My Feet Aren't Cold Because of the Snow

I promised myself that my next post on this blog would be positive. I figured it was time for something positive to come along, and I thought I shouldn't write again until I had come across a way to have a positive outlook on things. Unfortunately positivity has not entered my life.

OK, OK, that's not completely true. I manage to laugh and smile, and so there obviously is some positive in my life. But I've stumbled into a bit of a pit. I'm not good at living in the ideal. I like to live in the real world, where there's real emotions, real problems, real heartache and real people getting through it everyday. But upon going to church, and returning to relief society for the first time since the event that changed my life, I find that any mention of ideal, even when mixed with what's real, stabs at me like a short, shallow dagger. I almost couldn't make it through the whole meeting. I just sat there, looking down, tying a piece of string in knots over and over again, all the while tears welling in my eyes.

It's just too hard to take. It's just too hard to listen to testimonies, and stories about how prayer and scriptures are the answers to everything. How God never forgets us. How He is waiting to pour blessings upon us if we just ask. How these are all supposed to be inspirational, and help me to believe and have hope, but they just leave me feeling lonely, sad and scared.

I've talked with my mom about it. She said she knows how I feel. She told me the story about how a lesson on a talk called, "Forget Me Not" by Dieter F. Uchtdorf made her feel the same way. She said, "It just made me cry because you know all these things. You do all these things. You endure to the end. But life is still hard. But you keep enduring, and you keep trying to do those things you know are right. But still life is just so hard, and it never gets easy."

My feelings towards it still feel strange and confusing. I feel like it's hard to put it into words but I'll try. I feel like I believe the church is true. I believe God exists. I cannot deny that. But if I cannot deny that than I have to admit that all those ideal things they say in relief society are true. And if I feel like they aren't a comfort, or aren't answers to my problems, than the problem isn't that it's not true, or that God doesn't exist, the problem is me. And I just don't know what to do to fix the problem that is in me. And then I guess it turns into a vicious cycle because the answers that should be there to help fix me don't feel like the answers I need. Make sense? It's pretty confusing even for me, which is why it's hard to live.

Another example is this:
My last baby was a boy. I don't know why I was sent another boy. I really feel like God answered my prayers, and gave me comfort when it came to me having more kids, by letting me know I had been promised daughters. People mention daughter-in-laws. People mention the fact that it might be in a different life. Perhaps these are my answers, but I really felt He was telling me that I would have a girl if I had more kids. Well I got sent a boy. Not only did I have to once again deal with the trial of having a boy, but it had to be during the most awful, horrible, heartbreaking time of my life. I just threw up my hands and said, "I'm done! If there's some lesson I haven't learned, if there's something I'm not doing right, if this is for my own good, and if I'm supposed to figure out why, well I'm not going to because I'm done. I've obviously missed the point. And I'm tired of trying to figure out why these things happen."
Before I would search and search for a meaning. I would come up with an answer that gave me peace and understanding. But now, I just can't do that anymore. I'm sick of trying to give meaning to my trials-- like I've said before they have hurt me so much that, even if I did learn from them, it's hard to admit they happened for a reason, all while giving it a positive spin. I guess I'm still not explaining it very well. I guess some tragedies, whether the small ones in my life or the huge one's that exist in the world, are just so unnecessary that you can't give them a "reason" for happening because, in some ways, giving them a reason is like giving an excuse. And there just can't be an excuse for making someone feel that kind of pain.

It probably doesn't make much sense. I really don't know if I understand it. All I know is that it's hard to hear, hard to take and sometimes hard to understand. The worst part is that I know there is a fear of allowing myself to fully live and believe all of those lessons and ideal things because I don't know if my heart can take trusting in those so much, and yet it all ending in yet another hardship or trail. I don't know if my faith in the church, or in God, would survive. I guess that's all part of my trust issues as of now. All of it is tied into letting myself be open and vulnerable with faith and love, and watching reality eat that vulnerability alive. I'm sure it's ultimately a test in faith. Even when you feel so alone, like even God has left you, you still need to have faith and keep enduring.

The hardest thing about feeling this way is that because of it I've had a hard time being content and at peace, with my life, in a long time. The last time I remember being totally content and at peace was right before our last baby was born. I had a dream that the baby was a girl. I remember, while in that dream, I was just so content, happy and at peace, and life, once again, made sense.  I thought maybe that feeling would come once my baby arrived, but it never really has.

It's been a year since said ". . .event that changed my life" happened, and I've really struggled, still, to live with it in my life. I read a cute little Romantic story for book club. Reading this story, that wasn't weighted down with reality or tragedies, felt just as painful to read as books that had such tragedies in them. I know life never turns out like a cute romantic comedy. But even so I have felt like love like that can exist. And when I looked at my own love story. . .well. . .those things seem so far from what I have that it's hard to feel like I can even skim over the bumps and say I really feel like I have that "something" special. Part of me wanted a love story like that. Once again, I realize that in reality these love stories are not real, and that nobody's life is going to end up like a perfect little fairytale,-- which I guess is another reason I stick so much to what is real--but I still feel like the feelings are real. And when it comes to love, I've always believed, that even in reality, I can have something that feels as wonderful as a fairytale. I've always been kind of a hopeless romantic. I guess I still wanted a chance to find a man that could love me like that. I was sad that my youth, and beauty, had been used up on this "story" of mine. And, most of all, I  just wanted  a chance to recreate some of those memories that are supposed to be so sweet in life: weddings, anniversaries, childbirth, etc. My memories are so tainted, and sometimes bitter. I wanted to at least be able to look back with my husband at a cute little love story that was all our own without being filled with sadness.

Part of me was angry that I had stayed. Part of me wished that I had left a year ago because here we are a year later and I'm still heartbroken and. . .well. . .just broken. I haven't found a way to look to the future with hope, or to look to the past with understanding. I started to seriously consider that maybe I should just leave now. Sometimes the thought of leaving, and starting over, brings me so much peace and I feel like maybe then I could fully heal. But than I realize that these problems are my problems, and I'll take them with me no matter where I go, or who I leave.

But on the other hand I wondered if it was fair to stay. I mean, my  husband deserved to be loved fully too. What if I was no longer capable of loving him that way? It just didn't seem fair.

For a few days I thought about leaving. I racked my brain for plans that would work. I could move out. I could move in with my parents. I could stay and he could move out, and I could get a roommate. It was one of the  most heartbreaking things I had to think about. Could I really go, and leave all our memories behind? But hadn't those memories already been given away? Leaving just felt so hard. But so does staying. Just because something is right doesn't mean that it's easy. But than which "hard" is the "right" thing to do, leaving or staying? I've always been taught that there are certain guidelines to right. One of them is that, despite certain circumstances, it is always right to try and save your marriage. But what if staying was just so trying on you that you could no longer cope with everyday life like you needed to?

I struggled for a couple days. I distanced myself from my husband. It was hard. I wanted so badly to just let him comfort and take care of me. No matter what has happened he is still my best friend, the man I love, the man I started my life with. And going through this hardship felt impossible to do without him there. I tried to resist just coming home and being comforted by him. Was I just being stubborn, or was this part of the "hard" I'd have to get through? Even though being comforted was what I wanted, and felt so right, I didn't know if I just wanted to do it because it was what was normal and easy. And I was worried that the endless cycle would continue: I go to work, fight back tears all day because of reminders, trying to fight the urge to just want to leave because I don't want what happened to be in my marriage anymore, come home, be comforted, everything feels OK and good, I can stay, until. . . .I go to work. . .

Truth is when it's just me and my husband everything is fine. It's having to exist in a world outside our home that is hard. It's having to exist at church, work, school or even just in the supermarket.

Later that night as I lie in bed crying over the thought of loosing all our memories, traditions, stories, everything we had started as a family I suddenly could see so clearly. Why was I letting my selfish desires threaten my marriage? It could just be me and my husband against the world. Suddenly all the things I wanted seemed so less important when compared to the marriage and friendship I had built with this man. And finally I let it all go. I hugged my husband and just cried, and took comfort in that.

A lot of what we were was given away, over a year ago, when mistakes were made. Even though we stay together what we were is such a hard and painful memory, it really feels like its already lost. So I don't know if a divorce is necessarily the beginning of loosing all that we are. At times I wish I had left him when I was still angry. When I could just be mad at him. But now he's made so many changes, and come so far, that I really don't hate him. Its just that no matter how good our relationship is, what happened will always be a part of it. And I don't know if I can live with it. When I talk with my husband, apologetically, about how I don't know if I can stay he says, in a sad and longing tone, "I knew it would be hard, and I didn't know if you could ever forgive me for it." I don't really feel like it's a lack of being able to forgive. I think I've forgiven him. I think it's more about being able to just move on. I worry, even now, that things will still be hard. That the cycle will still continue.I feel so uncertain, and I hate passing on that uncertainty to my husband and kids. I just keep hoping there will come a day, that I hear a message said in just the right way, or I can see things in just the right light, and because of it I can finally feel peaceful and content once again. 

Since I wanted some positivity here I'll include a few tidbits. I've started school, which I'm proud of myself for doing. I achieved last years New Years Resolution. One of my twins, who loves to dance, is taking his first dance class and it starts tomorrow. I'm so excited he's at an age where I can sign him up for these things. Even though I can't be there because I have class, I look forward to seeing the pictures and hearing the stories. My boys have learned so much from the little amount of time I have spent teaching them. It's just so exciting to watch them retain so much information. My little baby has started sitting up on his own-- it's for like 5 seconds at a time, but I'm still impressed. And the most exciting thing is that I get to spend some nice days off with my family-- thanks to switching to part time!

Les Miserables

Last night, thanks to my husband, I actually got a date. Not only did I get a date, but I got to see a movie in the actual theater. And not only did I get to see a movie, but I got to see a movie based on my all time favorite musical, Les Miserables. As soon as the movie began I was overcome with emotion. Within the first few bars of music, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle the movie emotionally. Before the first scene ended I knew that my feelings on the film could not be expressed in a mere facebook status update. So I'm writing them here.

Were there things I didn't like about this film?

Yes. Yes, there were. At times I felt like it was too fast paced. I was not impressed with Russel Crowe's performance. I don't think he quite pinned down the tortured character of Javert. I wasn't a huge fan of the Thenardiers. In the musical they are the comic relief, but in the movie it felt like they didn't know how to stay true to the characters while staying true to the other themes of the story. It was kind of awkward at times. I also didn't like that they sort of down played one of my favorite characters, Eponine. I connected so much with her in the musical, and I hardly felt like I knew her in the movie. I was also not a huge fan of the camera work. The musical is so big and grand, and you have so much more room to be big and grand on screen than on stage. Yet with all the close up shots, and not really getting a sense of the scenery or surroundings, I sort of felt like the musical had a much bigger and grander scheme. I also was torn at times between the acting and the singing. Did I want the good acting, or good singing? Sometimes I got both? Sometimes the acting was so good the singing didn't matter. And sometimes I just really wanted to hear my favorite songs sung by amazing singers.

Does this mean I did not like the film?

Hardly. I loved it? I could have taken all the things that bugged me about this film and walked away totally disappointed. But truthfully it had such an impact on me that, no matter what flaws there were, I couldn't have walked away disliking this film. Plus it's Les Miserables. This is my favorite book, story and musical. How could I not enjoy it?

So here is my Les Miserables experience.

This was the first musical I ever saw. I love, love, love this musical. I have sung every part. I have played the Original Cast album while acting out the roles in my parents living room. I have loved and lived this musical to the fullest extent. I feel like I've truly explored every emotional aspect and theme it has. And yet, when that movie began, I was caught off guard.

The minute the movie started, and I heard those oh so familiar notes, I knew this experience was going to be unlike any other Les Miserables experience I have had. I was watching a story that was oh so familiar to me. I was listening to songs I knew by heart, and yet I was paralyzed by emotion. I couldn't allow myself to absorb it as I had before. It was different. It struck me down. It hit me in a place I had never expected. All that Les Miserables had ever been to me was now completely different because now. . .it was REAL. I didn't think I would survive. I seriously thought I may have to walk out of this movie. Not because I didn't like it, but because it was too close to home. The story switched to Fantine's I thought I was done for. Never have I felt this character's pain as I did last night. Honestly a part of me lived, and died, with her. Even though I knew my story was no where near as tragic there was still something that was way too familiar and way too personal about Fantine's experiences. I was heart broken. She wasn't just a character going through this pain. She was a person, a friend, someone who's pain I would have prevented if only I could. In some ways she was me. And I could hardly stand to watch her have to give up and sacrifice all that she had to.

The stories of those "dropped. . .at the bottom of the heap" have become too real for me. There's a part of me that has experienced a part of that pain. And it's a part of me that isn't strong enough to face that pain again. In fact watching the characters face it, and have to face it again, felt almost suffocating. How could they do it? How could they survive? How could they still believe in God, love and hope? How could they keep on living and not just lay down and die? I believe the need to answer these questions is the reason stories like Les Miserables come about. It's the reason I have always loved this story. And it's the reason that I now love this story even more. It's themes of how horrible and wretched life can be had become more real to me, and now it's themes of salvation and redemption had become all the more necessary in my life.

Even those convicts chained with Val Jean in the first scene still had faith enough to pray to God. Val Jean sang, "My soul belongs to God I know, I made that bargain long ago. He gave me hope when hope was gone. He gave me strength to carry on."And I realized in this story, created ultimately by Victor Hugo, there was a God. And these people, no matter how miserable, never lost their faith in that. And they never stopped believing that no matter how little the good they did seemed to do it didn't change the fact that doing good was the right thing to do.And it was better to do good than do nothing at all.

I believe there will come a time when my faith and hope can make me as strong as the characters in this story. I feel so weak right now. I struggle so much to just carry on with everyday life. But I wake up every morning, and as long as I keep waking up I need to keep trying to figure out how to improve, how to do good and how to do what's right.

Les Miserables is one of my favorite stories. It is also my favorite musical and the themes and meanings in this story have already touched me so much I couldn't walk away not loving this film. But now seeing it through new eyes, and new insight, and knowing that this story now holds so much more personal meaning to me, I truly have to say my love for Les Miserables has been rediscovered and relived.