gained ten stress pounds watching my husband flirt with imminent death, and just stopped making him happy.

I went against everything Dr. Laura had ever taught me!

When my husband had a bad day and came home grouchy, I let him.  Once I actually loaded my kids and I up in the car and took off on him stating, "We're leaving.  You can't act like this toward us.  We haven't done anything wrong.  We'll come back later when you've cooled off.  You need a break."

And I drove away, hands a'shakin.

I was terrified.

When we came home, he was significantly more calm.  He was unapologetic, but it didn't matter.  What mattered was that he wasn't treating me or my lovely kids unfairly.

A few weeks after that, I was the grouchy one.  I was the one with the attitude problem.  Instead of trying to fix my mood -to lift me -he only put his hands squarely on my shoulders.

"You are a grouch," he said, looking straight into my eyes, "Here's some gas money.  Leave.  Go take a break."

He was trying to be confident about the whole thing, but I could see the trepidation behind his eyes.  He was scared I might react... I might be hurt by him, offended, upset.

I only hugged him to me and cried all my make-up off onto his t-shirt.  I was so grateful for him.

"Thank you," I said.

Two hours later, I came home.  

I came through the front door and tossed my husband a bag of his favorite candy.

"What this for?" he asked, looking up from his video game.

"For calling me a grouch," I said, "You called me out, gave me money and told me to leave.  It meant a lot.  Thanks."

"Yeah," he nodded, "I'm way nicer than you are..."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When I'm a grouch, you call me out and then YOU leave and you never give me any money," he said, making sure his arms were 100% around me when he said it so I couldn't slap him.

And then I laughed so hard I cried.

Right at that moment I realized that we were building partners.

The Real Marriage we are building from the rubble of the Illusion is so good I'm nearly scared.  It isn't all good, and usually the good is fleeting and rare.  But it's not finished.  It's slow and steady going.

We're not building one of those cookie cutter houses in city neighborhoods that all look like the one right next to it.

We're building the groundwork for a real monument.  It's painstaking and horrible and hard.  Neither one of us knows if it's a project that we'll see through to the end.  All we know is that right now.  today.  there's a job at hand.  So we're working on it.  I'm working on one end.  He's working on another.  

There's bad weather and communication hiccups and financial tension.

BUT the small successes keep us going, and they are each SO good that they keep me just hopeful enough to ride out the next day.

Goodbye, my Illusion Marriage.

You were such a shoddy friend.

The Life Not Lived?

  

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I have this friend.

She graduated the same year I did.  She went to college like I did.
I graduated with an Associate of the Arts degree.  My new husband graduated with me.  We walked side-by-side clad in cap and gown.  We didn't know it at the time, but we had a little one brewing inside me.

My friend also graduated with an Associate of the Something degree.  Then she graduated with a Bachelor degree.  Then she moved to New York and worked as a journalist.
Then she moved home and was paid to write and do writingish things.
She married.
I had another child (bringing the grand total to two).

We have similar interests, similar tastes, and we can carry on a conversation for hours if we felt so inclined (or the children would let us).
I enjoyed watching her mother her first child.  I was even more ecstatic when she told me she was expecting her second.
We are presently pregnant together.

I told her about my husband's addiction.  It all came spilling out one day, and she listened so lovingly and well.  She continued to listen for hours and months afterward as I played the victim and blamed and found not a single ray of sunshine in my life.

She confessed that she and her husband have a great marriage -no deep problems to speak of.  He cooks, he cleans, he works, he supports her in her aspirations and dreams.  They read poetry by candlelight and they enjoy delving into cultures of all kinds together.  They're a perfect team.

Yesterday, I missed her.  I texted her.
She texted back.
She's studying for her GRE.  She's going to start the processes of getting her Master's degree.
I texted back my applause and I called her a go-getter, ever grateful that I she couldn't sense the fact that I was crying.
I couldn't even figure WHY I was crying -what did it matter?  My best friend in the entire world just graduated with her Master's degree a few months ago and I was nothing but proud!  I was excited for her -genuinely applauded her, praised her and "liked" every single graduation-related photo she posted on facebook.

So why.
WHY did I burst into tears?  I couldn't figure myself out at all.  Minutes later, my phone rang.  It was my OB's office calling to let me know I had failed my first glucose test and would have to come in for the yucky 3-hour one.
And I cried some more.

I sat myself down to try and figure out what in the HECK was going on with me.  It didn't take me long to realize it.

My journalist friend has lived and done so many things I've only dreamed of.  And now she's going on to get a Master's degree.  It's incredible.

I can't  even get a Bachelor degree right now.  Between my pregnancy (and impending newborn) and my calling (Primary President) and my two kids and that little thing I'm grappling with called My Husband's Porn Addiction... I can't handle one more thing.  I can't.  I would crack.

I'm jealous of her marriage, and I resented my husband for a good hour over it.
I resented my co-dependency and all the years I lost LOSING myself in his stuff!  I policed three years of my life away!

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What could those years have been for me?  Where could I have gone?  What could I have done?  What opportunities did I miss because I thought I was doing my SAVING duty to husband?

That's why I was crying.  For the first time, I realized that I was so sucked into all this porn crap that I stopped really and truly living.  And I'm angry.  I'm mad about that.  I'm mad at myself for allowing it to happen.  I'm mad at my husband.
It's pointless anger -as most anger is.  There's no point in worrying about "What Might Have Been."
What Might Have Been is a dangerous, dangerous island.

But between THAT and the failed glucose test and the fact that my children had fought with me for over 7 hours (7 and a half, actually.  But who's keeping track?) because their room wasn't clean... I cried.  And when my husband came home from work, he stayed clean away from me.
When it came time to run to the store, he said, "You're grouchy.  Go alone.  Take a break.  Here's gas money.  Here's chocolate money."
And I bawled into his shirt for a good twenty minutes.

How incredibly grateful I am for him.
I came back two hours later to sleeping children, dinner, and a movie (comedy.  I needed comedy).

As I waited for the movie to start, I talked about everything I'd been crying over.  I asked my husband's opinion on it.  Despite his addiction, he's blessed with remarkably good sense.  He's very down to earth.  I'm very not.
I value his level head.
"Don't let it bother you.  It won't make any difference to worry about it, so don't," he said.

Ha.
He makes the funniest jokes.

Only he wasn't kidding.  I didn't bother telling him how impossible it was for me to just NOT worry about it -to just let it go.
"I'll pray about it," I shrugged.
"Or don't," he shrugged back, "You can't give stuff like that more credit than it deserves."
"Until I work it all out in my mind, I will," I said.  And then we watched a movie.

And then my kids puked all night.
But anyway.

Today I went to a funeral for a prominent member of our small community.
He wasn't suit-and-slick hair prominent.  He wasn't wealthy prominent.
He was giving.  And he wore overalls a lot.
He laughed a lot and loved a lot and touched so many lives and was such a solid rock in our little town that when he died we all just sort of rocked back on our heels and wondered how on earth life would ever be the same.  It won't -not really.  Life won't be BAD, but without him... it just won't feel right for a good long while.
I listened to his children -stalwart men and women who were a big part of The Village that Raised Me -turn into children themselves as they cried at the pulpit.
"I love you, Dad," they said.
Tears once again sprung to my eyes... I reached up and put my hand on the back of the man next to me: my own father.
Then one of the sons got up and talked about the Savior.  He talked about service -about who is greater than who and what and where and all that.  And THEREIN was my answer.
I'm not here to get a degree.  I can, if I want to.  I have my agency.
Have I missed out on opportunities?  Yeah, I'm sure I have.  Does that really suck?  Well, yeah.

BUT on the flip side, I have a good and great life -a simple life.  I have gained so much from my Policing Years that I have NEW and DIFFERENT opportunities to serve and share and love.  And I've learned so very much about the gratifying difference that can be felt between self-service and service-service.
It's inspiring.

I will still have days where I feel less-than.  I will still have days where I feel angry.
When my friend graduates with her degree and begins a lofty writing career, I'll probably be up to my elbows in my pantry.
And that will be okay -so long as I know for a surety that In The Pantry is where the Lord would have me be.
Because if I've learned one thing from all this porn addiction frenzied MADNESS... it's that if you rely on the arm of Jehovah and put yourself on the path he'd like you to be on, you WILL find true JOY.
True joy doesn't mean every day will be happy.  You're going to have hard days.  But when you're in tune with the Spirit, you can always have joy.
Yesterday was awful.  I failed in so many ways, but today it all came around at a funeral.
I sat next to my earthly father who smells like Stetson and looks so handsome in his nice Western suit... he always wears his grandfather's bolo ties on special occasions (like Sundays and funerals) and I was overcome with gratitude for a GOOD, solid DAD.
He's a rock.
I have a rock on earth, and I have an Immovable Mountain of a Father on high.

As I listened to a son, grieving his Rock on Earth, speak of greatness and service as one in the same, I felt My Mountain on High tap my on the head.
"There's your answer," He said, "There it is."
And then I humbly bowed my head and said to Him, "Give me opportunities to do Thy work... let me be a tool."

Soon after that I reached over to my Dad and scratched his back... just because I could -because he was there.  As I left the church I did the same to my Grandpa.  I reached over and rubbed his back that doesn't stand quite as straight as it used to.
I did it because I could.
Because he's here.

Tonight, I'll go see Grandpa again.  I can't not.  Because the man who died -the great, wonderous man who survived being a POW in WWII was a grandfather to my best friend in the entire world.  She can't hug her grandpa tonight, but I can hug mine.  So I will.

Grandpa didn't go on a mission.  He didn't serve in a war.  He stayed home and worked the family farm so his brothers might have those chances.  And who do I look to as the greatest of the greats of men?
My quiet, hunched cowboy grandpa.  I love him dearly.  Self-serving?  Never.
My best friend -my dear friend who lost her own grandfather -has her Master's degree.  No children yet -but soon.  Never once have I seen her place herself above anyone else.  Never once have I seen her seek praise -to go after worldly ambition.
Last year, she came to visit with me during a holiday break.  We spent hours giggling and laughing and talking about our crushes in junior high.
"What's your calling now?" I asked after a few hours of visiting, feeling like maybe we ought to know what the other had actually been doing.
"Stake Relief Society President," I could tell by the way she said it that she didn't WANT to say it at all.
"That's a GROWN UP PERSON calling!" I couldn't help but say.
"I know," she nodded, "But it isn't too bad.  I actually don't have to do anything.  The Lord makes all the decisions and I just tell my counselors what to do."
And we laughed some more because of all the people on earth who can make me really pee my pants: SHE is number one.

My other friend -my journalist friend -she loves attention and notice and praise.  She wants to be applauded, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps the reason I burst into tears was that I see those same qualities in myself, but I hate that about me.
I want to be like my grandpa -like my best friend.

My recovery and the 12-step program is teaching me how to attain humility.

So have I ever really missed out on opportunities?  Not the ones that truly matter to me.  In fifty years, I won't give a rat's you-know-what about a dusty degree on a shelf because I know that for ME (this doesn't apply to everyone, I know) it will simply represent a few grueling years where I ignored my young children and was a monster to live with.
My degree-getting days may come later -they may not.  These days are not my degree-getting days.
It doesn't matter.
In Faith, I'll Rely On the Arm of Jehovah.

 

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This post has been so long, so wordy, and so so so long.  But it feels so good to just SPLAT it all out.  If you actually read through the entire thing, you deserve a batch of my mom's cookies.  And they're the best.  No foolin'.

I'm a Tool

I like to believe that once upon a time, Heavenly Father sat at a table and made a sort of game out of people-placement.  He made sure not to put too many healers in one corner... not too many seamtresses too close together.  He spent hours arranging, rearranging, finalizing, and then sending us all down to find out for ourselves what our callings were.

I'm a teacher.  I'm a writer.  I'm an entertainer.

A few months ago, my mom said, "We need to gather our family together and do a sort of inventory... see what we all have to bring to the table.  I just feel like if things get bad, it would be nice to know what we each have to help each other out."
I later found out she was talking about food.
But I thought she was talking about skills and stuff.  I went home and sort of agonized because I have this incredible sister in law who can do everything I can do, but she does it BETTER and simplifies it.  If things go bad, they won't need me if they have her.
I say this 100% without guile... I promise.  She is a rockstar.  If things go bad, I'm going to her house.
It did get me a little down on myself.  I mean, there ARE things I do that she doesn't do, but none of them really matter.  At least I didn't think they did.
Until I imagined it...

If things got bad...
If there were fires and bombs and a lack of food, what place would I have in the building up of the people?  I can make them laugh!  I can tell stories!  I'm a story teller -a writer!  I can use my words to teach!
These are all wonderful additions to destitute people!  Down-trodden and depressed people NEED people who can quote comical movies and skits in their entirety!!  Right?!

The thought salved my self-inflicted wounds for the time being.

I label myself as a teacher.  I'm not getting paid to teach, nor do I have a teaching degree.
I label myself as a writer.  I've never held a job where I got paid to write.  And yes, I've applied.  And yes, I've been rejected.
I label myself as an entertainer.  I'm not getting paid to tell stories, write poems, quote movies or anything like that.

But I do things like that because I can't help it.  It's just... me.  And I do things like teach and write and entertain because it brings me true happiness to do it.

I used to strive for recognition for these kinds of things.  I wanted so badly to be discovered as a writer -to have someone read my junk and go mad with satisfaction.
I felt like Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" when he daydreams about turning in his Christmas theme, and his teacher is completely overcome with the awesomeness of his writing.

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"Listen to this sentence: 'A Red Ryder BB Gun with a compass and a stock and this THING which tells time...' Oh, Ralphie!  A plus, plus, plus..."

And his classmates lift him to their shoulders and parade him around the room...

Anyway, in the midst of my urgency to be noticed something happened: I hit rock bottom.  I realized the true depth of my husband's porn addiction and I was stunned and scared and panicked and suddenly nothing but survival mattered.  I stopped caring about whether or not people thought my writing was witty or funny or cool or whatever.

I just WROTE.

I wrote because I needed to write -I have to write.  My brain is wired to write (even as a small girl, I used to narrate my own life in my head.  I thought all kids did that.  I didn't realize that Constant Mental Compose Mode wasn't the human norm and I walked out of my door to walk to Elementary School and my brain went something like, "The front door creaked open and she set foot into the cutting chill.  A shiver went through her as she pulled her coat up around her ears, trying to seal in the warmth from her mother's oatmeal...").

I stopped dressing my writing to impress, and I just started vomiting words up out of my soul.  When I shared what I'd written, I didn't hear, "You are SUCH a good writer." 

Instead, people would say things like "I needed to hear that today.  Thank you so much for putting into words what I didn't know how."

And the more it happened, the more I could feel my Heavenly Father saying "You're an instrument."

I can use my God-given ability to express myself to try and turn a profit somewhere (if anyone would bother hiring a housewife with no experience).  But Heavenly Father didn't put me down here to turn a profit or to be discovered.  He put me down here to serve a purpose, to do for others what they can't do for themselves and I'm SO HAPPY to do it because so many people have done for me what I can not do for myself!  I want to give SOMETHING BACK if I can!

I can not heal my own infections, perform my own surgeries, match clothes, style hair, decorate my home, organize it... until one of the Lord's instruments takes me by the hand and lifts me.

They're tools.

I'm a tool.

Everyone's a friggin' tool.

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We sometimes think we have to BE ALL THE TOOLS.  And if we need a tool we don't have, we use a a tool we DO have to do whatever it is that needs doing.  It takes longer and it's more stressful and time consuming than it ever should have to be, but hey.  At least we didn't have to call the neighbor, right?  At least we didn't let our guard down long enough for them to see our vulnerability and weakness.  At least we broke our back and denied someone a chance to serve and create joy in their own life.  Whew!

Needing help is so hard.  ASKING for it is downright agonizing.  Receiving it is hard to stomach.  

Giving it?  Giving it is celestial in every sense of the word.

When I felt prompted to start a recovery blog, I pushed the prompting away.  The internet was the one place in my little life that wasn't touched by the porn addiction in my home.  I could log onto my family blog -the place I go to write every day -and I could let porn go and focus on what my family had done the day before.

After listening to President Monson's talk in conference about following promptings, I knew it was time.  I was sad to let porn addiction affect my "safe" place, but it's been nothing but a blessing for me.  I'm learning so much about myself as I write, and I'm receiving little taps to the brain... they're writing prompts.

I'll be in the middle of doing dishes and *BAM* something whispers in my ear, "You should write about _____."  The more I dwell on the writing prompt, the more ideas flow.  Before my head hits the pillow, I have to get them all out through my keyboard.

I go to bed satisfied, happy, and I sleep soundly (ish.  I mean, as soundly as a pregnant lady in her third trimester can sleep). It feels so good to WRITE!  To compose! To put those words down and watch them work together and to hit the "publish" button and know that it will STAY written... unlike the living room that no matter how many times I clean it, it never stays that way.  I seriously think it has some kind of beef with me.

I love being a tool.

It doesn't profit anything material, but it profits soul cash... and soul cash can never be lost or spent or badly invested.  What's more?  You take it with you when you go.

Tonight I'm grateful for careful people placement and a wide variety of tools.

I realize tonight's post could come across as completely egotistical, but it isn't meant to come across that way.

And anyway.  Can I really be stroking my ego if I'm blatantly calling myself a tool?

That's rhetorical, by the way.  Please don't answer...

I'll Be Yar Now

In possibly the greatest movie ever made (The Philadelphia Story), a woman named Tracy kicks her alcoholic husband out of the house -but not before she snaps one of his golf clubs over her knee:

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Tracy Samantha Lord.

She's regal, self-disciplined and intolerant.

 

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She was glad to be rid of her addict.

She moved on with her life and became engaged to a self-made man.  They're on the brink of a wedding when her x-husband shows up.

While away from her, he's gotten into recovery.  He isn't drinking anymore.

While away from her, she didn't get into recovery because she didn't have a problem.

HE had a problem.

Throughout the movie, she's wittingly accosted on just about every side.  She's forced to look into a mirror of sorts.

She's called all sorts of names she doesn't like.  

Her father tells her she lacks an understanding heart -that without it, she might as well be made of bronze.

Her x-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven, calls her a "goddess" -and he isn't being complimentary.

Read these lines, please:

Tracy: You seem quite contemptuous of me all of a sudden.

Dexter: No, Red, not of you, never of you. Red, you could be the finest woman on this earth. I'm contemptuous of something inside of you you either can't help, or make no attempt to; your so-called 'strength' - your prejudice against weakness - your blank intolerance.

Tracy: Is that all?

Dexter: That's the gist of it; because you'll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman, until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty. It's a pity your own foot can't slip a little sometime - but your sense of inner divinity wouldn't allow that. This goddess must and shall remain intact. There are more of you than people realize - a special class of the American Female.

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And then there's George -her fiance.  He "compliments" her in a way that smacks her right in the face and she realizes just what she's become -just the kind of image she's putting off.  It's horrifying.

George: You know, we're gonna represent something, Tracy, you and I in our home, something straight, sound, and fine. Then perhaps your friend Mr. Haven will be somewhat less condescending.

Tracy: George, you, you don't really mind him, do you? I mean, the fact of him...I mean...that he ever was my lord and master. That we ever were...

George: I don't believe he ever was, Tracy, not really. I don't believe that anyone ever was - or ever will be. That's the wonderful thing about you, Tracy.

Tracy: What? How?

George: Well, you're like some marvelous, distant, well, queen, I guess. You're so cool and fine and - and always so much your own. There's a kind of beautiful purity about you, Tracy, like, like a statue...

Tracy: George -

George: Oh, it's grand, Tracy. It's what everybody feels about you. It's what I first worshiped you for from afar.

Tracy: George, listen -

George: First, now, and always! Only from a little nearer now, eh, darling!

Tracy: I-I don't want to be worshiped. I want to be loved!

George: Well, you're that too, Tracy. Oh, you're that all right.

Tracy: I mean really loved.

George: But that goes without saying, Tracy.

Tracy: No. No, now it's you who doesn't see what I mean.

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George is on the left.

Yesterday I came to the stark realization that though I haven't snapped an golf clubs or kicked my husband out... I had him convinced he was living with a Goddess.

I was a saint.

HE was a sinner.

I beat it into him every time he confessed.  I showed a gross intolerance for human frailty.  I was better than him, and though I professed to myself that I'd never let it show -I DID -and I did it on purpose.

Two mornings ago, my husband tried to open up to me -tried to show me his frailty.  And I didn't mean to, but I reverted back to a statuesque bronze representation of a woman, grilling him about his motives, adjusting him, fixing him.  He immediately shut me out.  I felt awful for the rest of the day.  

I apologized to him for it.

He told me how hard it is to open up to me.

Unlike Tracy, I did get into recovery.  But that doesn't change the fact that my husband still fears the "withering glance of the Goddess."  He's afraid of what might happen -my reaction, my judgements. 

It suddenly hit me: my husband doesn't feel like he can hurt me.  He's already hurt me so deeply with his addiction that he isn't allowed to cause me any other sort of discomfort in any other area of our lives together, even if keeping his peace does damage on his end.
I've trained him to believe that.

"Listen," I said, "If I'm barking at you, fixing you, crossing a line and lecturing you and you don't like it... you have a right to tell me.  You have every right to hold up your hand and say, 'Please stop' and it will upset me.  It will make me mad.  I'll be uncomfortable and shocked, but you don't have to put up with that behavior from me just like I don't have to put up with bad behavior from you.  You have every right to say something if I'm crossing a line and making you uncomfortable.  You don't just have to put up with it because you're an addict and I'm a saint."
I spit the word "saint" out as if it were the crudest word ever invented on the face of the modern earth.  I hate what I've made out of that word.

He looked stunned.  

It was devastating for me.  I suddenly felt as hopeless as Tracy sounded when she said, "I don't want to be worshipped.  I want to be loved."

I'm healthy enough to NOT let my husband get away with behavior that is detrimental to my healing.  I've found the strength to tell him, "I'm not okay with what you're doing.  Either you stop, you leave, or I leave for a while."

He has the very same right.  

Just because he's the one who hurt me doesn't mean he's PRIMARILY the one responsible for fixing everything.  Does he carry some weight in that area?  Yeah.  But not all.

I carry some.

The Savior carries it all.

My husband can't turn bronze into flesh.  He can't create and install an understanding heart.

The SAVIOR can and the Savior did... 

I'll never forget the feeling of having a stone, cold heart.  I felt so numb inside -so dead.  It eventually melted away and gave way to flesh again, but not because my husband fixed it... not because I fixed it... 

I felt justified in having it.  It was a natural consequence of the scars I bore, and I wore my stone heart with pride.  I let my husband see it whenever he had the chance because it brought him shame and self-loathing and seeing THAT brought me a sense of pride and validation.

For a very little while.

For a long while after that, I realized that my stone heart was heavy.  It scraped my insides and refused to feel emotion like I wanted it to.  I tried to fix it, but I couldn't.

I finally admitted that I had no control over it, and I asked the Lord to please perform a sort of heart transformation.  I asked several times.  It wasn't an immediate thing or an overnight thing... it was grueling to give up my pride, but it was necessary.

And it was worth it.  

I'll never forget the warmth that slowly flooded through my soul as the gradual transformation took place.

I have FELT it.  

My husband is still gun-shy of The Goddess.  I can tell him that I've changed, but it doesn't mean much because past experience has taught him otherwise.

Sound familiar?  My husband can tell me he's changed.  I don't believe him.

So yesterday we faced each other.  Looked into each other's eyes and said something like, "I'll keep going if you will, but don't judge me if I pee my pants out of sheer terror on the way."

And then I said, "Give me chance.  Open up to me even if it's scary and GIVE ME A CHANCE to show you my fleshy heart."

In a sense, I said -as Tracy Samantha Lord said to CK Dexter Haven just minutes before she remarries him after ditching George -"... I'll be yar now.  I promise to be yar."
And I love Dexter's reply, "Be whatever you like.  You're my redhead."

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And for the record: my husband has never been jealous of my unbridled love for Cary Grant, and he's bought me a collection of Grant's movies to prove it.  You should come over so we can watch them sometime.
We'll start with The Philadelphia Story.