The earth's elliptical rotation (hint: it does not revolve around you)

This is a weird title for this post. It's something symbolic, though, for me. I used to think the earth turned a perfect circle around the sun, and when I realized the orbit was in fact more elongated, it was hard for me to conceptualize. I like things orderly. I like things to come out even. Eliptical just seemed disappointing.

It was even more disappointing to find out that the earth isn't perfectly round; is in fact, slightly pear-shaped. Did you know that? Is your mind bending just a bit?

This weekend was my church's big bi-yearly meeting. Every six months, at the beginning of October and the beginning of April, we meet for two days to hear our leaders speak. We spend a total of ten hours or so if you count the sessions for the women of the church and the priesthood meetings. I love these meetings. I feel a lot of peace--perhaps more than I feel at any other time. I also, suddenly, seem to find perspective, which is hard for me, sometimes--I am often very stuck in the moment and stressed. Being able to see and feel a more long-term, gestalt perspective of my life, of why I'm doing what I'm doing, being reminded of how much I love what I believe to be true and how much I appreciate and am grateful for all I've been given, is so refreshing and important. I wish they had general conference every three months instead of every six.

I used to be a part of an online community that took in LDS people from many different perspectives, mostly the off-beat among us Mormons. Radical feminists, disaffected members who still wanted to be part of an LDS-cutlure-based-community, members struggling with feeling sidelined because of things that had happened to them like divorce, or same-gender attraction, or infertility or whatever else gave us a need to go someplace to feel included. For a while I felt like Mormon Culture did not know what to do with me, a divorced 22 year old woman with a child. I went there to feel like I wasn't alone.

I loved being a part of this community for a short while, but I quickly realized that this community had its own standards of inclusion and non-inclusion. They were talking, one day (sorry, this is a bit gritty but it's my example) about female genital mutilation in Africa (a terrible thing, which I have read and thought a lot about because I knew I'd be adopting girls from Ethiopia. BTW my girls are fine.) Anyway, I brought up male circumcision. Jeffrey and I have had a lot of discussions about this, and we read a lot of information on both sides of the issue, and I wanted to discuss how our cultural expectations/norms also brought us up against something similar. In other countries, you see, they don't do it. But we do. Why?

I was pretty much kicked out of the discussion. Angrily sent on my way, in fact. I tried again a few times, and found that the same thing happened... kicked out, ignored, mocked even. It was strange, to me. If LDS culture has been so hurtful and non-inclusive to this particular collection of people, why the heck, after feeling all of that, experiencing it firsthand, would they turn around and do the same to others?

I had kind of an epiphany yesterday as I was watching Elder Packer talk. For those of you not familiar with Mormon stuff, Elder Packer is the most senior of the LDS apostles. He often speaks on the topic of difficult moral questions--pornography, marriage, etc... all the hot button issues. And he does it unapologetically. So he gets some flack.

Lately he has been very ill. In this last conference, I couldn't understand what he was saying. He was tired. He was struggling. I felt a great deal of love for him... the man's personality might not be mine, or mesh well with mine, but what he has to say has a great deal of merit. I remember one conference a couple of years ago, a talk of his that just struck me as powerful. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I may not understand him well as a person but he has valuable things to say.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, because I'm like that, I went over and peeked at this website I've stopped following. They often take conference talks and dissect them, discuss why they disagree, etc. Often, Elder Packer has been the butt of a lot of angst on this site. But seeing him struggle, with so much courage and humility, to deliver his conference address, nobody could possibly make fun of him, right? Because we're kind people. Even if we don't agree with the man, we're decent human beings.

Well, I shouldn't have looked. The thread on his talk was all about his garbled speech, making fun of him for a word people had mis-heard, talking about how they're ready to take offense because of all else he's said, etc. It made me pretty sad and pretty angry.

I shouldn't bother myself with this stuff. I know that. But this, for me, speaks to an overarching theme that disturbs me a lot. I see examples of it everywhere.

People think they're the center of the universe.

I've been thinking lately, about leadership and why it's hard. I was given a calling in my church a couple years ago (still plugging away) that involved an element of leadership. I got to know my bishop pretty well, and he'd talk to me about the struggle of being a leader and also being a principal. Jeff and I have been watching some star trek. You won't believe me but, if you want a good treatise on leadership and what it means, go watch a few episodes of Patrick Stewart in the role of Jean Luc Picard. I've learned a whole lot about being Young Women President from Jean Luc Picard. I don't think anyone ever thought that sentence would exist.

I've had a lot to chew on, thinking about leadership and what the job really is. Do you know what it is?

Making people upset.

Ok. Not on purpose. A leader shouldn't go out of their way to offend, to sideline, or to disagree with those who serve with them. But the thing is, the hardest part of leadership... the part of it that is the front-line, the part nobody else can take on no matter how much you delegate, is that very thing: having to make decisions based on careful consideration of all information, all opinions, all situations brought to your attention. I've learned that you have to expect that whatever decision you make will make a few people unhappy. Because that is just how it works--a collection of people with all different ideas of how something should, or could, or ought to or it would be nice!, to have it done this way, is just not going to agree. And so that's what a leader is for. To listen to everything and then make a decision. And then, the way it's supposed to work is, everyone accepts that decision and works together to bring about the common goal.

Of course, in order for that to work, all the people have to trust that their voices were heard, and that the leader is capable of making wise choices. That's the other ucky part about being a leader... you have a sort of obligation to try to get people to trust you. It's not about being liked, it's about giving whatever group you're trying to bring together confidence in your ability to make the choice that's best for the whole.

And generally speaking, it works out ok. There are a few who aren't all that glad, but they come along and work good-naturedly alongside everybody else and then the next time, it'll be their idea that gets put into practice. It balances. It comes around again. Everybody gets heard and eventually, everybody's ideas will be implemented and everybody's causes given attention. In an organization like the LDS Church, we fully expect that everybody who is there is there for a reason, and God will inspire each individual with something important to the whole.

The problem is, this doesn't always work. Do you know why?

Because there are some people who really struggle to see another's perspective. Their ideas are more important than others' ideas. Their cause is the most important cause. Their perspective is the only perspective.

It's like some people really struggle to see the universe as anything but revolving around them. THey see through their eyes, and feel with their feelings, and see the world around them as being only that way--the way they see it. They struggle to notice or give importance to anything but their feelings, their needs. And that even goes so far as spiritual feelings. One leader will have their heart touched, hard, by a certain issue or a certain individual they have stewardship over. Another person will have another set of needs and ideas come into their heart. A good leader will make sure each issue and each need and each individual is eventually addressed, but as there is only so much time and only so many resources, unfortunately all can't be addressed at once. Some understand this, and others see it as their ideas and promptings going ignored or being pushed aside as unimportant, no matter how you reassure them their issue is important to you as a leader.

In the case of General Conference, there are people out there who are hurting. I'm one of them. I really struggle with priesthood authority, with the issues of single parents, pornography addictions, and children in need. So when those issues come up my heart is extra-sensitive. THere have been times when the speaker went the direction that didn't necessarily nurture and help me, and if I wanted to, I could take offense and become angry and feel unlistened-to and hurt. Or.

The OR is this: Or I could realize that the Mormon faith is made up of many, many individuals with different and sometimes contrasting pains, hurts, and needs. I need to remember: the leaders of my church lead everybody. Not just me. The issues they address are everybody's. NOt just mine. A woman struggling with years of infertility might feel a lot of heartache over a talk about motherhood. But another woman, struggling with severe postpartum depression and feelings of inadequacy, needs that talk.

A woman who is divorced or single and struggling for perspective may be hurt by a talk about the importance of marriage, but another woman, contemplating marriage with a great deal of fear because of events in her life, perhaps parents or a sibling who has endured a painful divorce, needs to hear that message--that marriage is wonderful and important.

A man struggling with a pornography addiction may feel horrible during a talk about the damaging nature of pornography, but there are twelve year old boys who need to hear it, to have that salient in their minds as they negotiate the difficulties of junior high school and cell phones and sexts and free videos and all the stuff.

We all have very real needs and we all look to those who lead us for comfort, reassurance, and validation.

I think that the thing that has helped me most, is to *look* for those things in what my leaders say. Be on the lookout for those messages of peace and validation that speak directly to my heart. Expect to come away with a handful of messages that were meant specifically, specially, personally for me. I need to see and feel the love in that: this is a big church, 15 million people, and Heavenly Father, and my leaders, took the time to say these few, special things, just for me.

I remember how emotional and grateful I felt when President Hinckley, addressing BYU during the time I was there struggling as a single parent, mentioned divorce. Mentioned single parenting. How it was so hard. How he knew that those of us going through it spent long hours sorrowing. He said Heavenly Father knew our sorrows, and that he also knew our sorrows, and sorrowed with us.

Heavenly Father knows me and my sorrows. And the leader of my church was aware as well, and sorrowed with me. That's something I have cherished in my heart ever since. And I've cherished the countless other times when this has happened.

General conference is not just for me. The earth revolves in an ellipse... it moves in response to all the different forces pushing and pulling on it. And it does not revolve around me.

One popular phrase I find very frustrating:

Yes. Well, only from your perspective.
To someone else, It is something else.

This applies to more than just religion and religious discussion and policy. It applies to politics, policies, issues. It applies to Stuff. All Stuff. People struggle because they see out of their eyes and feel from their bodies and think from their minds and forget that other people, just as smart, just as caring, just as wise, are feeling and seeing and thinking from another place entirely and so they see something different. And both are important, valid, real, intelligent places to think and see from.

I hate guns.
You love guns.

I have eight children.
You are passionate about the environment and feel large families are irresponsible.

I am very religious, and I believe the gospel I've been brought up in holds important and necessary keys to salvation.
You believe that organized religion causes unecessary pain and conflict.

You think our country’s on the brink of socialism.
I feel frightened of the hysteria that seems to have gripped our nation on the topic of socialism.

We’re both here for a reason. Every human is born with passion and perspective, and over time all gain experience. We are all here to create what needs to happen and to be, together, what needs to be.

And that takes *All* perspectives. Yours, mine, the guy ranting in your politics class. The REAL killer in our society is apathy.

We need to step out of our lonely solar systems, where all the planets seem to pass around us in perfect symmetry and circumference and we're standing there on the sterile, lonely ground of our own making, and start seeing the universe for what it really is--a balance of so many crazy elements and objects and forces that we really can't even begin to understand how it all works together (though some really enjoy trying, and I dig that). To truly enjoy life we must enjoy the richness of a home, a church or social group, a society, a country, a world, made up of everything you don't understand. And we need to fully comprehend how every different perspective plays a part in that, even if we can't fully comprehend every perspective.

I'm weird, and it's actually OK!

Being too introspective and self-reflective can become a problem in itself. I have known a few people who've gotten stuck at this phase of recovery. It makes me uneasy, to be self-examining so much. But on the other hand turning inward to find out what's broken to fix, and what's not broken and doesn't need fixing is essential, I think, in rebuilding (or just building, for the first time) confidence in the aftermath of emotional wreckage. Emotional abuse demolishes you.

About fourteen years ago or so, I walked into the office of Dr. Bounous, of the BYU music department. I hadn't sung for two years. I'd had a pretty terrible experience with a voice teacher, and in my discouragement I abandoned singing for a while. It's an unfortunate coincidence that, during this same two year period, I was...

I don't even know how to say what it was that happened to me. There's no descriptive phrase for it. My husband wasn't my husband. My marriage wasn't a marriage. I was being emotionally and physically abused (it really kind of galls to put it in that way, passive. "being" abused. Ugh. I don't know why I have such a negative reaction to that. It just feels gross.)

Anyway. I decided to start singing again. I believe that was the beginning of my pulling away from the situation--taking something for me again. My relationship with my ex-husband had turned me into a nothing-person. My entire existence was lived to prevent him exploding, to prevent him from hurting himself or hurting me (and more often both). I spent all my energy trying to be "a better wife." That's how I perceived the situation. If I could just fold the towels exactly right. If I could just do all the dishes so there wasn't a single speck on a plate or cup. If I could just keep up with the laundry, if I could only stop biting my fingernails, if I could force myself to stop eating things with garlic and onions, if I could get rid of the upset and angry and helpless feelings I was having, if I could just be more interesting, so he wouldn't spend so much time in front of the playstation....

I walked into Dr. Bounous's office an empty husk of a person. I remember how drab I felt--I could see myself, how it wasn't right, even though I couldn't figure out how to be different at the time. I wore a white T shirt, washed-out overalls. my hair was blah and midlength. I generally wore no makeup, made no effort. I had no excitement about anything, no hope for joy in my life. I remember feeling extremely drained as I talked to him--perhaps the only person outside of my husband I had really communicated with in two years. (except for the phone conversations and occasional yelling-fights with my mother and other family members.) I remember as I went back and listened to the tapes, hearing how completely flat, drained, and passive I sounded, even as I sang, which in the past has been the way I express all the overpowering emotions I've struggled with all my life.

I was an empty person. I was used up, squeezed, out, burned out, drained. I was nothing.

Singing helped me on the way to recovery. Also, I latched onto whatever passions might be lying around--I worked with girls who had eating disorders, so I became passionate about feminism and body image. To the point of being grating on my friends and family members. Jeff was a vegetarian and a homeschooler, so while dating him and after marrying him, I became passionate about homeschooling and vegetarianism. Nature abhors a vacuum... I was vacuuming up everything in my immediate vicinity that I even sort of liked or was interested in, and adopted them as pieces of my identity.

Part of recovery for me has been to disassemble all this confusion--the causes and passions I've collected--and turn them over and examine them and decide which of them are real. This has made for some difficult times with Jeff--I've realized that, actually, I think homeschooling is wonderful but I also have some deep feelings about why homeschooling is not so good. And the same about vegetarianism. And a multitude of other things--feminism, liberalism, lots of isms and also lots of passions. Singing, for instance, is something I Love, but not something I need to be pursuing with professional intensity. I've realized that, and we no longer spend money on voice lessons. For me they were therapy. They were the vehicle that brought me back to myself. I told jeff, when I married him, that we probably either needed to afford voice lessons or therapy. ANd that turned out to be right. When, after eight years of lessons with Dr. Bounous, we moved away, and I tried voice lessons with someone for a bit, it wasn't quite the same. I didn't "need" them anymore. What I needed was...

yeah. Therapy. And spiritual counseling.

Knowing yourself is an important step in recovery from emotional abuse. One of the greatest miracles and gifts about the counseling I've received over the last couple of years is that I was talking to someone who is a whole lot like me. I don't think I can convey adequately what a rarity that is. Do you know how many people I've met in my life who I feel i share even minimal traits with? It's an extremely rare thing for me to find someone I identify strongly with. My cousin Greg was one, and when he no longer came to family reunions, I ached and felt empty, because I felt nobody else around me really understood me. My parents didn't, my cousins, while hilarious and nice, really didn't either. My best friends didn't. I had friendships that were long-standing, but not deep and vulnerable. I often felt rejected by people, and as I grew up, I stepped away myself, from offering feelings and thoughts that were vulnerable, from offering friendship.

My friends. Growing up was an interesting experience. I had a best friend in gradeschool who was so good at being "good." Being perfect. I remember constantly feeling unworthy of her. She got perfect grades; I struggled to make C's in math. She kept her thoughts focused on higher laws than I did... I got curious about the world's less righteous elements and would examine and turn them over in my mind and try to understand them. I didn't feel safe going to her, or to my parents, with these sorts of observations because a "good" girl shouldn't be thinking of these things, should she? I should be more like my friend, who thinks about... I don't know. Tithing and fasting and the Book of Mormon all the time.

As I got into high school, that spectrum turned full circle on me. My friends were not very religious--one was, but most of the people willing to hang out with me weren't, because I was Mormon and most were strong Baptists or Protestants or other ants who believed Mormons to be risky to associate too closely with. SO then I became the "too unworldly to get close to" element in my friendships. I felt, from them, exactly what I had felt toward my elementary-school best friend. They sheltered me; they protected me. They kept me away.

I had one LDS friend who I was close to sort of, in high school. But the relationship was often difficult. She made fun of me a lot. About me being gullible, using words that were too big, being "weird." She was kind of merciless, actually. It got pretty wearing, but there were also great times with her. Plus, I cared about her, and knew she was struggling.

But her treatment of me was kind of typical for my acquaintances. Growing up, I more often got made fun of than anything else. I learned to fight back. In Jr High it got pretty intense. I had jr high boys telling me how ugly I was, others making fun of me for things like not shaving my legs (I wasn't allowed until I was 14), and even sexually harassing me. I learned quickly some terms that I'm pretty sure my prim-and-proper best friend was never subjected to. I'm not sure why me, and not her... we were both prude mormons. Maybe I seemed weaker. Or maybe it was because I didn't cry. Or maybe it was because occasionally, when I got to the breaking point, I'd let off a rather cutting retort, and they enjoyed the reaction. I don't know.

The point is, going into my abusive marriage, I already had pretty poor self-esteem. I already felt completely alone, I felt like nobody understood me, heck, I didn't understand myself. I didn't know who I was.

I'm learning now. Some revelations are welcome, others not-so-welcome. But one thing i've realized is, I've got nothing to be afraid of. I think that for a long time (most of my life, maybe) I was frightened that I was actually a terrible person inside, and that, because I tried so hard to be good but somehow still messed up and somehow still seemed weird and unacceptable to people, and because I had so many struggles with my family, I was *actually* essentially, bone-deep, inescapably, bad. It's hard to look inside yourself if you're terrified of what you're going to find.

I've been using Typology lately to try to understand myself and some of the more difficult interactions I've had with others. I don't think things like the MMPI and the MBTI and even the DSM-IV are bringers of truth. I don't think they describe anything real. I think they're tools that can be both helpful and incredibly dangerous--they can give you a starting point and provide a map or a list of more-likely-to-be-useful suggestions, but they can also be a basis for judging others and pigeonholing yourself.

So I'm not going to state what I've found from these measures here. Sufficient to say, I've come out on the rare side of things. I've learned, from these tools of self-reflection, that part of my problem is, there really aren't that many people who are like me on this planet. I'm an unusual person.

When I was younger I internalized this as "weird," I was a weird person. Unnaceptably, uncomfortably weird. When I walked into a crowded room I would become intensely aware of my appearance, my posture, I'd be incredibly anxious about how people might be made uncomfortable by me.

It got so bad, I noticed I wasn't looking anyone in the face. I had to give myself a goal, my senior year in high school, to smile at people if I passed them in the hall and I actually knew them. People started smiling back. It was a revelation to me... that if I made an effort, I could still be acceptable to people.

I'm weird, but weird doesn't necessarily mean bad. I'm re-realizing that. But two elements of my weirdness provide me with some real struggles right now. One, perhaps the most damning for me, is that I need people to be authentic. Any hint at deception, or game-playing, or lack of honesty and authenticity, and I struggle to want to associate with someone even on a superficial level. That's a problem because how many people are really authentic like that? Does that make them bad people? No. But to me, emotionally, it's the world falling, to find out someone I trusted to be honest with me has deceived me... even white-lie deceptions, even "I don't want to let you know what I'm really feeling," deceptions.

This has been, of course, vastly compounded by the experience I had, where I married someone I thought I knew, and he turned out to be something completely different. I still go back over all my interactions with him, when I knew him before we dated and while we were dating, to see "what I missed." I can't find anything. He very successfully deceived me. And that's unusual--generally I can read people very well (though interacting with them is a different matter.)

The other struggle I have is, I blame myself for everything that goes wrong. Everything. And logically I know that's not the case; I know I can't possibly be responsible for everything that happens. It generally takes two. Lately I've successfully been able to get through forgiving myself when I know I've done something wrong, and asking forgiveness from others.

The thing I struggle with is how to forgive others when I've done nothing to deserve the hurt that comes. WHen I've contributed, I find it very easy to apologize, to accept their apology and move on. When I've done nothing, I struggle to move on. I hold on to it without wanting to. And it seems to continue... hurt upon hurt hurt upon hurt in every new interaction with them.

I think part of it is, I struggle to *believe* that I haven't done something to deserve it. That's something that just doesn't fit into my mind right now. And so what happens is, I go back over and over the situation, find that I couldn't have done anything different, and feel like, therefore, I must be an essentially bad person, because even though I did my best, I still did something bad that resulted in the "punishment" of someone hurting me.

Anyway. More vulnerable thoughts. Not necessarily needing a response. But if you have any suggestions... if you've been able to overcome some of these things, I'd love a place to start. A more-likely list of possibilities.

In any case. I'm learning right now, that I'm OK. I'm a good person. I really am. Isn't the definition of being a good person, someone who tries their hardest to do what is right and be kind? Sure, we all mess up every once in a while. But part of being a good person is messing up and asking forgiveness, or messing up and figuring out how to do better the next time. That's what it's like to be a human, during this probationary period. That's the *point* of it.

On Problems

When I post from this blog on twitter, it always ends up on facebook with a giant picture of my face. Which I hate. I realized recently (when I posed a blog with pictures) that twitter just wants a picture from my post--any picture--and it will choose my face if I don't find something else to give it. So, from now on I'm including at least one picture in every post. One, possibly random, but still nice picture that twitter can decide to use instead of my face.

Random Birdwing Butterfly


Actually, that picture might get me in trouble because look, it has a logo. So it's not in the public domain. It was, however, one of a few I have saved on my laptop. The reason why I had this is I was talking with a good friend (whom I have talked about several times on this blog, who also happens to be my bishop) about random things and occasionally I will send him a picture of something we both like. We both like this butterfly because it has his favorite color in it and also my favorite color in it, and I love butterflies, and he has come to like butterflies because I love them. Anyway, I sent him this butterfly several days ago. So it's on my desktop. Random explanation for random picture.

And really what I'm doing now is stalling, because I don't want to write this post. But I kind of have to. It's one of those prompting things, and on facebook this meme came up--the Thomas S. Monson quote of "Never, ever ever postpone a prompting." Heavenly Father is telling me something this morning.

So, yeah. I'm about to get painfully vulnerable. Sorry, or you're welcome, or whatever it is I need to say to you about that.

This is a hard time of year for me. It's, as I've stated in previous years, the time that evokes my feelings in an anniversary reaction. People who've gone through trauma might know what I'm talking about--that around the same time of year, or on an anniversary, of something really difficult that has happened to you, you start feeling cruddy. Or sad. Or just, your feelings are really intense and they burden you and make it harder to cope.

I have been, this year, more unapologetic about it, and my needs during this time, which I think has allowed me to feel the full scope of emotions and deal with them, which is what needs to happen. I think anniversary reactions are there because it gives you a chance to sort through emotions--they're intense enough and are on the surface where other times they might be buried pretty deep. So I'm working on that right now.

I have spent a lot of time, this time, talking to my husband. And also talking to my bishop, he's found time each day to see me for around half an hour, and it has been very helpful. I just feel very, very grateful for such a good priesthood leader and friend. Have I said that before? Yes I have. But I need to say it again.

I have also spent a lot of time being emotional around my husband. Which is very difficult for me, but which I am grateful I'm actually capable of right now. Have I said what a miracle Jeffrey is in my life before? Yes I have, but it needs to be said over and over. He is the singular most miraculous thing that has ever happened or ever will happen to me.

Last night. It was actually a pretty terrible night--lots of feelings as I came away from the business of the day that keeps me occupied and paying less attention. Just really, really difficult feelings. And last night the smoke detector went off randomly and I woke up to some really difficult feelings, too--like an anxiety attack. I struggle with that. If I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep quickly, the racing, distorted thoughts take over and not only do I not get the rest I need, my mind basically is hurting itself. It makes me wonder if somehow my mind addresses lots of issues and concerns and stuff while I am sleeping so that I don't have to deal with it when I'm awake. I don't know. It's possible.

Anyway, I woke up all the way and had to deal with that.

And then when I finally fell back asleep, I had a very strange dream. I dreamed that someone in my family--an in-law--was talking with me and as they talked, I realized they were really struggling. And as we continued the conversation, I realized that, in fact, they were really, really, really struggling emotionally. Terrible struggles. Finally this person kind of threw out her hands and said, "Sarah, I don't understand. With everything you went through, how come you don't have big, big problems?"

And I thought about it. It kind of hit hard. I realized that to her, I seem like I'm awesome or strong or really functional or something and that she was feeling sort of crushed by her own comparison, because it seemed I was not struggling as she was, and why was she struggling when she didn't have an event like mine (few people do, let's face it) to pin struggles on?

So I told her, in my dream.

I do. I really, really really struggle. Life is not easy. It feels crushing, sometimes. But I think two things are what has saved me, and saved the emotional well-being of my family as we struggle. I decided, a long time ago, that I will never, ever do two things. No matter how bad things get, I will never do two things. I will never

1) Leave my family.

That means I will never physically leave them, but it also means I will never do anything that is tantamount to leaving them. Like leaving the church, because that is leaving the covenant I made with them--that is leaving them in the eternity, in a way. It also means I will never commit sins that will keep me from being with them, or will break our family apart.

and I will never:

2) take my own life.

When I was young, my mother told me the story of her cousin. His dad (my great uncle) drank. He was not a good person to be around when he drank. My cousin felt like his life was pretty terrible and so at age twelve, he took his father's shotgun into the barn and shot himself.

I think that this, and also my grandmother's death at a young age, put the fear of God in my mother at the thought of this happening--to anyone she loved, to herself. She sees life as a precious and priceless gift, not one you should ever throw away. And as she reiterated to me and my siblings, like a mantra, growing up, "it always, always, always gets better. Always. Don't do something stupid because of a bad moment."

So even though I really do struggle, and I sometimes fall into a really deep pit of negative emotions--life is worthless, I am worthless, nobody loves me, this world would be better if I'm gone, etc; I know that ending it's not the answer. I know that what would happen in that case is, I would wake up on the other side and immediately think "what a stupid thing I did," and then I'd have to watch my family mourn and struggle and be betrayed and traumatized and then, eventually, move on.

Sorry. This is pretty gritty. I warned you, though.

So I want to tell the internets, and whomever I'm supposed to be writing to right now that, yes, I struggle. I struggle to the point, on occasion, where I can't get out of bed. I struggle to the point where I don't react well to my family--I have to isolate so I don't do damage because I know I'm not reacting correctly. I have to bite my lip or bite my tongue and not. say. a word. Because I know that the feelings I'm having and the words that would come out of my mouth would not be words I'd say if I were in my right mind.

I struggle with intense feelings of anxiety, paranoia, self-loathing. And there are some situations (like at church, unfortunately) when the negative emotions are just an assault at times--like being caught in a tornado, all I can do is let it pass and sort of wait. And hopefully not do any damage in the meantime by reacting inappropriately.

Yeah. I have big problems, guys. I really am pretty messed up. And I feel it, in full measure, at this time of the year when the leaves change and the air gets cold and instead of getting excited for school starting and apple cider and fall colors and Halloween and staying inside in the warm and looking out at the cold and all those wonderful things that used to fill my emotional experience during this time, I feel like the world is falling apart. And what I do to cope is, I hug my babies. I hug my kids. I hug my husband. I hug my bishop, I hug my young women, I hug my friends. I stay quiet except to those who I know I can talk to about it without destabilizing them (and hopefully nobody reading this blog falls into that category), who want me to talk about it because they love me and they just want me to talk to them about stuff I'm feeling.

OK. I'll leave this post on that note:

you need to know, person struggling. The people who love you, love you. Talk to them. They want you to--even if your mind is telling you they don't, that you shouldn't because you shouldn't burden people with the pain inside.... it is a lot more pain for them to know you're struggling, and to not have you trust and talk to them and let them help you feel better. OK? OK.

--and yes, I am fine. No need to send me texts or messages or anything else. LIke I said, I'm just writing this because I feel like I'm supposed to. Why am I fine? Read numbers 1 and 2 above.

Love you all.

How to Weather Hard Winters

One of my favorite books ever, like in my list of "top five", is The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I've read that she originally titled it "the Hard Winter," but her publisher had her change it, because he felt it was too harsh, the concept of "hard" vs "long."

As many of you know, the stories Ingalls wrote were autobiographical; what we'd call "creative nonfiction," nowadays, though she is such an accomplished writer, they read like novels. This particular section of Ingalls life-story stands apart from the others in the "Little House" series because it depicts a very difficult time for her family and for her little town. In The Long Winter we read about what it is like to go through near-starvation, death of exposure, being isolated on the Dakota prairie, during a wild and terrible time, from every help except for what the settlers in their little town could provide each other.

Therefore, we read of bravery. Sacrifice. Blind, dogged courage. I have two favorite parts of the story. The first is when Almanzo Wilder goes with a friend into the wilderness, under threat of deadly blizzards, to find food for the citizens in the town. The second is more relevant to what I'm writing about today: when Pa goes into the Wilder boys' store and offers a quarter for some grain he's savvy enough to know is hidden in their walls. He doesn't ask. But he also doesn't fight for it. He goes in, quietly, humbly, and tells them to fill his bucket with wheat for a quarter, so his family can eat for another few days.

Laura is the able-bodied member of her family. The Ingallses didn't have any sons, and so often it is her, going out with her father and helping him with the necessary tasks. She works hard to help her family survive.

And they do. In the end, the train gets through because of spring melt and the help of hordes of men shoveling off the tracks, and they get their Christmas turkey several months late. This story sends a very clear message--to survive, you need to pull together. You need to support each other. The very best and the very worst sides of human nature come out when people are fighting to survive. And those who make it are those who support and serve each other and accept service in return. Pa was a proud man, but he went into the Wilder boys' store with a quarter and an empty bucket because he had children to feed. Almanzo was going to get through the winter just fine, but he went off into the dangerous wilderness to find more food because he knew he would not be able to watch his friends starve around him.

....


I think back on some hard times of my own. I think one of my biggest failings has been my inability to ask for or receive service. It is a matter of pride. Some of us have pride that involves comparison to others' appearances, possessions, residences, professions etc. That has never been my problem. I personally wouldn't mind living in a cardboard box on the side of the road if I had to, if my family were still happy and healthy and well fed. Some of my friends could attest to that... I have a mild (or not so mild) obsession with tents and camping and backpacking. What I love is the simplicity of carrying all that you need with you. Not needing much at all to get by. I've been very blessed, however, not to have to live that way as a necessity. Perhaps my perspective would be different if I did.

However that is also my problem and my own personal brand of unrighteous pride--that sense of simplicity, of being able to get by on my own; priding myself in independence from others. I have struggled, in my life, to accept service because I feel frightened at the thought of not being able to get by on my own. Of having to depend on others. What if they fail me? And what if I can't give them anything back in return? Does that make me a broken, incapable person who always takes but never gives? Does it make me selfish and self-centered, that people serve me?

I have, however, gone through seasons in my life just like that hard winter the Ingallses weathered, where accepting help was necessary to my survival emotionally, physically, etc. And I wouldn't have been able to accept it even then, if it weren't for Loli.

for Loli's sake, I accepted a lot of things.

After everything fell apart and I found myself a divorced single parent, full-time student, part-time employee, I realized I literally could not do it on my own. I needed, for instance, someone to watch her while I finished my degree, and while I earned the money necessary to feed, house, and clothe us. And even then, I didn't make enough money to do so on my own. My parents bought a condo, which I lived in, rent-free, for two years.

During this time, I had a difficult schedule--get up at 4:45, drive Loli to Santaquin (because it was the only childcare we both felt comfortable with), get to work by 5:45, work with dozens of women struggling with tragedy, emotional upheaval, overwhelming anxiety and depression until 6pm, drive back to Santaquin by 6:45, get home by 7:30, play with Loli for an hour and give her dinner, get her to bed by 9. That was three to four days of my week.

The other days I spent trying to take care of the "everything else", taking care of my little girl and focusing on her during the time I had with her and also on bills, car maintenance, cleaning, shopping for groceries, and, eventually, dating my husband.

I look back on those years and the feeling I get from them is just.... emergency. I was constantly high-strung, constantly putting out fires. Like when our only car broke and the shop told us it was a new head-gasket (turned out they were trying to get money... I took it somewhere else and they bled an air bubble out of the radiator for free), and I was at work trying to focus on my job while trying not to worry about transportation and trying not to worry about Loli and how she was doing and whether she was being treated right and whether she was eating and whether I was spending enough time with her.... you get the picture.

I look back on my own "hard winter" and wonder what it says about me.

I learned how to accept a little bit of help and service--the stuff I had to accept for bare survival. I wasn't, however, always the best employee. I was too stressed out. Stressed to the max. And in an environment where everyone is professional... where maybe a few are enduring their own "hard winters" but everyone keeps it all to themselves... it's not quite the same, I don't think. It's not a community pulling together. It's a few people floundering to themselves in a mass of humanity all trying to figure out how to be best at what they're doing.

I didn't do as well as I could have. Well, the thing is, I did as well as I *could* have, in the situation. But people I worked with didn't get the "best" me, if that makes sense. And neither did Loli.

I look back on those experiences and wonder how I could have functioned better. I think it would have involved going to people for help instead of staying stubbornly independent and to myself. The Lori Hacking story broke during that time. And I was feeling some very strong fears, angers, and grieving. What if I had gone to my supervisor and talked to her, instead of staying behind the nursing station all day and isolating and not talking to anyone, including the patients I was supposed to be helping? What if, instead of presenting a hard, blank face to the world and keeping a wall between myself and others, I was being honest and open and vulnerable. Like "here is what I have to do this week. Just so you know." And then letting people talk back about their own stuff, and commiserating, and strategizing together... that is the stuff of which friendships are made. Of which functional, supportive communities are made.

The thing is, it has been a hard journey for me to be able to be open that way. I think my problem is, if something difficult is going on in my life, my default is to blame myself for it, to believe that I deserve it. So I feel shame, and keep it to myself. I am working on that.

I have realized, however, that some people also do not welcome vulnerability. They would rather stay in their shells and struggle alone. They feel threatened by others' sharing.

And some want to serve, and not be served in return. To them (and to me, I'll admit it) being served is giving up too much control. When someone does something for you, what might be their motive? What do they expect from you in return?

You can think of it that way, or you can see it as a symbol of something much more powerful and important. We are all the vessels of God's grace for each other. Sometime, at some point in your life, you will go through a season (more likely multiple seasons) of needing the service of others. You can either accept it and be whole, or push it away and struggle and not be as whole as God would like you to be.

In order to be strong enough to serve others, you need to accept service yourself. That is the beautiful, (sometimes, it feels like, horrible, but really, like anything really difficult, it's redeeming), truth to it all.

And how do you think someone feels about you after they serve you? Let me tell you from experience. They love you more. ANd they love you in a way that is Godly--they love you as someone they have served. It's a sort of love that runs deep, that infuses your relationship with forgiveness and mercy and longsuffering.

As anyone who has read the LIttle House series knows, Almanzo Wilder eventually married Laura. And I have wondered... how much of that feeling, that warmth he had for her that lead him to court her, came from the incident of filling her father's empty bucket?

RE Feminism: Sister Oscarson, Kate Kelly, and Small, Tired Me.

I’m sad about this Kate Kelly thing.

It is hard to be a moderate feminist in the church. Some people tell me I shouldn’t label myself. A long time ago I wrote a post about why I call myself a feminist.

I feel like moderate feminists are in a tough spot right now, because of Kate Kelly and Ordain Women and other movements that basically sideline more moderate views. I feel like I have been called a lot of things lately by these more extreme feminist elements in the church—oppressed, ignorant. Uneducated. Unaware of church history, etc. All those things are inaccurate. Up until a couple of years ago, I participated occasionally in a large, well-known forum where women from the church gathered to discuss women's issues. I liked about 30% of what I read there, struggled with 30% and got sick of the drama that was the other 40%. I left that group when someone told me how wrong it was that I had so many children and that I must not know how to use birth control. (I don’t think anybody who says that truly realizes what they’re saying. Which of my children are you saying I should wish I don’t have?)

And so it is hard to find opportunities to discuss these things that are so important to me (how to help women worldwide, help for the spouses of pornography addicts (often women), help for women who are abuse victims, help for women who struggle with eating disorders, how to prevent these sorts of things from happening to the rising generation of young women, who I love with all my heart) among the general population of the church, without being sidelined and labeled as an extremist myself.

I think it’s hard to be a moderate anything these days.

I feel badly for Kate Kelly.I feel badly for all the women who are struggling because of this, feeling small, like they can’t speak up and be heard. That frustrates me. You CAN speak up and be heard. You CAN have opinions. As Kate Kelly’s bishop said (in the private letter provided so willingly to the media) the problem is not how you feel, what you wonder about, what you wish could happen, or your own answers to prayers and personal revelation you feel you’ve had. The problem is when you start telling people that your opinions are the right ones. When you start ridiculing others for disagreeing with you. When you start to accuse people because they aren’t giving you exactly what you want, right now, and you start talking to others about why this is a bad thing and stirring up peoples' doubts, fears, and pain to gain followers for a cause you've adopted in opposition to those who are actually in charge of figuring these things out church-wide. Personal revelation: that's yours. Revelation for the church? It'd be chaos if everybody decided suddenly they could receive revelation for the church.

In the wake of all this, I feel like things have gotten disingenuous. Sorry. I know that I’m judging. But I feel like some of the actions—providing everything to the press, not going to your own disciplinary counsel and instead submitting hundreds of letters from “followers” and a legal brief detailing exactly why church discipline doesn’t stand up to some sort of contract concocted by someone who’s read some version of the church handbook and extrapolated to create “rules” nobody has agreed to—show that a person isn’t much interested in remaining. It shows that you're finding plenty of support and fellowship from followers, and that is what is important to you. I might be wildly wrong, but that is what I feel burdened by, reading all this stuff.

I guess I’m mostly frustrated with a phenomenon, not a particular person. In short: NO I don’t want the priesthood. And I am fine with how the church is structured, I believe it is inspired, and I do my level best to manage my own heartbreak and pain over very real events that have damaged my trust in priesthood holders. And that does not make me ignorant, oppressed, or uninformed. I have had too many experiences with priesthood that are significant and real to not have a testimony of it. I have had answers to prayers that are unequivocal. That is where I’m at.

I’m OK with where you’re at, wherever that is—extreme on either side, moderate, or even ambivalent or not needing an answer. And what I wish: that we could all be ok with where we’re all at, and not judge each other. From any side. When I choose friends, I don’t look for a set of beliefs that match mine. I look for genuine people who are compassionate. I do enjoy certain traits: people who work hard, people who don’t complain, people who are open-minded. But those aren’t requirements for my friendship. I enjoy people, period.

I feel like this whole thing with Kate Kelly had been very hard and painful to watch. And I hope the aftereffects don’t make life harder for people who question. Because we need questioners in our church. Questions are how you get a testimony. If you have nothing to bring to God, you can’t get any answers in return.
I also hope the aftereffects don’t make life harder for people who willingly obey. Because it is no less hard for us—those journeys of testimony. We’ve had struggles, too. We’ve had our moments of wanting to give up. We’re not ignorant or uniformed, and we’re not close-minded.

This video by Sister Oscarson, our General Young Women president,exemplifies to me how we should act toward each other, no matter what our beliefs and circumstances are, no matter what sort of testimony we have. No matter what our standing is with the church (or outside the church. This isn’t just about church members, it’s about EVERYONE.)

On Who We Are (and the fact that I occasionally accidentally or on purpose use words I should not)

I try hard to be a genuine person. But, like anyone else, I do tend to filter certain aspects of my personality/range of actions to what I believe will be comfortable to a certain audience, particularly when I am in the stage of getting to know someone and they are getting to know me. Also on social media, I don't talk about certain things, and I don't get as detailed when I do talk about things, and I also usually moderate my impulses.

Usually.

I'm wondering this morning what makes a good person. Are you still a "good person" if you do things occasionally that you know are wrong? Or inadvisable? This is a thing in my family, I think.

I was having a conversation with my mother and sister the other day and we were discussing our family's tendency to worry our brains to death about loved ones making social faux-pas and how we feel even more embarrassed for those we love than we do for ourselves, when they do something embarrassing in public. For me, that translated to some difficulty when I was a kid.

Loli graduated from Primary recently and came in the Young Womens' program. I tend to watch Loli with a lot of joy and pride. But when she's making ill-advised decisions socially or doing things that I worry might embarrass her or give others the wrong impression, my giant, overwhelming impulse is to correct her. I am trying very hard to shove that impulse down into the depths of oblivion where it belongs. Because if I *weren't* a YW leader, what would happen in those situations? Her friends would help her moderate her behavior by telling her it's annoying or saying "that wasn't nice" or backing off emotionally and she would learn, like any other sometimes-annoying-still-learning-how-to-act Beehive, what is and isn't ok. My job, really, is to be emotional support and a place for advice, if she wants it, and yes, occasionally when I think she needs it but that needs to not be heavy-handed, in those situations. Now, active wrongdoing... that's another matter. If she ever did something actually wrong, on purpose, and repeated it or seemed unapologetic, then I believe that is my place to step in and correct her.

Not in front of everybody, privately.

Having said that. It's funny how we get into these states with our kids where we see every little mistake, on purpose or by accident, and freak out about it inside. At least, I do. I get into a "what does that mean? What will her life be like if she never ever learns not to do that? What will happen if she grows up thinking this is really ok when it's not?" state.

You know what, though? I'm not perfect either.

I swore on the internet the other day, for instance. What would I do if my twelve year old daughter did that? Oh, you'd better believe she'd be in trouble. No social media for a week or something. Yeah, some of you are like, "really? For swearing?" thing is, every family has different things they are trying to help their kids understand. They are related to values that are held dear in an individual family.

Well, guess what. My mother is a convert, and when I was little she struggled to keep from letting off bible swears, in particular. FOr instance, I had no idea that the word "dammit" was actually "damn it," that it involved the word "damn" until I said it in second grade and my friend was shocked and said she was going to tell the teacher. That's how I learned that some of the words my mother said were ones she'd taught me never to say.

By the time I was a teenager she was saying it a lot less. But the thing is. I learned, from that, that good people sometimes swear when they are upset. And so... on a very, VERY rare occasion, I am less motivated not to say swearwords like Damn and Hell than probably some of my LDS peers who never heard a parent say them ever in their life.

Also, I had some friends in high school and in the year after high school, when I worked and lived at home and went to community college, who were great people. Wonderful people. People who were working hard to be good people. Who spoke like the F word was an adjective, a noun, and a verb--a very versatile word, the F word apparently is. I would never say it, and yes it bothered me, but I never thought of it as something that *made* someone a bad person, the words they chose to use.

For me, when I think of language (and here we're getting into writing) I think the worst use of words, the most wicked, would be to manipulate someone or deceive someone. I'd much rather be around someone who liberally sprinkles their vocabulary with salty words than someone who lies. Or someone who gossips.

I think that the commandment about not taking the name of the Lord in Vain is the definition of swearing. I only use God's name when I am speaking directly to him. That is the one that makes me wince, that I would never use. That is the one that is covenant-breaking, I believe. As for the others? Anglo-Saxon. Quite crass, yes. Pretty rude. I'd not refer to feces in general, no matter which word we're talking about, in polite company and for no reason. Or use crude words to describe something sacred like sexuality--that taps into a lot of feelings and sadnesses for me. I'd not use those words for *that* reason.

Bible swears? Yeah, it's pretty rude and presumptuous and judgmental to damn someone or say they belong in hell. I might even be in danger of hellfire myself if I tell someone to go there, or say they're damned. So yeah, that might have spiritual repercussions, too. I should really avoid those words, just in case. I try to. Occasionally, very occasionally, like numbered on one hand, (maybe two) (ok, maybe fingers and toes) I have let one of those loose, and I feel bad if it offended people. But I don't feel bad if they judged me for it--that is their lack of perfection coming out. But I forgive them for it!

Sometimes, when you are working hard on difficult things, or you just have crud handed to you that you do not deserve (we all do!) We have a default bad behavior we are tempted to fall on. I am glad mine involves words and not other stuff I've seen people do. Of course, that does not excuse it. But guess what? You press someone hard enough, you load them down enough, and then put something in their path? They might stumble. On occasion.

Who am I? I am a not perfect person who sometimes makes mistakes. And sometimes gets sad and angry enough to lash out... at myself, not others. It has been a hard month. A hard, grinding few months. And I hope my friends forgive me my lack of perfection. And those who are not my friends? Yeah... I struggle to scrape together enough initiative to care.

Smiley face.

On Coming Out of One's Shell

I have always found that analogy disturbing, because what is a shelled creature like when it is out of its shell?

Yeah. Soft... unprotected... generally a bit ugly. And they're not *supposed* to come out of their shells all that often. It's a pretty lousy analogy.

I want to sort of think/write about two topics that seem related to this whole shell-shelling concept. The first is:

Why is it so hard?

I think my biggest motivation in trying to approach others is connection. And also, relationships. And also, to be more approachable myself, because I'd like people to feel safe coming to me in person, not just on the internet, if they need help. I'd like for people to feel safe talking to me if they need someone to talk to. I have been through a lot! It is comforting to me, that I can use what I have been through to help others. It gives the whole lame experience purpose. On the interface of the internet I am approached regularly by people who have gone through stuff. I share my thoughts about going through divorce, or tragedy, or a spouse's pornography addiction or struggles with priesthood or whatever. And, of course, about writing.

I was talking with a friend the other day about why it is so hard to approach people, or to feel like we've done a good job when approached by people for help. Why we tend to think back on conversations and rehash everything and beat ourselves up.... Why, even if we know someone in our acquaintance has gone through something difficult or could use some friendship, it is so hard to reach out. I think it's a few things combined.

First of all, Shyness. Shyness, I think, is partly a fear of rejection, and partly being easily overwhelmed in new, or confusing, or complicated social situations. Also worry about offending others. I think that last one is the biggest for me. I worry constantly that I have inadvertently offended or hurt people or made their lives harder because of my interactions with them.

The second is empathy. When you are capable of feeling for others, you want to help them. Partly because you are feeling for them, and partly because it's just important--people who are struggling need to be helped by people who feel for them. You are suffering with them (a much smaller degree than what they're suffering, but still.) It is very hard to watch someone I know struggle. At church especially.

I think that the combination of shyness and empathy KILLS. You want so badly to reach out, so you do, and then after you do, you beat yourself up over everything you did or said and basically come to the conclusion that you've made someone's life harder, not easier, by your interference. It's tough. And yes, I realize that this negative way of thinking needs to be ferociously challenged.

The second thing I wanted to address on the topic of newly-unshelledness:

Being hurt.

I have been pretty badly hurt. I can now freely admit that without feeling shame. Just because you've been hurt does not mean you brought it on yourself. Also, it's OK to talk about it. It's something to know about me, as a relationship develops deeper. It's sharing--it's OK. And one huge revelation I've had lately is...

ALMOST EVERYBODY has been hurt. At some point, by some thing. It really is true that we are all fighting invisible battles.

I have been thinking lately that a lot of the strife that occurs between people (who are nice and trying to do what is right) has to do with these hurts and nicks to our self worth, and how we interpret the world through the facets we are left with. Honestly. I think that people often think that they are the only ones who struggle. I know I get that way at times. And so they're struggling, and someone says something to them in a not-quite-perfect way, or accidentally forgets to do or say something exactly right, and because they're in that difficult place it's an extra painful thing.

When someone hurts us, how do we react?

In the past, it has been a struggle for me to even admit when I've been hurt, but boy have I reacted anyway :) with anger, accusations, sometimes giving someone the cold shoulder for a bit. I stew and stew and stew and wonder and cry and struggle. And yes, part of that is because I was significantly hurt, and it affected my trust in people to a severe degree. Part of it is also because, newly-deshelled, I have been extra sensitive and soft and injurable.

But I was thinking the other day. A phrase has been repeating in my mind and soul lately--being a soft place to land. We all make mistakes, every one of us. Usually by accident, but sometimes even on purpose. Some times we do things we know aren't perfect, that might hurt another person. What if, instead of reacting angrily and defensively to others' imperfect moments, we became a soft place for each other to land? What if we sought understanding, exercised empathy, and saw the other person's nicks and hurts, and recognized that the person who hurt us is most likely coming from a place of pain or confusion or worry just like our pains, confusions, and worries.

What if we all did that?

Wouldn't the world be so much easier to live in? What if people helped instead of calling the city? And if a person calls the city, what if I responded by thinking about how, to go through the trouble of calling the city, my weeds must have bothered someone quite a bit. And for some reason they felt unable to approach me about it. So maybe I should prioritize their removal and not stew over it. Maybe the person who called had a really bad day and my weeds were a last straw, and maybe they're regretting what they did right now. (Sorry to use a real life example, it's one I've spent a lot of unproductive time being hurt and angry about.)

What if, when someone *really* hurts you (and it's okay to feel pain, to retreat, and to remove some trust in those situations, but) what if you could come out of your pain and realize someone else's?

How would I feel about someone that I was really mean to, who immediately forgave me and was even nice to me, and acted like they were my friend anyway? I would trust them, that's how I would feel.

I want people to trust me. And I want to trust others.

I'm working on it.

Big Families: Teaching Teamwork But Keeping Things Fair

This is a big one.

I have thought a lot about this, in fact. I have wanted to have a very large family from the time I was very small. When I was about two or three, my mother caught me trying to nurse my baby dolls. As late as eighth grade, when they handed out "flour babies" as a school project, I was thrilled for the opportunity to pretend I had a newborn to carry around and nurture. I have wanted to be a mother for my entire life.

WHen my friends asked me when I was in high school, I used to say I wanted twelve children--enough to have two basketball teams or baseball teams that could play each other. I was not really joking. I have loved the idea of a large family. I loved visiting houses where large families lived. I wanted to have lots and lots of kids. I looked forward to developing traditions and a family culture and friendships and a support group that would just be tight and close and friends. I envied my friends who came from larger families than mine (and, OK. I came from a family of six. That's still pretty big.)

I wasn't aware, when I was young (or when I started having my family) that being in a large family might have its downsides. I was amazed to realize that some people who came from large families didn't like it--they felt exploited, or shortchanged, or something. And they then made the decision to have only a few or one or no children.

It has made me ponder a little bit. Is it exploitation, to have a family so large that you cannot get by without the kids pitching in? Older kids helping younger kids out, all kids over a certain age doing a share of the housework? And my poor oldest kids. They won't know the benefit of lots of different lessons because I can't afford them yet, with so many kids down the pipeline absorbing expenses. They spend some time babysitting instead of going on playdates with neighbors several times a week. I may only have a small amount of one-on-one time for each kid on busy days. I may have no time at all for some, if some are having meltdowns/have to go to the dr/need lots of help with a school project on a certain day.

I was feeling all guilty and worried until I had an opportunity to be around someone (an adult) who surprised me with their lack of willingness. I'm not sure of any other way to put it than that: lack-of-willingness. A lack of willingness to be inconvenienced, to do a job that is mundane or grinding, to pay attention to kids when they would rather be doing something else. This person was sort of a part of our family for a while and it surprised me to see up close what they struggled with; not just helping others, but being able to help themselves. I realized that this is not a trait to be desired at all. If you aren't used to being inconvenienced, to doing things you'd rather not be doing when there are more fun things to do, If you aren't used to stretching yourself to do a task you are not used to, you can end up in a world of hurt as an adult.

And that's when my thoughts about this whole big-family thing turned around. If you grow up without having to do things to create the comfort you're a part of, you just expect it to happen to you. Case in point: a boy whose mother does all their dishes, laundry, and cleans their room for them. They go off to college without knowing how to go about these things, and also unused to the tasks. They're going to be pretty messy roommates for a while, and it will be a real burden for them to suddenly assume it all at once, instead of learning, year by year, how to do it for themselves.

So a big family, done right, can teach some really great and important life skills. It can teach hard work. It can teach teamwork, because there's a very real need for it--my house would never, ever be acceptably clean if my kids did not help out. One person cannot keep up with nine peoples' messes. It can also teach compassion and nurturing. I cannot be holding the crying four year old WHILE I am nursing the needy newborn AND bouncing the irritable toddler on my knee--an older kid gets that opportunity, to help her sister feel better. To put herself in someone else's shoes. To get used to being needed, and be OK with being needed.

I think that's a problem in today's society. I think a lot of people shy away from obligations. They don't want to feel obligated or needed. I'm not saying this is the case with all people who come from smaller families--that's not it at all. And I'm not saying it's the case with all people who don't want kids, either; I have childless friends who, for instance, adopt needy rescue animals. That's not what I'm talking about here. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it: people who are used to playing all the time, not working. People who are used to getting what they want, not waiting. People who get bored really, really fast because they are used to spending much of their time being entertained.

That may sound harsh. And I know a few people's feathers will be ruffled, reading this. Sorry about that.

I want my kids to learn something different. And my hope is that having a large family, if you do it right, can teach these skills without overwhelming the kids so much that they look back on their experience with pain and frustration. I've been thinking about ways to do this--strategies for balance. Here's what I have come up with so far.


WAYS TO NOT EXPLOIT KIDS WHILE HELPING THEM TO LEARN WILLINGNESS:


1) Make sure you praise them and say thank you. Even if it is something they know they have to do, people like to be thanked and appreciated for their hard work. Kids are people.

2) Rewards. As an example, Jeff and I go out on a date each week. If my kids complain I don't say "tough, it's part of being part of this family": instead, I remind them that mom and dad go on dates to keep this family healthy; that maintaining our relationship is something that benefits them as well. And I give treats: incentives for older kids to do a good job and for younger kids to be easy to babysit. I was the oldest in my family, usually the babysitter, and struggled with my siblings. They were not very motivated to be good and easy kids to babysit, and a lot of the fallback ended up on me. I really couldn't win. I had to stay home and watch the kids and I got chewed out and lectured afterward because the experience was always contentious and destructive. Kids went crazy and disobeyed rules (it seemed sometimes, on purpose to get me in trouble.) Ugh. Bad memories. I want babysitting in my home to be a time for the kids to bond and have fun away from parents... and to test the waters a bit. Be given a chance to obey rules on their own. The reward seems to help with this.

3) Related to the above: power struggles. I try hard to stay out of them. Not just between myself and my children, but between the kids, too. I do that by not allowing kids to "tell" on each other unless a) someone is being hurt or b) something is being destroyed. And I will only step in if it sounds like some real contention is stirring up. I think it's healthy for kids to learn conflict resolution. I think it's unhealthy, most of the time, for a parent to step in and start handing out punishments unless a rule is being broken (eg hurting or destroying). I will, however, process conflicts with my kids after they've been resolved, and try to help them figure out better ways to deal with conflict.

4) Burdens. I try very hard to be aware of the burdens each of my kids have. For instance, my sixth grader is currently managing the workload of 6 different teachers, she has play practice for a couple hours after school, and she has mutual activities to attend (which I want her to attend.) She often stays up until 10:30 at night doing homework. On occasion,I decide that she doesn't need to do the dishes, even when it's her night. Sometimes I need to do them for her, and that's OK if she understands I'm doing it *for* her, because I want to make sure she's healthy and able to balance her load of responsibilities.

5) Fairness. I know that's a word a lot of people put down nowadays, but I think it is very important to *try* to be fair. It won't always be fair, and kids need to know that. One child's needs sometimes outweighs another's, and sometimes one kid needs a different approach than another. Sometimes one kid gets a special treat because they had to have their tooth pulled even if, yes, it was their fault for not brushing their teeth. Sometimes the overburdened adolescent needs some time to herself with mom and no other kids just to talk. And of course, it's absolutely unfair that the tiny baby gets every waking minute of mom's undivided attention for months after he is born. That's life. But... a parent should try very hard to be as fair as he or she can be. We adults still like to be treated fairly. Give kids equal opportunities to be good and earn rewards. Don't blame one kid for things more than another. Some kids do test the waters and push boundaries more than others, but watch that. Make sure you don't scapegoat. And Don't favor one kid's brand of brilliance over another's. Loli is a briliant writer and singer, and my natural feeling is to be amazed and grateful for that. But MayMay is brilliant with people, and engaging, and a ray of sunshine and she is always thinking of others. That deserves just as much time and attention and recognition. Try to do things that will help your kids to not compare themselves to each other and compete for your affection.

6) Be always available. It's important. If you have eight kids you have approximately no free time. If stuff takes you away from them, it better be important stuff. (Stuff like a cultivated hobby or talent is important stuff--we need those sorts of things. Yes, I am talking about writing. But you maybe only have time for one. I cannot do writing AND sewing AND be a gourmet cook AND become a super couponer.) Stuff that takes you away needs to be important and there can't be that much of it; you have to choose between better and best. Because they all need some time with you. My mother had a saying: if your house is clean, that's nice. But as a mom, your most important job is to be a lap. If the dishes are dirty in the sink and the room is strewn with objects and the counters are sticky and the laundry in a giant messy pile all over your living room floor, your most important job is *still* to be a lap. And a good friend of mine added to this: as they get older, it changes from lap to ear. The most important job you have with older kids, is to be an ear. That means you need to be there and available to listen when they want to talk.

7) Don't exploit them. There is a point, I think, where help and family teamwork can become exploitation, and I think that line is crossed when parents forget to think of their children as humans with needs equal to theirs. For instance, don't make your older kids babysit everyday. Or every other day. Your kids want you around, and your teenage girls are not ready to take on the burden of full-time or even part-time parenthood. Be respectful of their wants, too, as they age. When they get old enough to start to go out and play with mixed groups or go on dates, plan a weekend *with* them. Don't just say "Bye, too bad, Friday night's ours." Maybe you can switch up date night so they can go out and have fun when fun stuff is going on. And don't make them watch kids when church or major school activities are going on, or burden their hours so much that they can't participate in something that will give them enrichment, such as music or sports.

So important.

I think that's all I have for now. If you guys have stuff to add, I'd love your advice. My brood of eight will thank you, too.

Stress & Judgment

Before I begin this post I'm going to just say that I've recently become aware that some of the members of my ward/stake read this blog. That has never happened to me before; for eight years this has been a blog that has had few visitors, and almost none that I knew in real life. My family, for instance, never read my blog for the first five or so years I wrote it. So I got used to using this as a space to air feelings, to explore them without worrying about others' judgment or concern. Now that I *know* people read this blog, I'm still going to do this, but I'll be working hard on making sure I don't write too much about people around me, stuff around me, and if I do, that it can't be misinterpreted as directed at someone in particular. I had a sad incident like that this week :/ I never want people to feel that I use this space as a way to be vindictive or to spread stuff around. I'm not that kind of person.

OK. Disclaimer over with.

Today I drove 40 minutes to get groceries. Chumba and Loli were with me. We got through one store all right, then the second. Then when I tried to start our little Honda Civic, I realized I'd killed the battery, because I'd left the headlights on the whole time we were in the store.

I hate moments like that. You're sitting there, forehead resting on the steering wheel, trunk full of groceries, 40 minutes from home. & you know the next move is to step out of the car in the driving snow and ask the guys who just pulled up in their giant pickup who don't speak a lot of English if they can help you jumpstart your car. I'm pretty independent. And I hate talking to strangers. And in stressful circumstances, I tend to make poor, impulsive choices. Either that or I shut down entirely and don't even realize I'm making choices... exceedingly poor ones.

I have gotten into these states at times where I'm so completely stressed out, it's like I'm in another world. My physical body may be in this one, but the world's just sort of blurring by and I'm just shut inside my own fear/worries/or even blankness, because that's what happens when things get really bad--it's like I'm a brain who thinks, but not a body who feels or really exists in the real world. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I had a flashback today as I was driving home--thinking of the time just after everything happened with my first husband. Loli was about a year old, and I was 22. My life at that time was go to work, go to church, pick up kid, try to make stuff happen at home. I was, I think for about six months, a body-less brain. My movements were sluggish and clumsy. I broke stuff. I forgot stuff. I made stupid mistakes, like the time I drove the dodge pointiac up to Squaw Peak (the lookout over Provo) because that's where my car wanted to go and there were hymns playing and they were making me feel good and I just wanted to see the sunset and the city from above but I didn't notice the oil was completely empty and I didn't even notice how badly the engine was smoking until somebody in the same parking lot up at Squaw Peak came and banged on my window and told me I broke my car.


That resulted in some serious, long-lasting damage to a vehicle I couldn't do without. It cost several hundreds of dollars to fix, and later, continue to fix.


There was the time I was going to therapy and after I sat for an hour on that couch, watching Loli and kind of talking and sort of listening but not feeling, I walked back out to my car with the baby carrier over my arm (Loli was too big for it, she needed a real carseat, but I wasn't aware of details like that at the time) and then stared through the driver's-side window at the keys hanging from the ignition.

All doors locked. Windows closed.

I was already in a state of blankness. I didn't feel. I just walked myself back into that office, knocked on the door (she was with another client) and said, "I locked my keys in my car." As if she was supposed to tell me what to do.

She kind of stared back at me for a minute. Like, you're an adult. Why are you asking me?

"Well, honey, you can try calling the police. Use the phone right there." She gave a kindly nod in the direction of the phone on the desk in the lobby.

I did. The dispatcher asked if my child was *in* the car, I said no. The dispatcher informed me that what I needed was a tow truck.

I thumbed through the phone book. It took me a while to find where I'd find a tow truck. I didn't bother to compare prices--too much thinking. The first guy I called came and opened my door, handed me my keys and then asked for 45 dollars. I remember driving home in the snow in a state of numbness, feeling utterly useless and helpless.


I drive really poorly when I'm under a lot of stress. Paul drove us everywhere when we were married. When he fell out of the picture it was back to me again. I'd never really driven in congested traffic; where I grew up and learned how to drive was mostly rural roads. NOt a lot of stop-and-go-city-driving.

I remember feeling petrified. That was a feeling I felt, in spite of brain-disconnectedness. I remember being honked at a lot. I remember driving into intersections to take a left turn & then panicking because I wasn't sure when I was supposed to turn, and being flipped off.

It is really hard to walk around with your brain disconnected. It was even harder to drive.


Just this last year, something really stressful happened. Immediately afterward I was driving in town at about 9:00 at night. I was completely dead to the world. I was not thinking or feeling. I was completely doped up on whatever fight-or-flight stress hormones turn you into a zombie who is just doing things out of habit, and not doing them very emphatically or intentionally. I didn't realize until a cop pulled me over (and it took me a while to notice the cop, too) that i'd been driving 20 mph in a 45 mph zone, and I'd run two stops. One of them a stoplight.

Stress, guys. It's serious business. I was basically driving under the heavy influence of the drugs of my own hormones.

It's tough, being in that state. I guess one would call it fight-or-flight. I never went to war, but I can understand how people come home so troubled.

The thing is, after going through some recovery, I can now identify when I am feeling that way, and *not* drive. (Or more often, stop driving because when I realize I'm driving badly I'm already driving.) Sometimes, with that awareness I have now, I can force myself out of my brain stem and back into the real world until I get somewhere.

I wonder. How many people that we see walking around making poor decisions are doing so because of their state of extreme stress?

It makes me wonder about the poor, specifically. People call them lazy. They say stuff about them not being willing to work, or not being intelligent, or not having ambition. The thing is, in an extreme state of stress, you're not thinking very much at all. You're just... there. Sort of.

And Maslow's Hierarchy of needs theory thing points out that, when we're missing the basics (safety, security) we turn to the basics as well--food, shelter. We just don't think. We react with our brainstems.

I think, when one gets into that stressed-out-state, sometimes the world seems to narrow and become cold and accusing. YOu're trying... or, not really trying, you're existing. And people are upset at you for existing, because you're making life inconvenient for them, or annoying them, with your poor choices.

Know what the answer has been for me?

Love.

Some kind attention or piece of service.

I can't tell you how much it helped to have a friend come over that one day, just after Paul had run off, and mop my kitchen floor, while I sat, staring blankly at her, sitting in a kitchen chair, not even thinking "I ought to get up and help her. I ought to clean something. Here she is, just cleaning my floor, and here I am doing nothing." Thoughts like that just don't cross your mind in that state. But she didn't mind, or accuse, or judge me at all. She cleaned my floor and then was my friend. And with the warmth of that friendship, I was able to get a bit of inertia going and try to take my life back in my hands. I called people. I made sure my baby was OK.

I guess the real message of this kind of rambling post is, don't judge-- serve. Always. You never know what sort of burden somebody is operating under. If you see they're struggling to do something, the thing to do is step in and help. Not make life harder by accusing, punishing, or talking about their ineffectiveness to others.

I think that, if we're living full lives, we're all under stress. Every single one of us. I doubt that the guy who cut you off in the road really meant it as a personal slight--he's just under some stress. In most cases, he didn't mean to do it. Does leaning on your horn help? Does it do something for you to get angry about it? Because if not, I have a better idea--maybe think about the times in your life you wished someone had sympathized with you instead of judged you (we've all had those times) and allow your heart to soften. Allow yourself to realize that person is someone just like you. And give them an opportunity to be loved and forgiven by you.

I was really grateful to the guys who helped me jumpstart my car today. Without them, my day would have turned out pretty miserable. I hope we are all ready with jumper-cables to restart people's hearts and feelings, to reach out to them in times of stress and bring them back to the reality of a world full of goodness, kindness, and warmth.

Human Kindness, it's Overflowing.

I am so sorry. I feel like I've been writing a lot of depressing posts lately.

My heart is feeling a lot right now. I think it's hard to feel so much at once. Today I need to talk about something that won't be easy to read about. Some people would say it's silly or even self-indulgent to get caught up in stories of suffering. But sometimes they just find us. And my counter-thought has always been, yes, it's almost like asking for suffering, to grieve for people who I have no direct connection to. But how honest is it to pass over their stories, their lives and experiences? We grieve, reading of these things. How do you think the people going through it feel? How does a baby, who comes into this world from a warm, nurturing environment with fresh eyes and a heart open to love and soak up nurturing like a thirsty sponge, feel when his world provides pain, fear, and coldness.

Today I'm grieving for Kyle.

Kyle is a beautiful baby boy, born only a little while ago. He was brought to live in a baby home, sponsored by a nonprofit organization so that he could be cared for and nurtured until a family was found who wanted him. And a family did--they saw his picture and wanted him. They fell in love with him. He happened to have been born in Russia and they happened to be Americans, but they knew he was theirs and they wanted, badly, to bring him home and love him.

They waited as paperwork took time, as court procedures took time. They finally got to visit him. They took lots of pictures and held him. And then, because of some bad press focused on scarce-minority cases where American parents abused or abandoned their adopted children from Russia, Russia decided to ban any more adoptions to America. Including adoptions that were in process. Including baby Kyle.

He was taken from his baby home, where there was warmth and food and some nurturing attention, and put in a mental institution. Because he has Down's Syndrome, that's where he was put.

Here's a picture of Kyle that his parents took of him when they visited, and a photo they were sent at some point after he'd been in the institution for a while.

The caption is an angry one. IT adds to my sadness. But these parents, imagine how they feel. And imagine what Kyle felt when suddenly, he had nobody smiling at him anymore, nobody feeding him, nobody protecting him. He was starved, and beaten. And day before yesterday, he passed away.

He's in a better place now. But I look at the beauitful baby to the left and can't help but feel Heavenly Father wanted something different for him. The baby to the left reminds me of my own little baby boy. Those eyes, that expression, exactly. The baby to the right, I can't think of without feeling like my heart is bleeding into my chest.

And this song is how I feel sometimes, when I try to figure out, to comprehend, how people can do things like this, or even allow such things to happen.



Kyle's story catches at me and rips me apart because I see baby Chumba in his eyes. The way I saw Jaws and Loli in Bella's and MayMay's faces the first time I saw their pictures. But this happens to thousands of small babies and children everyday. And I think it's going to rain today.

A Problem that affects All Of Us...

We're Losing the War on Aids.

MLK Day in the Nosurf Household

Every year since I became an adult, I have found myself celebrating this holiday by taking time out of my day to watch this speech. I try to get my family to watch it, too, but they still have pretty short attention spans.

Loli asked me what it was, yesterday. And I explained to her that we celebrate Martin Luther King day because he was a man who did a lot to further the Civil Rights movement. I then explained to her what the civil rights movement was, in a few simple sentences.

I know that this is something we'll talk more about, as our children grow older and more able to comprehend the world around them. Today, in the wake of this post on FMH (great post, by the way, go read it if you have a minute), I was thinking to myself, what do I do to help my children understand prejudice, racial differences, and what it means to be who they are?

We deal with this on an almost weekly basis, just on a 2-8 year old level. Two of my children are Ethiopian-American (and they really are…. they have passports from both countries) and three are caucasian (or as I like to say, Swedish-English-Scottish-Portugese-American, though none of them have swedish, english, scottish, or portugese passports.)

So far, what that has meant to us was discussing color.

Why am I brown? Because you’re Ethiopian, and most people in Ethiopia are brown. There are brown people born in America, too, and other countries.

When I grow up, will I be a pink mama like you or a brown mama? You’ll be a beautiful brown mama. Will Loli and Jaws be pink mamas? Yes.

Look, I have pink on my fingernails and on my lips. That’s right, you do!

(And from one of my bio kids) mom, look at this brown spot on my skin. Will I turn brown? Probably not, you’ll probably stay pretty much pink your whole life.

I know this will continue and become more in-depth and serious as they grow up… I’ll have to teach them about why people are sometimes treated differently and how to deal with those situations. As I figure out how to discuss and help my children understand these things, I realize that I am more than a little bit grateful to have a very good reason to do so. Having both black and white children will make it important to address this in my home. I'm not sure I would be addressing it at all (would I think of it? Would it be too akward and abrupt to bring up? Would I feel like it was introducing uneccessary "ugliness" into my childrens' world to be bringing up things like slavery, race-related discrimination and some of the other things that have happened all over the world) if it weren't for the fact that we already have an ongoing discussion... our discussion of this subject will never really stop.

According to the article cited in the above link to the post on FMH, the worst thing a parent can do is not discuss race. Children automatically form prejudices and ideas of "good" and "evil," "like me" and "not like me" based on obvious physical differences... whether those differences are related to gender, color, or even a group that some adult puts them into. And so to *not* be talking about these things leaves it up to our children to assume what they will. And often what they assume is not something we'd want them to assume.

The post above compares discusssions of race to discussions of sex... kids feel the akwardness of the "not talking about it" and assume it's a taboo subject. And so they don't ask questions, they get embarrassed the one or two times their parents bring it up, and they find out their information from peers and books they read and what they see on the TV screen.

I'm grateful that I've been given a situation where it isn't possible to ignore race, or to not discuss it... because I think, in a different situation, I might have avoided such discussions. It feels uncomfortable, unecessary, difficult... until you talk to kids themselves and realize that it's not that big a deal, if you just talk about it, tell them the truth... listen to them and respond to their real concerns.

Anyway, today's a great day to be thinking about these things, and I'm glad we have this holiday as a reminder and a way to start these important conversations.