Peaceful Easy Feeling

Just checking in, I am 12 hours north of Calgary in Prince Gorge BC spending Christmas with my husbands family. It is the first time in 30 years I am without my children. It's harder than I thought but we will be together for New Years. w's family are incredible, they have been so amazing! It truly is the great white north up here, pics to follow. Today, a moose sauntered through the yard, spent about 2 hours making his way across the acreage, it felt like I was in w's idea of heaven. The way the snow falls here is different than anywhere else I have been, I can see why they live here, it's stunningly beautiful.
My kids are well taken care of, spending time with loved ones, I am so grateful for that. Well, gotta go but hey, Merry Christmas all!

Bitterness, no just angry!

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire, it burns it all clean.
~ Maya Angelou

2012 has been a hard year. I hadn't expected that when it started, it did however prove to be a bit of a struggle and I will say, I am grateful it is coming to an end.

I was going over the blog posts from the last year, reminiscing of the bipolar nature of some of the entries. Saw some growth and saw more importantly the weak areas. Having that ability to look back through your words is so enriching. I have been journaling for as long as I can remember, it has saved me a few times.

So, as in all the other posts;

What am I on about?

On Sunday, W, D and I were sitting in the family room watching movies, laughing and enjoying the end of the weekend. The puppies ears perked and then became restless. They danced around and made some noise and we shushed them. They settled soon after and we thought nothing more of it.

In the morning, as we were leaving for work, there sticking out of the mailbox was an envelope. I knew as soon as I saw it what is was and this sense of frustration welled up inside me. Really? Really? Wow. I had heard in June we had been placed on the "no Contact" list some time ago by our old bishop. All those months I had thought people had just dropped us and then I found out it was an organized shunning.

You see, the last time I had spoken to the bishop my words were that if we were to get home teachers again, could he at least make it a pair that would come. I guess in bishop speak that means stay away, at least in his mind anyway. For months I had felt so abandoned. In reality it had been an organized exclusion. All of a sudden, it seemed to all make sense and I got angry.

But the anger turned to bitterness and I got lost in it and then all the little things that I used to be able to let go seemed to be piling up again. I was snowballing into the dance and I knew that it was a dance I was really no good at. I realized it was time to get the hell off the dance floor.

Reading the letter reminded me of the dance.

It also came at an inopportune time.

I am in a bind with raising boo. He has a nearly $10,000.00 dental/orthodontic bill and for the first time since doing this alone I am seeing debt that seems insurmountable. It'd be lovely if this was all cosmetic but boo has some real overbite issues and the work has to be done, we knew this when he was 13, we knew it was coming I just didn't expect to being doing it alone.

Boo has made every offer in the book, to forgo Christmas, quit school for a semester, sell his car. W has even offered to pay and struggle with me. I just can't ask that of him, D is not his kid. And D has done far too much. given up so much already to lose anything more than he already has.

So I did something I thought I'd never do again. I decided to ask M for help.

I asked boo what he thought, through the conversation, as hard as it was, I knew he had to be every part of this journey. He has given up so much and worked so hard to keep the things in his life he truly loves. I wrote the first letter and D gave his 2c worth. It was sent.

It was ignored. I could have been bitter but I can't afford to be.

Last night D and I tried again. We sat and Boo talked and I listened. The letter was written quickly and sent and then this flood gate opened and it wasn't the one you would think.

D talked about G and about his life and about what it meant to be broken. As I heard him talk about his pain and his loss and the sacrifices we will need to make in order for him to have a pain free life I realized I get to be angry, I get to be pissed about a man that doesn't understand what he has done by ignoring the letters. Oh maybe he does know, maybe it's about getting even.

I wonder sometimes how we balance the bitterness and the anger, especially at this time of year.

I'll find a way to make this work with Boo. Years from now we'll laugh about it in the same sick way we laugh now about some of the most horrible things that happened years ago. It is a twisted way of coping and when we laugh it means in a very real the anger is subdued and the bitterness wasting away.

The bonus of this whole mess, hearing my son talk about falling in love and being in a relationship of shared values and mutual respect. Of where he thinks it might be going and what she means to him. You see, that kind of night, makes this journey so worth it.

Yeah, it's going to be hard and yeah, it's a bit frustrating to have a man that you shared over 20 years together be such an asshole that he can't even answer a letter but what I have now reminds me that being bitter is just not the answer. Just get mad, vent and then let it go.

Letting go as I type.

And there were tears.....

“Weeping is not the same thing as crying, It takes your whole body to weep, and when it`s over, you feel like you don`t have any bones left to hold you up.” ― Sarah Ockler, Twenty Boy Summer

Wow, what a week. It seems that when you feel the most secure, somehow, the proverbial rug knows it and it just comes out right from under you. When that happens, W whisks me to my happy place and zen is soon upon me.

Where do I begin, well, lets talk pants.

My only real contact left with the Mormon Church comes from membership to a few Facebook groups. One being the FMH or feminist Mormon housewives. Love those girls. They are unafraid of their own commitment to change. A blog was posted about a thought. Wear pants to church in support of gender equality in the Mormon faith. Another member put it into action and before you knew it all hell broke lose.

I joined knowing full well that I wouldn't be showing up to church in pants. For obvious reasons, me at church in pants wouldn't be about the pants but that I was even at church at all. The point would then be missed but I wanted to be a part of it in the way I could; a support number, one of the over 2000 that saw this as possible.

Well, when you join a group what happens is you get the updates and by 10am on Wednesday my iphone was creating a nuisance, bang, bang, bang. WTH! I opened FB to find one of the most obnoxious occurrences on FB I had ever seen.

Death threats, seriously? Over wearing pants to church. Penis implants. Really? Is a woman donning a pair of pants at church that threatening? Really? By Thursday at 1pm FB had to actually pull the site down. WOW, can we say Mormons behaving badly?

Private inboxes were filled with hate, women were berating each other and what was once a thought now appeared to be a full on war to get those snarly FMH'ers back into their kitchens preferably barefoot and preggers. 

I have to say I wasn't surprised, those of us who have been on the receiving end of Mormons behaving badly know just how capable people can be at dispelling hate in the name of their righteous indignation.

I actually wept for those young woman who honestly set out for a dialogue and ended up being crushed with hate. They held their own but it was a battle that wounded many. It may have even changed some long held thoughts that change can come from within? I hope not though.

No sooner had the dust settled from the first round when news of the Newton massacre was leaking out and somehow, pants seemed trivial. 

Hate is hate. It can be dispelled in words, in written attacks and even with a gun. The levels that one reach is most often associated to mental health. I am thinking the BYU student who wrote on the pants wall that all those women wearing pants to church needed to be lined up and shot in the head may possibly be rethinking his words in light of Friday's happenings.

I doubt we will ever know what brought a 20 years old young man to ever walk into a room full of young children and aim let alone shoot an automatic weapon killing almost all of them. There is a part of me that hopes I will never understand why because somehow understanding that is inconceivable to me. Understanding it means I understand that kind of evil and I just don't want to go there.

Same with all the hate that was dispelled to those beautiful women at FMH. I will never understand that, ever!

So today, as I open the FMH FB group and see picture after picture of women and children and husbands and sons in purple and pant suits I wonder if because of all that happened this week they were all saying so much more than anything a simple pair of pants could have said. It was more than just gender equality, it was about standing up for it all, for everyone.

Love those girls, just love em!

Integrity

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” ~JK ROWLING

I was reminded today about integrity, in an odd way as a matter of fact, and it made me wonder; what is integrity? 

I am taken back to a funeral, a crazy nightmarish time between making a decision and actually following through with it. 

There I was completely humiliated and facing a group of people who had only heard hateful things about me at the mouth of the person who had died. There standing at the pupil was another man who announced that the person who had died was a man without guile. 

I thought to myself, "are your serious?" 

In the 20 plus years I had known him for the good I did see him do what I knew of him was he had guile and spite and could be incredibly mean when he wanted to be and in the few months before he died I had felt every sting he had intended for me and I was at a loss. How can anyone not see that side of him? How could anyone stand and say he was without guile.

I think I walked away that day trying really hard to understand not only myself and my perspectives but what is it that we leave behind that could have two such opposing points of reference to a single soul?

Fast forward nearly 10 years.

I heard my ex referenced as a man with integrity.

What? Really?

Integrity is such a huge part of what brings value to a full life. To what measure can one be integral?

My soul stirs with anger when I think that he is referenced this way?

Everyday I pick up the pieces of the remnants of what M has imploded into our lives. His actions caused such an intense amount of pain, his continued disregard to any kind of support financially or emotionally in his son's life, I could go on and list thousands of reasons why integrity is the last word that should ever be used to describe him and yet, those he has so easily hid all of what damage he has left behind him, do in fact call him that.

And it may me think.

I live in a different world now. The people I interact with would describe integrity much differently than my old life would agree to. Where M lives now, no doubt, they see him as a "Job" like character who suffers through not being able to work, not having contact with his children, a crazy ex wife who seems to just hate on him without quitting and I am sure this is all they know. If that is all they have to reference it then he can be referenced to integrity.

He did the damage, more than some will ever know and then he ran.

Everyday, I face his words, his guile. his actions in ways some will never understand. I wish I could have all the pain and all the hurt and all the abuse just wash away. In reality it has become the past for most of us but it's left us broken in ways that surface occasionally and we are continually forced to live through the craziness and upheaval of being broken.

I think this is why leaving the church became part of my journey. Because there will always be a difference of opinion to what really makes a man integral.

I can't undo the past, I can say I'm sorry and I can try as best as I can to undo the damage. Sometimes that means hurting and holding myself as I watch my children grow. 

I didn't run, I have always been here in and amongst the broken pieces that are slowly forming into a beautiful work of art.... a healed family. I don't invoke the sympathy of strangers telling tales of woe. I take the anger, the frustration, the JOY and the love that comes from getting through a difficult life and I hold it dear to my heart. I am there to be proud, to shoulder the pain and to sometimes be the focus of the anger because as Dr W said, "you're the one they get angry with because they know you will always love them, no conditions."

I don't know the actual definition of integrity, I really, in the end don't care what it is I just know that I have to live with differences of opinion. I live each day knowing my role in why my family broke and continue trying everyday to make it just a little more right.

So, did the man without guile have it? Yes, towards me he did but to the man who spoke at his funeral I am sure he never once saw it so his talk was referencing his perspective. It was his truth.

To those that see M as integral, I am sure he is in every way.

For me though, I would say differently as I am sure he would of me.

Someday maybe M will know in his heart what happened had a lot to do with his actions and maybe then he will say sorry. I think that will be when I may find a way to see some kind of integrity in him. Until then though, I just can't see it.

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

The Sound of Silence

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent. ~ Dalai Lama

So it's been a while. I've been incredibly busy at work and mostly I have wanted to think deeply and try and remember what the purpose of this blog is.

To remind myself and others what that purpose is.

"Enjoying the Journey" is a historical record for my children and their children and their children and so on and so on in my journey to find JOY.

It's been hard the last few months to be joyful; to find the purpose in the events that I was struggling with. In the end though, at least this series of endings, silence has rewarded me.

That being said, I did however, lose it last week.

Here it goes.

"I've tried to find some quote or some wise words of wisdom to address a post. I have stayed silent for a reason but when my faith comes under criticism because people see my walking away as some lack of it, I get angry. Sometimes the weakness for some (and by that I mean SOME) is in the staying. When you have walked my path and when you can know my heart then maybe you might be able to understand.

I have never been more faithful or strong. I am willing to show my weaknesses and more importantly I see them more as way to grow in my humanity and not some indicator of a lack of faith. Yes, FB is a ridiculous place to say this but come-on, it's truly the only place left that any of you have contact with me outside of the very few that have taken the time to find out what really happened. I think, for the first in a very long time I am finally who I was always meant to be. What is so offensive, that I left or that I left and found myself? Yeah, its a rant, but seriously, this is old. I am purposely quiet, I have accepted that ALL of us, by the very PLAN OF SALVATION of the church you hold so true to, grants that I have this choice. I am not ANTI MORMON, I am not a standard bearer for ex-mormons, I am not someone who bashes the LDS faith on a regular basis so why must you find such reason to call into question mine. Faith, by definition; your definition, is a hope for things unseen, if you only knew what my hopes were instead of judging them. I have known the best of people in my old religion and the worst, why are the the most insensitive the loudest? Maybe your post wasn't directed at me, maybe I am a bit sensitive but overall, moments like this are when I am grateful I am free to be, say and love in a world that accepts everyone without an exclusionary clause. Rant OVER!"

I totally lost it on FB. One of the few remaining LDS friends I have left posted a quote from the infamous conference talk about those who leave. It has in-sighted major discussion on the forums and blogs of many an ex-mormon, hurt deeply many who didn't just "give up" as the quote would have insinuated. I've read, listened to and studied the words and I simply choose to ignore them understanding the never ending principle of "walking in my shoes".

Something snapped inside me that moment I read the quote posted on FB, maybe because it was someone I admired, someone who had been dorment on FB and who's only glimpse at my life comes through FB.I can't say exactly why but I wrote, hard, my feelings.

I could go through it all again, about the loneliness, the broken social environment, the lost life but it's mute but what I can say is no one would volunteer this life without first reasoning and knowing it is the HARDEST path and not about the easy choices. Nothing about the last 2 and some months of my life have been easy.

He has since contacted me and apologized. (the friend who placed the post) and I have said as well that I had been too sensitive.

Those who KNOW what happened understand why leaving really was the only choice when it came to the emotional healing of not only my life but my family's as well.  That's really all that needs said.

As I was mulling all of this over I was reminded of something that made FB and all the rants and raves and intrusions worthy of whatever the outcome is.

A pet peeve I have had of late was all the "evil verses good" rhetoric of the American election that was inundating FB. It became a gong show of sorts and when the personal attacks of Obama became almost an hourly occurrence I removed myself for a while because I had to remain silent so others would respect my need for silence. When it was all said and done, the American election I mean, and all of the Mormons who were calling it the end of days as they knew it were going crazy on their walls, up popped this....

"still a beautiful day in the greatest nation on earth! I hope that both sides put politics aside and do what's best for the country! God Bless the United States of America!!"

I haven't met my nephew's wife, I am not even sure whether she or he wrote it but there it was amongst all the gloom and doom and poor sportsmanship; a simple line that reaffirmed to me that even in the haven of all things Mormon was a young family that understood that healing needed to be done so what's "best" could be accomplished.

I realized when my friend messaged me and asked if it was his words that had offended me I had to make the choice to understand and to realize that some feel very differently than I do about a lot of things. Thinking differently isn't the issue, it remains in the demand that you or I must all think the same.

I escaped that world, shaped by narcissism and religious zealousness. In each day I pray with the gratitude of knowing who and what I am in my God's eyes knowing that I have no monopoly on His existence. I am grateful everyday for the peace I have in the silence I seek so profoundly for.

18629

“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.” ~ Virgina Star

Day 1 - of the beginning of my 52nd rotation and I already feel deflated. I will pick myself up and I will move forward yet again.

God I hate pity parties, they are getting so frickin' old.

My Respite

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue. 

~Henri Matisse

Time

"I wish it need not have
happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf,
"and so do all who live to see such times.
But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide
is what to do with the time that is given us." 

~ J.R.R. Tolkien,
The Fellowship of the Ring

I was thinking about time today, in the few moments my mind has to wander during the day. I wondered about what it means and how it passes and how it leaves as quickly as it comes. It left me wondering if I truly appreciated all it is in my life.

October is closing, TG. This first few days of November pass quietly. I find it easier that way. I spent so many years dreading that first week of the 11th month. Now, it belongs to me again and I choose which way it goes and mostly I choose peace.

It's not pleasant knowing a hurricane with your name caused such damage to so many. My boss laughed about it today and said I was the polar opposite of a hurricane, quiet, peaceful, solemn. I laughed at him and said, "you didn't know me back when". He is a thoughtful man; his reply, "what you were then made you what you are today, for that, we are grateful."

It's funny, I didn't see myself as peaceful. Inside is a turbulent, analytical crazy woman holding it together with self talk that takes that extra moment to calm herself down before she reacts. Is that the definition of sanity? Who would have thought that possible?

W and I are heading for a weekend in the mountains. We will be overlooking the river; a stone's throw from the lakes. D is home alone, old enough to be trusted and strong enough to care if friends do come over. My babies are grown, all grown and there is something that stirs inside me that says I did OK. I did the best I could in a life where best meant survival at times.

51 rotations around the sun, 18, 628 twirls spinning on the globe. I was thinking that over half my life is over. What's left is the mark I leave on my grandchildren. Tears flow when I think of them and those that will be. Will I be everything to them that Joy was to my children? Will they smile when they see me, wait, that was C who smiled the other day and M too, shy as he is?

May God grant me the moments my mother had. May my life be a legacy, as difficult as that can be and may I live to it's demands. I didn't know so much love could give so much happiness and crush you as well. Family is the song that defines you.

October proved this to me, it will always be a hard month. I made it, it's all up from here.

The Embers of Fall are Fading

"Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappointment them" 

~ Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

Somedays are just hard, some easy. For years they were always hard. I think that was during a time when I had the greatest of expectations of people. Now, I truly expect nothing. This past couple of weeks has been a bit of an awakening. I am grateful for it but more I think I am just accepting the fact that at the end of the day, mattering has to be all about yourself.

I took a taxi home today. I love riding in the taxi's because the drivers are so diverse. Their stories so incredible. You know that song that says they probably have a Phd. They almost always are underemployed, doing what they can to support their families. Inevitably putting their children through universities as they become Dr.'s and lawyers.

Today was no exception, this driver was very talkative.He wore the uniform of an extremest muslim and at first my mind leapt to the judgment of the armour. The draped shirts and flappy pants, the hat we see so often see on the heads of the men in the taliban.  

As the journey began he asked how my day was, I looked tired and I knew it but he comment how wonderful weekends were and I agreed. He asked where I worked or what I did and I commented oil and gas. That's usually good for a conversation starter and then it began. He had been a professor in Karachi, Pakistan. He came to Canada in 1971, before the troubles, couldn't find a job and ended up working in a garment factory in Toronto. He rose the mill ladder until he was hired by SunIce to head their sewing room. In the hey day it produced so many jackets and coats that were shipped all over the world. 

Then the jobs left - to the countries around where he was born and slowly but surely everyone was let go at Sun Ice. He tried tailoring but couldn't support his family so he ended up driving a cab.

He spoke of moving into a new neighbourhood and his neighbour didn't like the color of his skin. They egged his house and called his children names but they persevered  He spoke of the Koran and what it teaches, what it really teaches and then he spoke about being muslim and what it means to him.

I told him about how I had read the Koran. How I felt it was overall a peaceful book. He spoke about how he has had to internalize his faith and live to what he knows his faith wants of him and he spoke about war and about extremism. As he spoke I realized his roots in his faith were strong but he was as disappointed in his people as I have been in mine. 

God works in mysterious ways. I needed to hear what he had to say today. 

So, what am I on about?

I admit loneliness. You see, I tried hard to fit in but it wasn't me. 

Someday, I am sure, in time, I will understand human nature.

I was asked the other day if I saw another's point of view. I do, I really do. I just don't get it.

I worked with a person a long time ago. I lovely hard working sewing machine saleswoman who's been doing it for as long as I have been sewing, over 35 years. We had worked together for a year or so and she just pulled me to her side, put her arms around me and gave me advice I cherish to this day.

"Life will get better when you understand S that people will always disappoint you."

If I could see her now, I would respond;

"It's not that people disappoint me B, it's that I disappoint myself in ever expecting anything better."

Words

"I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream. ~ Temple Grandin

Did you ever just want to stand in the middle of a crowded room and scream just to be heard? I really can't say that is my deepest and grandest fantasy but there are times when I would just love to know that my words mattered, that my heart mattered, that my feelings were valid.

It has been an extremely rough month. I can count on October being difficult but this one is just crushing me and I have been calling uncle all over the place. It hasn't been working.

So, I am going to bare my soul with this post, open it wide open as they say and hopefully, in the universe, somewhere I'll be heard.

My mother's name is(was) JOY. Well, really it was JOYCE but she hated her full name even more than I dislike mine so everyone knew her as JOY.

She passed away 6 years ago.  6 long years ago.

Mom had a gift, she got it from her Mom who got it from her Mom who got it from her Mom, well, you know how that goes.

Mom used to do this thing, these words, each time you left her either by phone or in person because it was just what she did, all the time. You never left her without telling her you loved her. She would then respond, "I love you more".

She meant it, she did love you more and now, 6 years later I know exactly what she meant when she said it.

Who would have thought that 3, oh wait, 4 words could come to mean so much and be so missed in such a profound way.

You see, the words I love you make a huge impact on your psyche. Knowing someone cares in that way makes facing the world a bit easier.

I miss hearing her say that more than any of you could ever know.

I get that people misunderstand me. I get that voicing an emotion can sometimes,  oh wait, will always backfire in the dynamics of my family so that has been my fault, my breaking point for this hard month.

My words matter to me and I have to realize that after years of not mattering that I can be better than that.

October will be over soon, I can hardly wait. I need it to come to a close.

Going Private

I am taking the blog private - if you wish to see it my email address is oilgirl2@shaw.ca. Please idicate you wish to be added to the privacy list.
Thanks,
S

Hatemonger

Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it already. ~ C.S.Lewis

Silence on some issues has saved me. Some have asked why I am silent? I like honesty and people that have the (%^;*('s)  to ask have gotten their answer and from what I have seen, understand. Many, however, have simply judged it. Here's the thing though, I can even understand that now. I should clarify here though, understanding some one's perspective does not mean I accept it. I just get that each of us has our own thinking and no one has a right to dictate what that should be.

So, what am I on about?

I never understood what a hate monger was until I met someone who truly defined it. In every word she spoke it was to the negative of another's value. She tore families apart and friendships asunder and if you fell in her path, your life experienced drastic consequences as one person was put against another and her words always the catalyst.

Thankfully, I haven't had to interact with this individual in a long time even though the effects of her words have manifested themselves in so much of my life. Time has healed some of the damage, thank goodness, but I have to ask, to what purpose is anyone served in the promoting of hate?

I guess my second question would be; to what purpose are the words we are using causing hate?

I HAVE BEEN QUILTY OF THIS, which made me think deeply about what I am going to write.

I have been asked numerous times to be a voice. A voice for single parenting in the church, a voice for ecclesiastical abuse, for spousal abuse, heck, for a number of things and I have frustrated many with the response I have always given which is universally no. There is still too much emotion to be valid in my opinions. Until the emotion is replaced with a semblance of control my words can and will be misconstrued. I can't and I won't go there. Will there ever be a moment when I can? That's the question isn't it? Until then I silently watch and feel the pain of others. It's all I can do until what I offer can have validity.

So, to get to the point.

I brought myself to watch the Saturday sessions of conference. Some ask why I do it and to tell you the truth, I am not quite sure why. Maybe a hope that things will be different or maybe something that might reach deep enough for me to trust a change, either way I watched and as I did, I heard with different ears. Not with blind obedience or hope but a reality that brings a whole new paradigm to believing.

It was hard, especially through a couple of the talks where, without the blinders of faith on, I heard, yes, I know this is going to offend some of you, "hate mongering". Without the absolute belief you hear the idioms of barbs and twists that give members permission to subtly bully those who have chosen a different path. If you wondered if Saturday's talks hit nerves just peruse through some of the sites and feel the pain.

I am all for uplifting and inspiring others but openly speaking against another's path and speaking it as evil makes me wonder why I even opened the door to watching conference in the first place. Hate the sin, not the sinner. For those who left the church because they looked on the Internet for it's history: to condemn them for opening the storm cellar door while the tornado is over head is minimizing the churches own role in hiding the history in the first place. The proverbial storm cellar was built by the endless correlated teaching these people received for years at the church's own hands. It was their weak storm cellar door that blew off and resulted in some members being sucked into the vortex of truth written by the very scholars the church employed. What else is to be expected when we are taught for years to value truth to only find out later the truth they meant was the one they predefined.

It took only minutes for my FB feed to be littered with the words of weakness and "giving up" and all the other quotes that pinpointed the sinner and not the sin. It was then when I realized what it meant to be an ex-mormon. To be on the other side of the fence and to be mocked or ridiculed by leaders purporting to be Christ's disciples.

I am guilty of posting comments meant to inflict thought but yesterday it was about hurt and pain. To Chris, whose pain reached to a depth neither you or I could understand as he was told his parenting should be undone because of his same sex attraction. Like his ex-wife didn't need any more ammunition. Chris is no less a great father being attracted to men or not. I could compare him to someone here but I really am trying to take another path. Chris is a loving, compassionate kind and good father who tries in every way to parent his children. The words of an apostle undid any strides he had made to becoming negligible in his own children's lives.

Being ex-mormon has had a number of consequences for me. I sit alone for our Canadian Thanksgiving today because of a family member who feels my path makes me unworthy of inclusion. I have lost an entire social life and am in the process of rebuilding it. It's ironic that the very one's so punished by the words of the leaders of the church are the ONLY ones who are accepting me now. I never knew until now just how many conditions to acceptance there were.

Hearing for the first time with the ears to hear just how exclusive the talks were was shocking to me and made me look to the Saviour's words in the New Testament. Christ really was about the sin and not the sinner. His words didn't have the same tone at all. Here is where I know without a doubt this is all my perspective.

When did the perspective change?

I guess maybe when I became the sinner in their eyes.

Loser

"Why love if losing hurts so much? 

I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. 

The pain now is part of the happiness then." 

~ Anthony Hopkins

Some pain defies description. Some pain resides so deep within you that nothing, and I mean nothing can excise it. Once a year it comes and lives with me for a day or two or three and then it subsides and I move forward again knowing that there is NOTHING that can ever change that Oct 4th will come every year and every year it will mean the same thing,

 she's gone.

If she were here I would embrace her and thank her over and over for everything she meant to me and all the times I forgot to tell her that.

I would tell her how much her unselfishness meant to me and how everyday I seek to fall in the shadow of her legacy, how when it comes to being blessed with a rich and abundant life in all that matters she gave it all to me and then some.

I would fall into her lap and let her just comfort me because I know she would understand me now, understand my pain and my heart. We could talk about the strength it takes to walk my path instead of the weakness that others seem to continually point out. She would make me feel special again, that special feeling only she could give. She would make whats happening ok.

Mom's die, I know that, I even get it, but it doesn't make it easier ever.

Can someone sew up my pain please? How do you make this better?

The Pecking Order

Shallow understanding from people of good will 

is more frustrating than 

absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. 

~ Martin Luther King

The cycles of loneliness can sometimes be difficult for me. What's even more difficult is when those that are left don't get it. Since my life has changed so much over the last few years, those not getting it haven't had as great an impact for me. With that being said, life can get hard and when it does I cave but at least now, I know what the caving is and I make and effort to get out and conquer it.

We are preparing to go to Edmonton for Dad's award. This week he called and informed me of some information. Before I go any further let me clearly state here that I do love him but sometimes I don't like him. I am sure he could say the same thing.

Dad has a propensity to the male sons. This has been the reality for all of us from the very beginning. There was always an unnatural law of siblings within our home environment that none of us had any control over. Mom had her favorites but even in that she never let you feel unloved personally. She once explained it to me in a way I came away UNoffended and understood the position. 

With Dad however, nothing makes sense except he likes his boys, and tolerates his girls.

Even son in laws trump daughters but that is a whole other story.

I felt pretty dejected with his news, not angry or upset, just frustrated because by 50 you just get tired of trying to matter to a man who just doesn't seem to care because of your gender.

I am, lets say, tired of almost everything when it comes to family. I have had a hard life and I have done everything to make it better and in that I have been set aside, pitied, or made an example of or plain ignored and yet its my home that feeds them most times when we gather, my home that took in my father when his own son dislodged him. I was the one that was there when he had his surgery, I am the one that faces his frustrations when the computer doesn't work. And the irony of it all is I am the one he least likes, tolerates to include. I am the last girl so the pecking order of the family puts me at the greatest disadvantage. In it's irony it makes sense but it reality it is a wound.

Dad is being honoured for his life NONE of us know anything about because he was absent. I have long made amends to my own soul over this, I even get it in a warped way but somehow I wonder how J would have handled this. It's there that I begin to see the difference between the way the world values a life well lead and maybe where I come from now.

My greatest sin in my family is the lack of control over my emotions. Hell, that was the greatest sin in my old LDS life as well. It is as if tears equal weakness and insanity. I can't let those cultural norms define me and they don't anymore but I still have issues that are difficult to deal with and in my internal turmoil I start to cave.

For the first time in a long time all of us will be together again. The peaking order so long established demands we fall into step. But does it. 

I know J would want me there. For that reason alone, I go. 

Memories

Premiere Peter Lougheed passed away this week. It has been rather solemn here in our province. He served in office from 1967 to 1986 through some of the most turbulent times for our province. He was an innovator. For me, however, he represents something even more.

What am I on about, let me explain.

He was my first. Did that catch you attention, it was meant to.

1979 would have been the first year I could vote but I was in Rexburg at school and missed that opportunity. Both church and family taught me the importance of the freedom we have in electing our government and for me, I always had such an interest in politics. I was in Provo for the 1980 American election and was fascinated by the process. It was so different from the Canadian way of doing it.

So, when the 1982 provincial election was announced I got kind of excited. I could finally vote for the first time and I took it seriously, at least I wanted to. This is where you thought I was going to go and where it is going may be quite different.

I was newly married; only weeks into the *%^# show of it all. M had declared he was a supporter of the Wild Rose party. He had begun to show his control in a few ways but this election would be the catalyst to the rest of the years and maybe the first time I was able to silently exercise my own will in ways he couldn’t wrestle the control from me.

He had spent weeks pressuring me, demanding from me the commitment to vote Wild Rose. We went over all the aspects of each platform; I looked deeply into what I wanted out of government and quietly informed him that I was leaning towards the PC’s; towards Peter Lougheed’s party. HE BLEW UP. It was our first fight, or should I say, his first tantrum. I must have said “NO’ because those were the times when his anger raged. He yelled and fought and demanded I vote Wild Rose. To mellow the moment I said I would consider it. I did and still found myself leaning towards the PC’s. The platforms of each party were not far off the other. Alberta was dealing with the ravages of the National Energy Policy and I felt strongly that Peter Lougheed had the better path to dealing with Ottawa on the matter.

Election Day arrived and work let us have an early day so we could vote. I was so excited and so nervous. My first time to have a say, I had waited such a long time to do this; I was finally an adult and could vote. It mattered so deeply to me.

We arrived at the school after work. M drilling me the whole way and then, he said it, I think it was the first time he uttered the words. His trump card came out. The words….” You HAVE TO follow my priesthood, you will vote as I do, as I tell you to.” My heart sunk, I adored the priesthood, honored it so deeply and yet, it seemed so wrong for any man with the priesthood to ever say those words. I immediately went into a moral breakdown. What was I supposed to do?

I walked into that gymnasium beaten and bloodied emotionally. Did a husband have the right to do that? Could he invoke his priesthood to demand compliance? I showed my Id, received my ballot and walked towards the voting booth with his eyes focused on me with the silent demand of obedience. I drew the curtain closed and began to cry. I stared at the ballot for what seemed like an eternity, in every way facing my own eternity. And then it happened, I felt this power overcome me, a voice saying to my soul, this is your choice, this is YOUR right, and you mark it as you feel. As I laid my pencil on the paper and  I drew the X on the box for Bill Payne, the Progressive Conservative MLA for our riding. My first silent and open rebellion to what I would after years and years of abuse realize M never had a right to demand in the first place or even invoke GOD’s priesthood to do.

On the way home, M asked if I had done as he asked. I nodded that I had voted and that the wonderful thing about voting was that it was a personal decision.  He exploded. His words included how I had negated his vote, how I had dishonored his priesthood and how I was not,  (now here is another first), his SPIRITUAL EQUAL because I could not see the inspiration of the Wild Rose party as God’s party. The irony of that statement? The man I voted for was Mormon. I know, sometimes M just didn’t make any sense.

I paid a deep price for that moment in our marriage. I know M is reading this now and saying this proves I couldn’t follow him and every fiber of my soul knows he NEVER had a right to even demand what he did in the first place that fall in 1982. Maybe this was the first time I saw in myself courage to overcome the beginnings of his abuse and it just took another 24 years to finally leave it all. Maybe, inside of me, there was a strength I just had to finally recognize was there all along.

It’s funny, W and I have some fundamental differences in how we see politics and life and yet neither once of us is ever threatened by them.  W. would never demand anything like; in fact, it probably would turn into a lively debate and then a decision to agree to disagree and laughter. 

I know how that the priesthood, God’s priesthood anyway, would never demand as M had. I know that my voice has value and that whether or not M ever sees me as his spiritual equal is irrelevant. My spiritually is so personal and so between my God and me. It isn’t up for comparison or criticism. I also know that it is M’s weakness that demands of him to compare.

When Premiere Lougheed’s hearse drove by my building on Friday, with the first nations drums beating there was so much more going on in my heart then feeling the loss of a great politician. For me, it went deeper. He was my first, my first act of fortitude to surviving. I know I made some monumental mistakes in the 25 years of being married to M but standing by the principle of my right to choose who I voted for that Oct day 30 years ago wasn’t one of them. In every real way it was a sign of promise. A hope that I knew within myself who I really was in God’s eyes and that even in my own rebellion he gave acceptance to my decision to vote as I saw fit.  

That voice I felt in the voting booth that day; I heard it often throughout the 25 years. One other significant time was in the Denver Temple in 2007. Yes M, I did hear it and it gave me the permission to finally know all the years of abuse were witnessed and that I had the permission to walk away, that I had done everything I could do and was released. Even as I pen the words I feel it deep in my very being. 

I have the life I have now because I followed the right voices. Whether they are self-driven or God given they have given me a JOY and happiness I never was able to conceive all those years of my first marriage. 

They are not up to interpretation of anyone. 

They are mine.

Thank goodness they are mine.

Who Am I?

Sometimes we live our lives like puzzle pieces turned upside down - only showing the world our grey sides. Then along comes life, and it starts flipping them over, showing to us and the world more than just the outline of who we are - it shows us the colours. If we can start to turn more over and put them together, we can see the picture of who we really are emerge. 

~ Manifest

Who am I?

That has been the question I have asked myself over and over for the last few years. I am nothing of who I was 5 years ago and the evolving remains constant. It isn't just a slight change, it's rather massive and in it I find great challenges, great hopes and and even more a peaceful resolve. 

It is as it should be.

Here we go.

Who am I?

I am the woman who rose from despair and found hope and now, will never let it go.

I am the mother constantly unsure of the path but filled without condition to the acceptance of WHATEVER journey my children take. 

I am a wife, solace and content and happy never imagining that is what a wife should be until now.

I am 1/2 a daughter caught in a promise hoping at some point I can be seen for all I am and not for what I am not, missing the 1/2 that could see me for everything I could be.

I am the woman who knows you can survive abuse and that you can stop the pain and that as a woman you have a right to be happy and held in esteem and loved.

I am intelligent and being smart isn't a crime for women or something you should hide. 

For the saints;

I am the friend you turn your back on when you see me at the store.

I am the one you reference "apostate" and spit me to the curve. 

I am the one you put on the "no contact" list because you were afraid.

I am the one you pushed out of the way in your haste to judge me based on the words of the ex who had nothing but guile in his heart. 

I am the reminder that believing in Christ still doesn't make you Christians. 

I am the mother of the children you bullied with your words and I was the friend you dropped like a lead balloon because you were so quick to judge my departure. 

I am the sister you reference to as "evil" as you teach your children the gospel of "acceptance".

I am the woman who was angry at you all and now just wonders how I ever thought of you as friends.

To the world:

I am the woman who survived and who won and who opened her eyes and instead of the confines of a supposed "freedom" in a predefined universe saw the fences fall and I now I witness a whole new freedom of openness and acceptance of all.

I am the puzzle pieces turning over and a bright and beautiful new picture is emerging. 

I am, for the first time in a very long time, happy just as I am, evolving and growing without the confines of a faith that demands sameness and sees difference as evil.

I am spiritual, in a way I never knew possible and the rule I live by is simple.

"LOVE ONE ANOTHER"

What this all means;

I don't care if your gay, straight or transgender. It matters not if your Catholic, Mormon, Muslim or Jew. I will find acceptance in all because that is how it should be. PERIOD.

The biggest challenge I face now is in not to be angry at those who have hurt me most.

Each day my prayer remains the same.

"Lord. grant me the serenity..."

It's the journey I bring myself to now and someday, it is my hope, that others will find in me an example.

If not, that's okay too because finally knowing myself makes everything I have gone through and everything I will go through worth it.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment. ~Lao Tzu

Thirty Years

Expose yourself to your deepest fear;

after that, fear has no power, 

and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. 

You are free. 

~ Jim Morrison

I woke up this morning and hit a wall. I have had an inner ear problem since W and I came back from Comox. Driving through the mountains that quickly caused my inner ear to swell. I get vertigo which is nasty to deal with. After a few days it's just old so to say Im not in a great place to start with would be accurate. With that being said, here's what I am on about.

I was looking at my Ipad email and noticed the date. Sept 9. Well, then I saw the year, 2012. It hit me, 30 years ago I was sealed to my first husband. 30 years. 

Then I thought about those years. I reminisced about who I was that Thursday, 30 years ago. Who I am today all all that I was all those years in between.

I could only think of one word to sum it all. 

Free.

I gave up so much that day. It had already started before then for sure but that day, I sealed it and for the next 25 years, each day, I gave more and more of myself away.

Now, I am. I wake up knowing my choice; my consequences. I think and it isn't wrong, I feel, and it's okay. No one rules over me. 

I could go into a huge diatribe of all that it was but I won't. I have said it before and I will repeat it; water under the bridge.

So the wall I hit was the realization that I need to be grateful each day for this freedom. I can't squander it but use it to my advantage and fly, soar really.

I do have to say one thing though. That day gave me the most wonderful gifts of my life, my children. For those 4 reasons, I would find gratitude in it and in him.

Thank you M for K1, K2, K3 and D.  

They are my everything, my life.

TASKS

"The three hardest tasks in the world

 are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, 

but moral acts: to return love for hate, 

to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong"." 

~ Sydney J. Harris. 

Did you ever just sit back and hear someone say something and think, OMG, really? I seriously think people do that to me all the time and yet yesterday, I had a bit of an epiphany about this very thing.

Here's what I am on about.

I have been part of an online group in one form or another since 2004, It began as a single email from a man who put an essay online about feeling lost in the LDS faith, as a matter of fact, I think my google search may have been those exact words.

There were about 20 people on the site. Naive and innocent woman I was I even asked my Bishop at the time  if I should join and his advice was not to. I didn't back then, out of a blind faith mentality, I didn't until almost 2009 but i communicated on and off with the founder and consider him a friend and mentor.

Well 20 has grown into thousands and yesterday, I found myself reminiscing the times when thoughts and feelings uttered there fell under the category as sacra-sent. Now, with thousands of members creeps in the intolerance and anger and frustration, judgement, criticism. It made me wonder out loud about human nature and the need in some to just categorize individuals in whatever life is or about. Labels were emerging, ex-Mormon vs generational Mormon and TBM vs uncorrelated. My guess is JD never saw this coming.

The latest debate was sparked by a choice to not air a podcast about the second anointing. A choice was given through other avenues to listen to it, which I did. It varied little from the format of Mormon Stories, even the content wasn't as controversial as some of the podcasts I have heard but JD felt, well, I can't even really qualify exactly why but he chose not to air it and gave a copy to the interviewee who then offered it for listening.

Now, this is where the sparks started to fly, here is a man who has dedicated his last 10 some odd years for transitions and peacemaking and bridges and when he sees the need to honor the bridges the name calling begins. Those who support to those who criticize. 100's and 100's of comments and in moments a place I have found such refuge in has become the very atmosphere that drove me away from the faith I once loved so dearly.

Is it human nature to attack each other when thinking is different? The whole premise of the sites was for acceptance. Some of the admins have worked tirelessly for years to make it so, others, angry, frustrated and hurting for so many different reasons that I can't even count vent and a safe place to vocalize doubt has now become a haven for exactly what most people ran away from in the first place.

My disaffection and pain has gone mostly unnoticed as I transitioned out of the LDS faith. I wasn't someone that oodles and oodles of members fell over desperately trying to save. I served for nearly 30 years in callings that ranged from nursery leader to 75 bambinos in the beginning of my adulthood to YW president to a beautiful group of girls I still hold dear to my heart, I valued deeply the temple covenants I had made and committed myself to the "work of the Lord throughout all my active 50 some odd years.

Time and knowledge changed that journey, my experience out wasn't pleasant and continues to be painful but Mormon Stories, Stay LDS, Mormon Matters have all made a significant difference to my life. Many a questioning soul has been encouraged by these stories of hope both in staying and in the leaving and those were available because of the tiring work of dedicated souls feeling the same pain.

I am saddened by it all, scared to vocalise my dismay as hostile voices become louder and louder. I heard it said once that a silent voice in it's thoughts mimics 400 in it's actions. Are my feelings shared and yet unspoken?

What can be done?

I remember once serving as a counsellor in a BBJ's seminar at BYU Hawaii years ago. At the end of every evening the counsellors would meet to go over the day and end it in prayer. There we were in the common room laughing, conversing and readying ourselves for the nightly BBJ's pep talk. As the room slowly silenced an angry woman stormed in. In all the pain riddled against her face she deeply and angrily voiced how she was going through a divorce and had spent every last penny she had to come to the conference to find some peace and spiritual enrichment in this horrible journey she was enduring. She voiced her resentment at the focus on outside beauty and the callus nature of the leaders. She felt hopeless.  She stormed back out in tears. We all sat stunned, and then, and I am not sure who but someone cracked a joke. This was my first exposure to cultural Mormonism at it's best. It would be easy to find blame in a thousand places here but the truth is we did nothing. I did nothing. 

Had I known then the pain that was the heart of the woman who came in to the meeting as I so intimately know now I would have had the courage to step out and find her and find some way of helping her. I know intimately the concept of "pennies" having gone without child support or financial help from my ex or anyone else for years now.Her crime that day was emotion. Stating it, exposing it. It is emotional suicidal within the confines of cultural Mormonism.  

I made so many mistakes as an active Mormon, I make so many still to this day but one I wont make is in seeing everything as results from absolute decision making. "Circumstances alter cases". 

What does that mean?

Thank God each of us our own internal rhythm and the drum beat isn't the same for everyone of us. 

I am alone all the time now. I have few friends. I find myself looking deeper and deeper at myself and finding a peace I never knew possible. 

I hope there is a resolution soon for what's happening to the online communities I have always cherished so deeply. Maybe it will be like it was for me at church near the end of my activity. Spending that extra time to dig for the good stuff. 

What I need to say though is thank-you to JD. His labor of love called the Open Stories Foundation has been my life line.

Thank-you.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, 

night and day, 

to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; 

and never stop fighting. 

~ E.E. Cummings