family – Page 29

Originally…

Published on July 22, 2016July 20, 2016 by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

The separation between Chw and I found me really transparent as I journeyed through that season. It is a time, in my life, that I will always be scarred by and forever altered. It’s ironic because we have been divorced before, but that time period was a cake walk compared to the heart-carnage of those seven months. Even now, there are days when I awake and am confronted with every single one of my worst nightmares become reality. On those days it takes everything in my power to get out of bed and function. I truly am but a shell of someone else…

A few days ago Gen and I were talking about love & marriage… She is fascinated by the fact that I knew I would marry her dad the second I met him, and then, decades later my older daughter met her now-husband and had the same certainty. Trying to explain to a dramatically romantic 17-year-old that this wasn’t something we dreamed up and willed to happen, is difficult. In both cases, mine and my daughter, I’m pretty sure weren’t fixating on anything, but instead just filled with a knowledge that this person was the one we’d marry.

In all honesty, it’s that very fact which made both my divorce and this separation hard to swallow. It’s an interesting story, to my daughter (and to me too) so I thought I’d share it with you…

When I was barely fifteen, I had a pretty traumatic break-up. It wasn’t that this boy was the love of my life as much as the fact that a relationship so intimate should not have occurred in the first place. I was young, I was damaged and this only served to wound me more. It was after the recovery began that I sat down and made a list. I simply prayed that God would show me the best features for my husband, because at that point I was beyond terrified of loving anyone else, for fear of the hurt…

My list included a lot of things that I found attractive or appealing. It also had a few things that I couldn’t quite explain, regarding their existence on my list. Time passed and I began dating someone whom inhabited very few of the things on my list, but I cared so deeply for him that I didn’t care. Looking back with this sort of adult reflection I realize this person was actually my first love. The first heartbreak had hurt, but it wasn’t about love as much as lust, codependency and an unhealthy need for someone to want me. This other relationship was love. It was that quintessential coming of age sort of experience that formed a vital part of me. The heartbreak eight months later was searing but bearable because I’d grown up some. I understood more. Also, my heart was being ripped to shreds in other ways so that goodbye took a back burner to life.

It was roughly two and a half months after that bus-station goodbye kiss that I found myself flooded with the knowledge that I was going to go to college in a few short weeks, where I would meet my husband. I was seventeen. Believe me when I say that, at my now 40 years of age (and the mother of a 17-year-old) this whole truth makes me a little nauseous. Also, the fact that I was not secretive about this sudden assurance and that every adult in my life responded with “that’s great!” really blows my mind…

During freshman orientation I scanned the new arrivals and sank upon the realization that my husband was not in the room. I just knew the second I saw him, that I would know. I already knew the majority of the upper class-men and knew he was none of them, so I volunteered to work the retreat weekend instead of camping with my school. What was the point of going if my husband wasn’t going to be there and I could earn a few bucks back in town.

I KNOW… I shake my head, as a parent, whenever this topic comes up.

So, Tuesday (post labor day camping as a college) I’m sitting with a friend in a chapel assembly. The speaker encouraged us to “mingle” with people around us, and that’s when this guy sitting directly in front of me turns around and smiles, says hi, compliments my necklace, says hi to my friend (as if they know each other!) and then goes back to his front facing seat. It all happened so fast that it took me a few seconds to comprehend the odd certainty rushing through me. That boy was my husband. I quickly ask my friend and she shares that they got to know each other AT THE RETREAT… I mean, what the heck?

After chapel I tap him on the shoulder, introduce myself and ask him why he missed orientation. He answers about being a late arrival and then tells me his name.

Let me take this moment to share a few fun facts leading up to this introduction…

his foreign exchange student BFF had played baseball at the group home I lived in, AND I had talked to him.
his girl BFF is someone I had met at camp and saw at all of the youth events where our youth groups both attended. We were cordial, but mostly I was pretty enamored by her because she was beautiful and friendly and I was a sheltered group home kid who didn’t see a lot of either. In fact at one event, at her church, I remember telling my own BFF “I bet her and I are roommates one day!”
his ex-girlfriend was a couple of years ahead of me at the same college. her roommate, freshman year, was my very good friend. When I would sleep over, the ex-gf would go home and I would sleep in her bed, where the wall was plastered with pictures of her “ex that she still loved.” My husband…
And this is Gen’s favorite detail: that spring we went to the same concert, and were in the SAME section.

Ok. So I get his name and immediately ask if he knows my recent ex, because they share the same last name. He didn’t, but it turns out that the majority of his paternal family (whom he had only recently met) lived in the same area my ex was from.

It was an instant friendship. (fun fact: His roommate ended up dating my roommate and they also married and are some of our dearest friends.) We palled around and did everything together. It wasn’t long into our friendship before I told him we were going to get married. This is where I have to point out a few things:

I wasn’t attracted to him. I don’t know why, he is attractive. I wasn’t attracted to anyone.
he was unlike anyone I had ever dated or been interested in.
he could be really annoying.
our sense of humors fell short of meeting in the middle, most of the time.
we only had one thing in common, life/future vision wise: we both wanted to be a stable home and love for kids who needed that.
he loved hip hop dancing and rap music, the two things I detested.
he hated to read. (though not on my list, I had spent so much time reading with my ex that I believed my marriage would involve books significantly.)
he did not enjoy debates, or deep discussions at all- something that I thrived on.
He didn’t really have a family. I didn’t either and so I really ached for one.
my long forgotten list was found 7 days after we met, and as time proved- he embodied every single attribute.

Though I didn’t, at first, understand why it was him, it didn’t take long for me to be so grateful it was. This girl who had been waiting for a family and completion eventually let the guard down and found it in him.

I don’t know why I knew, or how. I just know that there were dozens upon dozens of things, in those early days, that only confirmed it. And that vision we agreed on, that became our family. For twenty-three years we’ve been a home to many who needed one, but the best of these were our three kids.

(fun fact #2: His female BFF and I did end up living together for a short period of time. We never really became friends, though for a while I thought we had, but how I’d known that would happen I never quite knew.)

A thief called Comparison…

Published on July 20, 2016July 20, 2016 by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

photo-1459664018906-085c36f472af The other day Gen and I had the privilege of visiting someone’s home. They are new acquaintances and we were there for a casual little get-together. At seventeen, and dealing with so many major life things, it made sense that Gen was pretty quiet and filled with anxiety. After heading home though, she opened up about how beautiful their home was, (it really was of HGTV caliber) and how she felt stupid that we lived in an apartment.

Let me stop right there… We live in an apartment. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you wouldn’t really have caught on to that. In June our house sold to a really lovely younger couple and we are renting an overpriced but nice apartment. We have a beautiful poolside home complete with a fitness center, in the heart of everything. I am not feeling the least bit sorry about the lack of lawn care, no home repairs and no gigantic commutes… Seventeen year olds do not always get it though.

For her high school years, up until we separated at Thanksgiving, I was always hearing how the majority of her friends parents were divorced and how proud she was that we weren’t. Looking back over the years with her, I do believe that’s the only thing we had ever done right in her eyes and that is beyond tarnished and torn now. She hasn’t gone to school with the same kids since Kindergarten. We don’t, at 40 years old, have a big and beautiful home. We are not debt free. We do not take lavish family cruises. I think a lot of these unrealistic comparisons to which she holds her daddy and I against are due to the area we live in. This area is money. A lot of it. These kids are often known to blow wads of cash on drugs in the high school highway and then drive party after school in their Mercedes. So when she asks me to take her clothes shopping because she’s visiting a new youth group and so she needs new clothes to impress them, I want to feel empathy over this very unfair reality which her peers live in. Mostly though, I fall short. I roll my eyes internally and remind her that we are knee-deep in legal fees and medical debt and that she still needs a work uniform that I have to magically come up with.

But it goes beyond her. When someone asks what neighborhood you are in, and you explain the location and name of your apartment complex- there is an odd silence. For a beat or two the other person wonders if they heard you right, and then what is wrong with you…

What is wrong with me is that my journey is different. Apartments exist to live in, and I am not any lesser of a person for doing just that. They are not simply for foreigners and newlyweds. Granted, it was a gigantic challenge getting my kitchen to be a functioning on in the shoebox it fits into… But I’ll survive. Life’s not about my kitchen anyway.

I don’t want my daughter to feel shame over where we live. I don’t want her to be afraid to meet people, make friends and bring them over. More than that though, I don’t want her to be a snob. I don’t want her to be disappointed because we don’t fit the agenda of where 40-year-old parents should be. Is there a manual somewhere that says we should have a beautiful McMansion and a $12,000 vacation over the Holidays? If there is, I never got a copy and it’s probably too late to live the cookie cutter life now anyway. I love to help people. I love to touch lives. I love people in my home, and laughter and conversation and sharing… I love these things. I don’t care where I’m living, I will always love these things. And so I’ll just sit by and let Gen sort that all out. I’m very happy for the people I know with beautiful homes and more “successes.” My successes look different because I am different, and someday I hope Genny realize she is on her own journey and unless you pay a fee and/or choose it to be- it’s not a competition.

(also, if you haven’t entered my awesome giveaway yet, PLEASE do!)

Goodbye, for now…

Published on July 14, 2016 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

photo-1452827073306-6e6e661baf57 I’m parting ways with Facebook tomorrow, at least in the personal sense… I’m still found there professionally, and honestly there is a Facebook Group that I am not wanting to lose contact with and I cannot quite figure out how to do that and quit the social media site altogether. For now, step one, I’ve deleted it from my phone.

It’s funny when you tell a cluster of friends that you were crying, or you are tired, the majority of them will quip about their own sadness or exhaustion; you tell a few people about your plans to abandon Facebook though, it’s interesting how many people feel you’ve shared some apocalyptic revelation. Facebook? Why? What did Facebook ever do to you? Are you ok? Are you dying? Are you dead? Are you ______?

So, allow me to clear things up… Nope, not dying, dead or the facing any other tragedies… I am a little tired of being inundated with so much opinion and so little personal interaction. I am a little weary of cute video after cute video but little to no relational substance. Even so, those reasons aren’t really enough (for me) to leave the platform all together. My husband has Facebook relationships I’m not in agreement with and he has (multiple times) insisted that my Facebook page is justification for the lies and rumors spread by others… STILL not necessarily reason enough. To put it simply, I’m tired. I’m tired of the two sides of people who appear in the wake of every controversial issue or tragedy, and how behind the confines of social media they find “courage” to attack one another, thus provoking more senselessness… And on a more personal level, I’m tired of a lack of intentional interaction between “friends”. What has happened to relationships? What has happened to intentional, sacrificial and sometimes uncomfortable effort and presence in each other’s lives?

I will not change anything by no longer showing up in people’s feeds… But for the life I live, and the relationships I have, I can change the world. That’s all I’m after… Today is all I’ve got, and I don’t want precious moments-turned-hours to be sucked up in a life less “social” experience chalk full of short videos and political rants.

I once felt like I had to have a personal Facebook to maintain relationships I didn’t really have outside of that platform any longer, but today I’m thinking that I’d rather pour my effort into the relationships I value most.

The better sort of list…

Published on April 6, 2016April 4, 2016 by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Everyone is all about bucket lists… I made a beautiful one last year, to complete before I was 40. Losing my family and way of life shot my list all to hell, so I thought instead I’d make a list of the 100 BEST things I’ve done in my 40 long years…

skinny dipping in a natural body of water.
dancing in the rain.
watching fireworks, on a hilltop, set to Bach.
My first time at the ocean, a glorious week on the Oregon coast.
going in to NYC to see the tree at Rockafellar center.
Swinging with the kids I worked with, at Hope House, on a hot summer day with the public sprinklers on.
Snowcones with my kids.
Working at Hope House and the amazing, life changing relationships I made there.
Getting my nose pierced.
the tattooes I’ve carefully chosen.
I met Colin Firth.
falling in love with the culture and pop culture of South Korea.
Working at OBI and the dear relationships I made there.
That I’ve always been one to forgive and try again. No exceptions.
Seeing Starship on the Santa Cruz beach. It wasn’t Starship, but the beach, air and company.
My first upside down rollercoaster, in the rain, in St. Louis.
that I learned to appreciate music.
adopting.
The Chvrches concert. It was how concerts should feel.
New Mexico sunsets.
Reconnecting with my high school BFF and being one who demonstrated unconditional, sacrificial love.
Being stranded in an airport and befriending a total stranger.
knowing Jared Glenn.
Loving with my whole heart, even if that has never really paid off.
Understanding the value of true family, whether there’s blood relation there or not.
catching live crabs and cooking them on the beach.
the first time I held hands with a boy, no feeling compares.
seeing my niece be born.
the moment I met my husband and knew we would be married.
My first DMB show.
The secret P!ATD show in Boise, when Gen was little, complete with awesome treatment, tv interviews, etc.
Attending a wedding with an MTV film crew.
the first time I loped on a horse.
The gift of knowing and loving my grandfather.
My dog Paisley’s love for me. Life affirming.
My grandmother’s chicken and dumplings.
When my stomach finally eased after my first major bout with sea sickness.
The week long backpacking trip I went on, when I was in 8th grade.
Seeing a large meteor shower.
Seeing Wicked on broadway.
The time a bear went through our camp while we slept under the stars.
walking at the ocean, feet in sand and sea.
The first time I body surfed.
Genny’s Twilight impressions, when she was younger.
Learning to give facials.
any inside joke, with my husband.
Staying at the Regent Beverly Wiltshire.
Gen’s 6th birthday, in the hotel on Easter. it was really fun and a nice connection moment for C & I, with midnight cake and snuggles.
Christmas with my husband and all three of my kids.
The twin foster babies we had.
When my husband baked me a lemon cake for my birthday. It was one of the most beautiful, thoughtful moments I’ve had with anyone.
Tummy slamming, with Melanie, when we were little.
My cousin Kyle. He really changed my childhood.
My pet turtle Rosie, who made the journey from my house to my grandmother’s, a few blocks away, and back.
My german shepherd/husky (when I was a kid) named Betsy.
White water rafting.
The way autumn smells, in Idaho.
That huge, terrifying storm we had in Kansas, when I was 17.
Stars, porches and conversation.
My California girls trip, in 2001.
Alicia Michelle.
Petting an Elephant at the Portland Zoo.
The San Diego Valentines day getaway I had with Chw in 2002.
bacon wrapped dates in Illinois. Delicious dinner and lovely evening conversation.
The Blake hotel in Chicago. Stunning.
The gigantic moon the Christmas of 1999 in Phoenix.
My bus ride to Kentucky, from New Mexico.
The summer I went in a semi to Los Angeles.
The look on Chw’s face with his surprise 40th birthday. Making him happy was always my favorite thing ever, there was no one more deserving.
Hours and hours of playing Killer Bunnies.
Girl’s day on Make your Own Holiday day.
Being published in The Pink Project.
the living room conversation I had in 92. It was terrifying and safe to be known so well.
saving myself from my sexually abusive step dad.
the Detroit blackout in 2003.
the magic of my first plane ride to Michigan, amidst the turmoil surrounding me.
My grandparents shed, my safe haven.
playing “Mermaids” in Monique’s pool.
Seeing Chw & Gen when i got home from the LA nightmare.
My first trip to NYC. Tiffany & Co, Central Park & FAO Shwartz.
the first time I shot with my Canon.
My one and only healthy ultrasound.
Whenever I hug my son.
Face to Face conversations with my daughter Amanda.
Amanda’s wedding. Helping, being there for her and getting her through it, the father/daughter dance and how stunning she looked.
Waking up for 6 months of beautiful mornings, in the smoky mountains.
The most delightful conversation imaginable, with Emma Thompson.
Witnessing both the sun rising on the US east coast and the sun setting on US west coast. Different days, but still a gift.
email corresponding with my grandmother’s favorite soap opera actress, after my grandmother died.
Chw and his little figurine for me after I had my first real operation in 1999. It’s never meant more for me to see anyone in all my life.
hearing strange sounds and learning my cat, whom I didn’t even know was pregnant, had just delivered one single kitten, who looked nothing at all like her. It felt like a miracle.
A youth that included white water rafting, snow tubing, ice blocking and casually floating the river. It was a blessed adolescence for sure.
late night dance parties, being surrounded by the coolest of people you know.
Eerily quiet Chinatown, in San Francisco. Exhilarating.
Becoming sisters with my sister Sherri, who is my heart sister but I know there isn’t anyway we could be more genuinely real.
Being Julie’s heart daughter. She’s been gone a decade, this year, and I am still in awe of her love for me.
heart pounding risks…
following my instinct/intuition, and learning something anyway, when it may not work out.
Discovering Chinese massage. It may not be amazing everywhere, but here it is extraordinary.
My relationship with God, learning to blind trust and love through it has been the biggest adventure of my life…

Such Great Heights…

Published on April 4, 2016April 4, 2016 by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

photo-1434871619871-1f315a50efba

One week ago today I turned 40. I’ll get to that in another post because, frankly I need more time. One of the things I did in the forty days leading up to my birthday was attempted to do 40 adventures. (of sorts… since I’m broke, adventure was sometimes a stretch.) My one big adventure was a hot air balloon ride. I didn’t pay for it, I used groupon credit that had been sitting in my account since Christmas when I had to do a large return.

I also didn’t choose this for me. In hindsight I should have really thought about it.

I have this horrible habit of prioritizing the people I care about far above things like my housing, survival, etc. So, when Chw flew here in February, sat in the relationship coach’s office and said we would move towards reconciliation and me coming home- I decided to buy the balloon ride for him. The three dreams he’s had for the entire time I’ve known him have been to own and restore a classic pickup truck, to travel to Germany & to ride in a hot air balloon. I’m powerless with the other two but this I could give him. As a gesture of good will, as an effort in thoughtfulness, etc. See, the plan (that day that he decided this) was that I would be going home during Genny’s spring break, which was last week. The week of my fortieth birthday. I assumed we’d have four hard weeks of effort, work and growth leading up to that. I’ve been in the camp for months of how can we truly fix our relationship with the distance? (The people we’ve met with have asked the same question.) Over those four weeks though, what happened was Chw saying no, then yes, then no, then maybe. It got to the point where I felt like I was going to have to beg and plead with him to accept me, and truthfully I’m better than that. It got to the point where he decided he was a martyr and that if it happened, it would destroy his life. I deserve better than that too. I was a really great wife to him before my depression hit late last spring. I prioritized him, lifted him up and loved him fiercely. And so, as he went about those four weeks of frustration, I kept that balloon ride for him. I had faith that things would work out, and I still wanted to bring him comfort, build him up and love him. Truthfully though, I did regret buying it towards the end as it lost its luster.

By the time my birthday rolled around, I did not want to go with him. Originally it had seemed so poignant to be going home that week, to be granting him a dream in exchange for martyring himself in marriage, because our 22nd wedding anniversary was also that week. Everything would work out so poetically… Instead, I had the worst birthday in my history of birthdays, the worst week I may have ever known (in many ways) and was stuck going in the stupid balloon because he didn’t get someone else to go.

If you’ve never done a hot air balloon ride before, let me give you a head’s up. It is very couply. There’s a champagne toast about love, life together and so on. You stand so close to your partner, which was fine for the other couples in the basket as it was cold and they snuggled. When your husband tells you he is not at all attracted to you, seems repulsed when you cry hugging him at the airport and quickly backs away, and does not want any form (emotional or physical) of intimacy with you- the very close proximity in the basket is excruciatingly uncomfortable. When he treats you like you don’t exist, when you are surrounded by a very elaborate proposal, a stunning sunrise and another couple celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary- you seriously contemplate jumping from the basket 800 feet in the sky.

Tears stung my eyes nearly the entire time. He enjoyed his dream coming true and truthfully I was glad. I was glad that, in the life where he believes he owes me nothing and I am his worst case scenario, I was able to give him something good. That when our chapter is over, he is able to say Well, at least she did this for me, though we all know there will still be something wrong with that too.

One of my favorite love songs of all time, lyrically, is Such Great Heights. It stirs my heart deeply. It always has. Up there, from that amazing viewpoint of height, I looked at those couples with us. At the beauty of their lives, in that moment. I looked down over the valley where everything was visible. I saw the college where we met, the church where we were married and the thousands of places we had dated, laughed, loved and lived amongst. Every direction held some significant thing to say Good bye to, as I stood so close to the man who swears he does not hate me, yet acts like he’d rather I were dead.

From that height I was able to realize we were flying over hundreds of houses with broken families, healing relationships, divorces, abuses, depressions, illnesses and it goes on and on. It numbed me to the core to see that reality. As personal as my husband’s behavior is to me and our kids, it’s just one in a million shattering situations out there. It becomes a number. Even the very idea of a midlife crisis, which everyone thinks he is having, is something so common that it becomes not very special. My marriage ending, my family imploding, these are more common and normal than if we’d tried to save it. From up there, looking down, this made me so tragically sad.

Spread out beneath me was our life together. It’s beginning and it’s ending. And standing next to me was the man, obliviously in denial of how huge that is to the lives of those immediately involved and yet how pathetically average it is to the world below.