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.