Happy Couple? Trying!

Look at this happy-looking couple. This photo was taken last month on the morning of our 16th wedding anniversary. I posted it on Facebook and I hoped people saw it and thought, "Gosh! Teri's hair looks cute!" and "Wow! Aren't they the poster couple for fabulous marriages? I want to be more like them!" But I try not to lie all the time, so I'll confess that while yes, my hair does turn out cute sometimes, I don't qualify to be a part of a fabulous-marriage poster couple. At least not over the past couple of years.

Since April of 2012, we've had some circumstances in our lives that have caused a lot of stress and anxiety and we have dealt with them by arguing, fighting, yelling, using the silent treatment, threatening, despairing, going on anti-depressants, having another drink, overeating, complaining to friends, manipulating, and putting on brave faces to cover the murderous rage. I think we owe it to our stubbornness and senses of humor that I sit here tonight writing this post to offer some encouragement for other not-quite-fabulous couples along with a list of what has been helping.

If your marriage is less than perfect, here is my encouragement for you:

You're not alone, I swear. Someone is going through the exact same thing you are. Maybe worse. Maybe involving drugs or jail time or a worse upbringing than yours. But it's a true statement: you're not alone. If people weren't so afraid to share their struggles, they would be a lot better off and so would we all. Maybe you can work toward that by being more honest yourself. You'd be surprised at the things people will share once you've been honest about your own crap. And then everybody feels better.

It's worth it. It is worth a tremendous amount of sacrifice, a lot of hard work, any amount of money, and as many tears as it takes to attain a good marriage. It is better to be in a good marriage than a bad marriage. And it's better to be in a good marriage than to be divorced. No one in the world can argue with these two statements. So it's worth it to do what it takes to get into a good marriage. Don't sit around miserable hoping things will eventually change on their own. They won't. You'll just continue in your bad marriage and eventually one of you will leave or you will grow old together but separate and WHY DO THAT IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? I have a friend going through a divorce right now. Of all the reasons I've heard for divorce, most of them stink, but not hers. And even with a good reason for the divorce, the whole process is heart-wrenching and awful and if she could have worked out the problems and stayed married, she would have.

What I've learned After These Rough Two+ Years:

1) Go to God. Keep going to church. If you are Catholic, keep receiving the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession. Keep praying. I often find myself in bed at night feeling bleak. I don't like how the day went, I don't like how we fought, I don't like what my kids witnessed. When I stop the guilt feelings and cry out in prayer for my husband, my kids, and myself - I swear to you that God helps me. There is no fairy dust, no miraculous apology right then, no visible change at all - but my heart finds peace and the dust seems to settle and hope sneaks back into my heart. It is such a relief.

2) Get professional help. Find a counselor. Read a self-help book together. Buy a CD series that attacks the issues you're dealing with. It's like when my kids were little and I was new to mothering and one of them would get sick. I was a frantic, anxious mess. I was convinced my child was going to die or be permanently damaged. And then I'd call the doctor. Somehow, having that third party involved - the pediatrician - was such a relief. Kevin and I are having weekly counseling sessions right now. It gives us hope to have someone else involved. We have employed a professional! -- this has to get better now, right? Well, it has potential. Next to God, our counselor is the best thing we've got going on right now.

3) Apologize. I suck at this, but I can still offer it as advice without being a hypocrite because I am practicing. And as much as I hate being wrong and admitting it, I have to say that it does a tremendous amount of good. Grow up and get humble and be willing to admit when you're wrong - even when you can't stand it! Sometimes my apologies cause me more tears than the problems we're having. They hurt my pride and my security. But I can see the good they do for Kevin and for our marriage. When I'm honest, I see the good they do for me, too, because they make me more mature and more humble.

4) Don't walk out. When I am angry, I want to do only two things: throw stuff and leave. Boy do I want to leave. I get why people storm off, but it makes things worse. If you need to cool down, go to another room, not another address. I have spent a fair amount of imaginative energy concocting what my escape apartment looks like. Sadly, it isn't very luxurious. The furniture is sparse and my kids are always coming over for visits and they're crying. Even my fantasy about getting away from my marriage problems pretty accurately depicts how rotten it would be.

5) Remember you're no party, either. Thomas A Kempis says it so well it has stuck with me since I read it two years ago in The Imitation of Christ: "Learn how to be patient in enduring the faults of others, remembering that you yourself have many which others have to put up with." This has helped me vastly in my marriage, and in all my other relationships as well. Yes, I have to put up with Kevin's various imperfections, but he puts up with mine!

Two post-scripts: One, if you're reading this and you're already divorced, my advice to you is to learn from past mistakes. Approach new relationships with a ridiculous amount of caution. Involve as many trusted friends in your relationship as possible. Don't get into a relationship with someone who doesn't share your faith. And don't have sex before you get married. I bet I could find some study out there proving that if you follow these guidelines, your marriage has at least a 174-percent better chance of survival.

Second post-script: If your spouse is not on board with improving your marriage - all of my advice still applies. You can still go to God on your own, get professional help with YOUR issues, apologize like crazy whenever you have the chance, stay home even when you feel like storming out and slamming the door behind you, and remember that you're not perfect.

Washing a Clean Car

At the gas station, I noticed a sleek-looking black SUV at the pump next to mine. It caught my eye because it was so shiny! so black! so cool!

My car was a disaster, having recently driven through one of those rare and terrible storms wherein greasy mud rains from the sky and dead bugs glom onto the windshield in groups of approximately four million. So when "Do You Want a Carwash Today?" popped up on the gas pump screen, I quickly pushed the "yes!" button. How convenient! Fill up the gas tank then drive through the handy car wash. All clean! All new! Perhaps my filthy deep-green dented and pock-marked van would come out of the carwash reincarnated as a trendy black SUV. Even if no miracle occurred, I was giddy that I would leave this place with a clean car - something I don't always have the time or money, -but especially the time- to procure.

Can you picture this? You've seen Charlie Brown shows so you know the Pigpen character. That's my van: Pigpen. Everywhere I drive, there is a little dust cloud hovering around my van. It is dirty far more often than it is clean. Sometimes it is so hard to see out of the windshield that I can't swear I haven't run over any pedestrians. And... no joke... the rabbit guts from the terrible "Rabbit Slaughter Incident of 2013" are still visible on the right rear brake light.

I drive the whole mess over to the carwash lane and I'm singing a hymn, "Come to the Water."
This is a spiritual experience, full of meaning. I'm bringing the filthy van to the waters of renewal. My van will emerge a different van, and I, the driver - a different driver. With a clean car, all things are possible. Maybe if I can achieve a clean car I can achieve success in all areas of life. My singing is louder now, and I turn the corner behind the gas station - eyes on the entrance to the carwash and there in front of me... is the sleek black SUV. My singing stops.

This is a sure sign of an out-of-whack society: a frazzled housewife in a monumentally soiled minivan waiting in the carwash line behind a woman with an immaculately clean car, trendy mini-dress, designer heels, and supermodel hair.

What was she doing there? What kind of joke was being played?

Come on, lady! You're raising the standard impossibly high. You're telling me I have to get my car washed even before it gets dirty!?!

This story would be much more satisfying if I had gotten out of my van and given "Perfection Lady" the what-for. If I had lectured her about spending her time more wisely than on washing a clean car. If I had obtained the name of her hairdresser. But that wasn't going to happen. I was wearing my pajamas, after all. I can't just hop out of the mud-caked driver's-side door and waltz up to a complete stranger to give her life advice. I have my dignity.

I waited patiently as she punched in her car wash code, climbed back into her vehicle, and proceeded into the car wash. While the soap and brushes skimmed across her perfect paint, a few more bugs committed suicide on my windshield and I watched them die. And in my mind, the music played:

And let all who toil,

let them come to the water.

And let all who are weary,

let them come to the Lord:

all who labor, without rest.

How can your soul find rest,

except for the Lord?

Redeeming the Coffee Card

This day started out okay, then it got hairy, then turned into a kind of a bummer, then it picked up and then it got REALLY really good when my hubby agreed to go to coffee with me at my favorite coffee shop which should be everyone's favorite coffee shop AND I realized on the way there that my punch card was full and I was due for a FREE coffee so it would be like a two-fer and this was the card that I found... FOUND on the ground near my church so someone else I don't even know but who has excellent taste in coffee shops has a part in my enjoying that FREE decaf mocha frap tonight. You heard me... I said decaf... and despite the lack of caffeine look at the run-on sentence and all the ALL CAPS and the ellipses!

Thank you, irresponsible stranger, for dropping your card! I tried to think of you with gratitude when I ordered my drink this evening. And can we all agree that I may not have it all together -- my house is dirty and my dog has an ear problem and my children aren't in advanced math and my weight needs some attention --- but gol darnit if my thumbnail isn't clean, trim, and smooth.

More in the Mirror

In college, I found out information on my birth parents that I'd never known before. It arrived in the mail and I opened the envelope while I was sitting on my bedroom rug a few feet from floor-to-ceiling mirrored closet doors. I lifted my eyes from the piece of paper to my reflection and I swear to you there was more there than I'd ever seen before. Unless you can access a deep understanding of what composes our identity, or unless you are also adopted - you might wonder what I'm talking about. But I swear it's true, I saw more of myself that afternoon - things I'd never seen - that added to who I am.

A little over a month ago, I walked myself into a tattoo shop. I had an idea that was both decades old and younger than that one Saturday. I wanted a tattoo and I got one. I formed a bond with the artist who carved my ankle the way women form bonds with the midwives or doctors who help deliver their babies. I didn't want to leave the place when I was done, and I also knew I'd be back. Since that day, I have analyzed the hell out of the experience, especially curious why I liked it so much.

Tonight I had a thought that hadn't come up previously in all my moments (hours) of analyzing... I remembered the experience of finding out my ethnicity and some of my birth parents' background all those years ago and the feeling of "discovering" more of myself. I compared that with the tattoo experience and the two events remind me of each other. Having that tattoo is "me." Since I got it, I have gained a little more of my identity. I'm a girl who wants an expression of art right on my skin and I didn't know that before for sure. I was scared by the opinions of others, particularly one family member who said that "tattoos are for gas station attendants." Well... I bet there are more than a few gas station attendants out there who I could be good friends with.

The big question now is: what else have I not yet discovered about myself? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Why I'm Gonna Run This Race

Late last April I challenged myself and some friends to run a "Hundred-Mile May" to give my running some pizazz. It worked. It went so well that I kept it up through June and July. August, too, but August just about killed my running partner and me. When you set off on a run at 9:00 at night in order to take advantage of the "cooler" 112-degree temps, you know you're crazy. Or bad-ass. Or something.

September and October got wimpy, so in November I kicked off a "Holiday Streak," inspired by Runner's World magazine, where participants commit to exercise of any sort (running for me) EVERY DAY from Thanksgiving to New Year's. As you can see, I'm a gimmick-y kind of a girl. In December, right in the middle of the "Holiday Streak" gimmick, my friend asked if I'd want to run a half-marathon in April. "SURE!" I said. Another goal to keep me going! But then in January, I got sick - for weeks. And when I finally got better, I remained slothful and many more weeks went by without exercise. I'm happy to say I've been off the couch for a couple weeks now - diligently "pushing play" on my P90X3 DVDs every morning. There's cardio. There's core-strengthening. But I haven't actually run very much, unless you count that downhill less-than-a-mile I did the other night with my running partner. As of that night, I still thought the half-marathon I'd signed up for was in the distant future -- like, maybe 2016. I went home after our mostly-walk and looked up the date for the half. WAY sooner than 2016. In fact, at that point it was less than two weeks away. I promptly decided not to run the race.

The next couple days, I had a near-constant battle going on between two of my personalities. Let's name them to illustrate this. We will call the bad-ass runner girl Electra. And the slovenly lazy-bones is Bertha. Electra and Bertha don't have much good to say to each other. They have nothing in common - more than that - they have a lot of disdain for the other's lifestyle. You should have heard them pick at each other! "Gimme a break!" Bertha would say. "It wasn't that much money to register. You'll never even know you let yourself down. Stay home and have a mocha latte. Who do you think you are, anyway? An athlete? What?"

Then Electra would flex her glutes in her shiny running pants and spit in the corner (told you she was bad-ass) and say, "What's thirteen miles? I've done it before. I can do it again. I laugh at pain, barfing, and fainting!"

I don't know who you side with, but Electra won the argument. Bertha keeps reminding her she could find herself face-down on the asphalt at mile nine, but Electra persists. Here's what she has going for her mentally:

1) She HAS done this before. A few times. And no, the finish was never pretty. Shakiness one time, barfing another. Sore knees. Furious quads. But there's a precedent of survival and accomplishment, even when accompanied by vomit.

2) This woman has given birth four times... at home!...no drugs...to babies weighing more than should be legal. No stitches. No crying. Well, some crying. And more vomiting. Even bleeding! PLUS... the childbirth thing takes WAY longer for Electra than running a half-marathon.

3) There was a momentous mountain experience in Wyoming a couple years back. Electra tackled a hike with about 3,700 feet of elevation gain, miles of steep trail, river crossings, snow fields, and wounded feet. It was... I gotta say it again... bad-ass. And when discussing the hike with her sister-in-law beforehand, Electra remembers hearing her say "I know it will be hard. But I'm not afraid of hard." She made it to the top of Table Mountain and back in 13 hours. This race can't take more than four, tops.

You can bet that I (Electra) - (you can see how having multiple personalities gets blurry) will be nervous standing at the starting line. But I won't be afraid. I guess, when I reflect, I've never been very afraid of difficult things. I may not always like them, or excel at them, and I actually prefer to shine - but there's something to be said for tackling the things we aren't super-duper at. This will be one of those. Let's just hope for no barfing this time.

Maybe This is my Lent

I haven't been doing too well. I'm depressed, for sure. I'm eating too much. I want to cry all the time. I'm certain that I'm failing everything.

It's Lent. This is the first year in many that I haven't committed to a sacrifice or penance of some sort. I had a plan, but I haven't kept it.

Somehow yesterday I made it to the church with the kids to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. I looked at Jesus on the cross for a few moments and I acknowledged that although it isn't voluntary, I'm suffering. My emotions, my marriage, homeschooling, my relationship with my kids, some of my friendships, my feelings toward my parents and my in-laws - all have been in the dumps.

I don't have a way out. When I get like this I sit as though at the bottom of a crater and hope and pray for someone to come along and lift me out. No matter what my resolve in a positive moment, I can't ever seem to change these bouts. I just have to wait them out - wait for something to change. And once I'm on the other side, I always get a little foggy about what was wrong in the first place. I'm convinced that if my depression could be studied, it would be revealed that I do it wrong.

I had a chance to tackle the topic today. It was time to renew my prescription for my anti-depressants and all I had to do was tell my doctor that maybe I need something stronger. But this terrifies me. Let's keep in mind it took two and a half decades to finally work up the courage to try medication - now when it seems it may need some adjusting, I don't dare. I'm scared of messing something up and getting worse. So I kept my mouth shut. I said I was doing fine and I smiled convincingly and I got a few more months of this stuff that really doesn't seem to be helping enough.





And now time has passed and I am out of the crater. I exercise and I am new again. Able to deal for another day. I'm glad I wrote this on March 19th so that I don't forget what it was like. But now it's April 3rd and I'm better.




If Kevin goes into politics, his career won't go far with me blogging like this.

This Week With April Fool's Day In It

This week I have a friend in trouble and a friend out of work and a friend feeling trapped and wanting a change and a friend who should get some anxiety meds and a friend who speaks of art and makes me think and a friend I can't listen to because the judging is so loud, and a concert to think about and a dream of a home with trees and twenty-five dollars on my Starbucks card and a baby prayed for and a robin on my lawn every morning and flashbacks to fifth grade and the weird nanny and my tattoo is healing and I want to visit the artist again, even in the barren backyard where I don't fit in and yet I do.


There, I blogged.