My Full Monty

 

 

Divorce. The word was dirty and never even spoken. In the heat of the moment when tempers flared and we lost what senses we had, that word wasn’t even uttered. When the kids asked about logistics of their friends’ families with step this or thats, we reassured them that divorce wasn’t an option for us – ever.

 

You might want to sit down before you read this next statement. It’s taken me several weeks to be able to even type it out for public view.

 

DIVORCE WAS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

I told you that you needed to sit down. Wow. What a journey. Now, for those of you who are getting your undies in a knot at my completely sacrilegious statement, just hold on. I didn’t say that I believed in or condoned divorce. I don’t. Without hesitation, I can say that I don’t believe it’s Biblical and that it screws up way too many families. However, for some of us, we weren’t given a choice.

I haven’t blogged too much lately because I’ve been pondering a statement made by a couple that led Bible study several weeks back. Actually, I’ve pondered several statements that seemed to be lobbed directly at my heart like that machines that launch 2x4s at siding to test the strength of building materials against tornado strength winds. Those 2x4s made a direct impact on my heart and life. Test fire number 1: God can’t use turtles. Test fire number 2: Why are you waiting to share your story? Are you waiting for someone to put a big pretty bow on it and tie it up like it’s complete?

So, the first statement basically was an assault on my entire way of living. I’m a self-proclaimed social troll who doesn’t play well with other adults. I prefer to do my own thing and not engage and ultimately risk others finding out that I’m not perfect. (Doesn’t that sound sort of stupid considering all of the mistakes I’ve blogged about over the last few years)? However, the direct hit of this assault was directed at a spot that was already a little tender. Somewhere deep down inside, I knew that I had to start coming out of my shell. I’m trying. I really am. This is a daily battle for me. It’s so much easier for me to plant my butt in the back row of any social forum and pretend to be checking messages on my phone or engage in some other activity that would not lure other humans toward me. I fell prey to my old ways just this morning during Sunday school. Back row. Church bulletin. No eye contact. Look busy. I’m trying. For some people, they just don’t understand this battle. They are socially wired. I’m not. I have to work at it and it’s exhausting.

The second comment about waiting for “my story” to be picture perfect before sharing it was like a silent attack by a ninja. I didn’t see it coming but it knocked me on my butt. (I’m seeing scenes from Beverly Hills Ninja). I’ve been approached by several different folks regarding putting the antics of my life into a book format. I haven’t really given it too much thought because I didn’t want to publish anything until I had a “happy ending.” So, basically, in my mind, my story isn’t good enough yet. Talk about slapping God in the face. If my story were to end tonight, in His eyes, it would be perfect. Why can’t I accept that? The life I’ve been called to includes frayed nerves, sticky juice spilled on the floor, wet Pull Ups left on the bathroom counter, and the reality of facing life’s unknowns. It’s not my story to write. I’ve tried. Actually, I continually try to edit the story that He has for me. In the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that working for you?” Um…. not so well.

So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you the Cliff’s Notes version of the story. The real thing – no fillers, no additives, and no artificial preservatives. I’ve screwed up trying to edit the story. But, I think there’s a lot that others could learn from my screw ups. (If you can’t learn anything, you’ll at least get a good laugh).

Once upon a time… Ok. Maybe we don’t need to go back that far. Let’s climb in the phone booth with Bill and Ted and take a quick tour (not a Gilligan’s Island sort of tour, though). Geez. I’m stuck on TV shows tonight. Anyway, as most of you know, I grew up in church. I stayed at home and worked for a graphic arts company while I finished my degree. I married the only guy I’d ever dated (started dating when I was a sophomore in high school) when I was 21. He traveled with his job and I finished up college. I graduated and got a job teaching first grade. (Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I still don’t know how I survived with crumb snatchers that young). I taught for two years and got preggers with Grant. I felt like I needed to stay home with the Sasquatch baby or he’d be ruined for life. So, despite our financial deficit, I stayed home and did graphics art projects at home for extra income. Church and God became less important as we tried to keep up with the Joneses. Materials became more important than anything else. Debt piled up due to my lack of income and a lifestyle that couldn’t be supported with what we made. Then, surprise! I got pregnant again. We didn’t have maternity coverage on our puny insurance policy so, I did what I considered to be unthinkable and went and applied for Medicaid. I’ll admit that my pride still shrivels up a little to admit that. However, having gestational diabetes, I couldn’t play around with the health of myself or our unborn nugget. On July 4 of 2002, my labor was induced due to low amniotic fluid. Ansley was our little firecracker. However, as the days and weeks passed, we knew that she wasn’t reaching milestones as Grant had. Not long after her birth, Eric received a pink slip. Nice. We were already broke. I’ll never forget running out into the parking lot of the apartment complex and begging the repo man to let me get the carseat and stroller out of the car before he took it away. Once again, my pride is shriveling up. The years of financial irresponsibility were catching up with us. We didn’t have any income. We were soon to find out that we had a sick infant. We filed for bankruptcy. I went back to work during the day. At first, I was the permanent substitute (that position only existed for two years) then, I went back into a regular teaching position when someone retired. Eric worked at Chick-fil-A at night. We juggled Grant and Ansley’s needs. Ansley continued to miss developmental milestones but the doctors thought it might be due to her early arrival. However, after a couple of trips to the doctor for what we thought might be asthma symptoms, Ansley was admitted to PICU at Egleston with severely low oxygen levels. That was the beginning of the end. In March of 2003, Ansley was called home. It wasn’t until after her death that we received the formal diagnoses of Pompe’s Disease. (If you’ve seen the movie Extraordinary Measures, you might know the disease. It’s extremely rare). So, there we were. We’d just buried our daughter, had a 3 year old son, were completely broke, and were living day-to-day on autopilot. During Ansley’s sickness, the small church where Grant attended preschool reached out to us. We had at least taken steps toward moving back toward Him. Time ticked on. Eric found work and I continued to teach. By this point, Grant was in kindergarten and went to school with me. Somewhere in the time warp, we learned about an organization that brought orphans from Eastern Europe to the US for enrichment and possible adoption. Eric and I both saw an email from the organization and zeroed in on the picture of the same little girl from St. Petersburg, Russia. She had medical issues. (We had vowed to look into adoption since we had a 25% chance of having another child with Pompe’s but we’d said that we wouldn’t deal with medical needs). Despite what normal people would have considered insurmountable odds, we filed to adopt the little girl, Daria, before we’d even met her or knew the specifics of her medical needs. It was one of those moments where it wasn’t hard to make the decision. We just knew what we were supposed to do. I won’t lie. I had doubts more than once. The fundraising, the visits with the social workers, the medical hoops to jump through… it was overwhelming. We eventually adopted Daria and, per her request, changed her name to Dasha. Oh, did I mention that we bought a house in the midst of the adoption, too? Yeah. We just didn’t have enough crazy to satisfy our needs so we added some extra roughage into our diet. So, we got Dasha onto US soil, did the tour of medical experts, had both of her heel cords lengthened (she couldn’t walk) and tried to mesh into one big happy family. We got busy with the daily grind and things sort of stayed on autopilot for several years. We stayed in church but it was more of a social obligation than a spiritual activity. Then, BAM. Preggers again. What the heck? I was terrified. We had a 25% chance of having another baby with Pompe’s. I didn’t tell Eric for several days. I used the phone a friend option and tried to get things sorted out in my head. Christians aren’t supposed to think about abortion. Right? I did. Just being honest. I’d already buried a daughter. Dasha had demanding medical needs. Money was tight. It was like the worst gamble of my life. My OB/GYN urged us to have an amniocentesis and make a decision. I was ready to do it. Eric refused. He had faith that things would be fine. It was. Two weeks after Annabelle was born, we got confirmation from the geneticist that she didn’t have Pompe’s. When Annie was six months old, Eric got a job offer in another state. We needed money. He took the job. I agreed to follow in December with the kids. However, something just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t decide if it was fear, guilt for taking my kids away from their grandparents, or something else. I managed to stomp my feet and prolong the move for the rest of us until school was out. After all, that was the completely logical thing… right? I wouldn’t have to break my contract and I’d get paid through the summer while we moved and got situated. Eric stayed out of state and continued to fly back to GA every few weeks. I was a single mom with three kids. Summer came. Still, I just couldn’t do it. In fact, in a very underhanded move, I signed my contract to work for the next year. I justified it by telling myself that I could simply break the contract when I knew I had a job in the new state. Looking back, I know what I was doing. Eric continued to work. He made new friends. He made a new life for himself. He served me with divorce papers a few days before Christmas. I refused to sign them. Divorce wasn’t an option. Christians don’t get divorces. Right? With his arm being twisted by several people, he agreed to go to marriage counseling in Branson, MO. We went. All of the details of his new life were laid out. It felt sort of like having open heart surgery without anesthesia. We went home. I thought our marriage was on a slow road to recovery. He’d given it a terminal status, though. He left.

The woman he left standing there was immature, unsure of herself, and didn’t have a clue who she was.

The woman that is standing here today is nothing like that. It took divorce for me to find my own voice amidst all of the other noise. The journey has not been easy. In the last two years, I have learned to advocate for myself and my kids without worrying about what others might think. I’ve learned to live on a budget and pay my own bills without using credit. (I’d NEVER been responsible for the bills before and didn’t even know how to access the bills). I’ve learned to juggle the needs of three kids without having to rely on meds. (Ok – Tylenol doesn’t count).

So, looking down from the 30,000 foot view, my story sounds pretty good. I could just tack on, “And they lived happily ever after,” and be done with it. I wish it was that easy. While I did learn a lot of the tough lessons at the beginning of this journey, it wasn’t until the last six months that I had the kahunas to take my mask off and deal with the real crap that was underneath. It wasn’t pretty. It was sort of like removing a toe nail with a major infection brewing and bubbling underneath. (Gross! I hope you weren’t eating). For the last 37 years, I’d been trying to put myself into the mold of what I was “supposed” to be. Except, the folks who designed that “supposed to” mold were stupid-heads. I think many of us who’ve grown up in the church fall into a trap of legalism of what you’re supposed to do to be a good Christian. Yeah, there are some definite boundaries set forth but so many of those “supposed tos” are things that have been manufactured by the nutzos of the world who are more interested in knowing if you drank the Kool-Aide and bought into a specific denomination’s rules and regulations than knowing if you are experiencing your own unique spiritual growth. I stopped drinking the Kool-Aide. I’m tired of playing games. I’m tired of feeling the need to defend myself against the Kool-Aide pushers who look down their noses at me when I say I’m divorced. I’m not going to hide in shame. This is my story. This is my journey. I’ve fallen asleep at the wheel more than once and driven off the side of the road and into a ditch. However, He has more grace than I do stupidity. His love for me doesn’t change despite the fact that I’m divorced, that I’ve considered abortion, that I’ve filed bankruptcy, that I’ve gotten government assistance, or that I am uniquely screwed up. He meets me where I am. Some days, I’m in the ditch like a cockroach on my back. Other days, He finds me quietly waiting for Him.

So, there’s the story. Is it finished? No way. In fact, I just sort of left you with a cliff hanger. While I do not condone divorce in any way, divorce brought me to a place that the death of my daughter, the adoption of another daughter, the financial breakdown of my entire world, and the realization that I wasn’t enough for my husband didn’t bring me to. I remember lying in the floor and crying so hard that I was convinced my guts were coming out through my tear ducts begging for God to mend our marriage. It’s a prayer that I’m thankful He chose to say, “No,” to. He knew and He knows. He has plans for me. The character that He has allowed me to gain through the bumps and bruises (oh, heck, and the concussions and gashes) over the last two years have made me a unique creation that is nothing like the woman who was left standing in the doorway alone with three kids all wondering what in tarnation was going on. I’m a woman who is sure of what I stand for, the journey I’m on, and willing to admit that I have some definite shortcomings which interfere with how He can use me. From my need for control to my fear of being forgotten, the uniqueness is humorous and makes many people offer prayers of Thanksgiving that I’m the only one like me!

Jeremiah 29:11

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Good night, all.