L is For the Way You Look at Me

  My niece had a birthday party at the park.  Since I had just barely moved home all of a month and a half earlier, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.  Finally, my kids could play with and get to know their Nevada family members and I was very excited.  Secretly, though, I was very excited about the birthday party for my own reasons.  L was going to be there and he was insanely gorgeous and single and amazing with kids and my family adored him.  I had a little crush for the first time in nearly nine years and was a newly divorced woman and I had no inhibitions when it came to being forward about my feelings.

  I curled my hair, put on my makeup, and chose an outfit I felt good in after getting my kids ready and off we went to the party.  He was already there when the kids and I arrived running around with the kids or conversing with my various family members.  I played it cool and went over to say my hello's to everyone and unleash my four wild and excited children into the park with their cousins and uncles.  After not too long a time, the conversations were all moving along quite smoothly and I was able to talk to L directly and got a joking shoulder massage out of him in which I openly rejoiced to further the fun.  After flirting shamelessly with him in front of my whole family, we went back to being about the kids, but stayed close in proximity from that point forward.

  When the party died down we hugged goodbye and I didn't hide my joy about the hug or the attention no matter how short lived.  I went home beaming and by that evening the strangest turn of events guided he and I further into one another's paths.  I gushed at my best friend Sara about L and how hot he was and how amazing he was with kids and how shameless I was about expressing how I felt about him the rest of the evening.  Around eight o'clock I got an excited text from Sara that she was at a friends house and L was sitting right there on the couch and as soon as she told him I was her best friend, he told her to have me text him.  I was in!  With Sara watching closely I texted him and she would then tell me his reactions to my texts. After not very long I was invited to come over to the house they were both at and off I went.  When I got there, I learned that the house was L's sister's place and she immediately took me on a tour of her place and then we talked for a very long time about her life.  I saw very little of L that night, but we texted non-stop for days straight after that.

  By four days later we were meeting up and hanging out talking nightly once my four kids and his one were asleep for the night.  We would sit in my car in a parking lot just talking for hours until we both had to go get sleep for our respective jobs the next day.  By day five I asked him to go to a movie with me and he asked me to go to dinner with him before the movie and we had our first date set up for two days later.  The night of the date I went to great measures to look my best and my mother took my kids for me.  I french braided my hair wet the night before so that I could have waves in my long brunette hair and then pulled some hair back and turned it into a bow.  I put on makeup and my favorite purple dress and then a new pair of earrings that my wonderful friend Leigh gave me from her jewelry business (Premier).  A few spritzes of my favorite perfume and I was ready to go on this date.

  I dropped off my kids with my mother and headed to the parking area that was near the restaurant we had picked.  He was already there and waiting for me and when I got out of my car and he saw me, he lost his cool just enough to lock his car keys in his car.  Even with his momentary issue with the keys, I was so flustered by how incredible he looked that I sat across from him during dinner unable to eat and rambled non-stop at him.  He told me that he loved how there was never an uncomfortable silence with me and it only made me that much more flustered because sitting across from him I felt so far out of my league that I could barely breath.  Luckily he felt just as amazed to be sitting across from me so our mutual state of amazement kept things even.

  We went to the movie and sat awkwardly next to one another unsure of what to do, but had a great time making fun of the technical difficulties that kept occurring at the tiny old theater we watched the newest Batman movie at.  After the movie we walked together to the parking lot and discussed various ways he was going to attempt to rescue his keys from his locked car and laughed that it must have been my awesome earrings that dazzled him into locking them in the car in the first place.  After multiple failed efforts of a rescue, L finally had to bust out the tiny window by the backseat and unlock the car.  To this day his car sits with that window busted and reminds me of our first date when I see it.

  Once the key rescue mission had been successful we needed to head back to our respective children.  L leaned in to give me one of his epic hugs and didn't let go for a long time.  Before ending the embrace he leaned down and kissed me for the first time and my knees almost buckled underneath me by the time we parted.  I drove in a haze to my mother's place and filled her in on all the details and she sat beaming because she strongly supported L and I dating.  She had thought highly of him for a very long time and our budding relationship was fantastic for her to see.  I packed my sleeping kids into the car and went home to put them all quietly into their beds and then sat down with my journal and went over moment for moment my whole night with him.  He was so perfect to me and I was so smitten that nothing could pull me from the cloud I slept on that night.

How Did I Get Here Exactly???

  I wish I knew how my life had reached this point.  I feel imprisoned and unhappy and overwhelmed and trapped and sad and like I am tugged in four directions at all times.  My family and I moved here two years ago and although it started out okay and things moved along better than hoped for, my world has just seemed to collapse down around and on top of me.  Nothing really makes sense.  How on earth can I make sense of everything that I have been through in the last three and a half years anyway?  D's job loss, then disabilities caused by the job (and the damages it has caused our family in turn), then after a year of his new job, being fired and losing our medical insurance and his income.  D's amazing and loved father suddenly dying of a rare cancer only four months after diagnosis.  My hit and run car accident where I chased her crazy, sorry speeding car down while on the phone with the police reading off her plate number and my following back injury from it.  The non-stop hospitalization-level illnesses that my four year old daughter has had since October of last year and my illnesses caused by being exposed to the emergency rooms full of sick children.  My starting college in an effort to get into nursing school so that I can finally be capable of providing a decent living for my children if need be WHILE working part-time and dealing with situations well beyond what I am capable of dealing with in my home life.  I am worn down to the emotional bone here.  I am not really sure what on earth triggered this down pour of bad luck and unhappiness and illness and financial punches in the face, but I am so deeply worn out already.
  I had belief in things once.  I believed in love and happiness and success and staying at home with my children and eternal family and so many other concepts that I learned were possible.  But here I am in a home that feels so broken and lost and chaotic and I just don't even know up from down anymore.  I feel so deeply jaded and embittered by this all.  I have tried to put on my happy face, act like I am good to go, strong, hanging in there.  Well guess what?  I am none of those things.  I am falling apart from the inside.  I am heart broken and ready for changes that are drastic and hard to make.  How much can one woman sacrifice and lose and watch be taken away?  How much can one woman go in a day without collapsing in fatigue with still half her to-do list unfinished?  Am I alone here?  I always envision this world of happy married couples with clean homes and love and faith and moms that are home teaching and cleaning and playing with their children.  I despise not being one of them and despise that the closest I come to it is feeling like a poser who mimics those things, but isn't real.  I feel like I try to emulate what I THINK is supposed to be happening, but have no real idea about how it really is out there.
  I really don't know if things are going to get better for me.  But what I do know is that things have to change and so do my beliefs in what is going on in the world.  Am I right about those things existing or am I imagining something false?  Are the other moms suffering from the same "desperate housewife" syndrome that plagues me by the minute?  I especially want to know about other LDS moms.  Is your life calm, happy, clean, stay-at-home?  Is your marriage as full of love as I imagine?  Or are you suffering just like me?  Are you lost and overwhelmed and feel like you have failed again every single night before you crash?  Because I am there and I feel completely alone.  I am not looking for some husband or child bashing session here, just a knowledge of whether I am in an exceptionally unhealthy and out of control world, or if I am in a world that looks a whole lot like someone else's.  I need to know.  Please.

Baby

  Have you ever seen the movie "UP"?  If yes, you know the part after they are married and are looking at clouds and they all start looking like babies to them?  Well, that was D and I.  I knew I wanted to have a baby. I could feel it all the way from my heart to my bones and D felt the same way. It was like a gear was switched in my brain and I became crazily focused on having a baby. Too focused. I don’t know how other peoples’ bodies work, but the more I obsessed on it, the farther from getting pregnant I got. When it didn't happen right away, I got really nervous. I started using all these different types of vitamins, quit drinking caffeine, and simply wanted it SO bad. Well, three months into being married, I was getting pissed because I have some of the most fertile family members I know. I mean, my mom got pregnant EVERY SINGLE TIME she tried and my father had multiple children with multiple women. Genetics were not a concern there. Then you look at D’s family and it got ridiculous. I mean, D is a twin with a younger sister only 18 months younger then he and his twin sister! So why wasn't I getting pregnant?   Well, life distracted me when the time arrived for D and I to drive from Nevada to Tennessee to meet my in-laws. If anything in life will distract a person, meeting your new in-laws will do it. We had all our things in my teeny tiny trailer packed up and sent to Japan to wait for us and then we set off to Tennessee. My in-laws were great. They were welcoming and friendly and even D’s grandfather who was notorious for grilling new people in his family’s lives was completely accepting of me. I have to say I wasn't surprised at how great they were based off of who D was and knowing that you have to be raised right to be like him.
  About a week and a half into our visit I mentioned to my mother-in-law that I was breaking out on my face a lot more than usual. I had also noticed that I was getting car sick within minutes of getting into any car, going any distance. I even was more tired. I had actually fallen asleep in the car during a ten minute drive and I DO NOT nap EVER. It was weird to me but I didn't look much into any of it or add it all together as a package. It was my mother-in-law who figured it out. After mentioning my breaking out, she said “LaNae, I think you might be pregnant.”. I wanted her to be right, but had had months of negative tests and told her I just didn't want to get my hopes up again to be disappointed. She let it go… for a couple of days LOL.
  D and I loved watching hockey together and the Tennessee Predators were in the playoffs at the same time as our visit so we HAD to go to a game! While D was on the computer getting our tickets, my mother-in-law walked up to us at the computer and set a pregnancy test down on the computer desk. She simply said, “just in case” and left it sitting there for me to stare at. I just felt like I didn't have it in me to go through seeing that line not appear and my hopes get dashed again, so I left it sitting there and went off to the Pred’s game…
  The opposing team was the Detroit Redwings. The team colors are red and white and the fans seated next to us were Redwings fans. What made that funny was that the man looked JUST LIKE Santa Claus! Our team kicked butt and it was so much fun and at the end of the night the guy gave me a card that said “I met Santa Claus.” It gave us a great laugh and we got back to my in-law’s place around 10 pm. Once arriving we headed upstairs and D turned his attention to that test sitting on the desk. “Indulge your mother-in-law LaNae and take the test.” “Fine.” I stomped off into the bathroom with the test. Once I did my girly business, I set the test on the box and told it to just “tell me what I already know already” and turned my attention away for just a few seconds. When I turned back to the test I saw the slightest little positive line and I LOST MY MIND! I started screaming for D, tried to get up but forgot to pull my pants up all the way and was tripping all over myself to get to the door, then couldn't figure out how to open the door in my flustered state. It was hilarious.

Now, from the other side of the door, things went like this…

LaNae enters bathroom and only D knows it.

LaNae starts screaming “D!!!!” from inside the bathroom.

Mother-in-law and her best friend only hear LaNae screaming and it scares them to death and they rush to ask D what is wrong. Without even speaking to LaNae yet D says, “I guess LaNae is pregnant.” Pandemonium follows as LaNae untangles herself from her pants and door and joins up with other three to show them the test and jump around like a kangaroo on speed from excitement…
  I was EX TACTIC. D and I went out at 10:30 at night to buy a bottle of prenatal vitamins and more tests to take because I was scared to death it wasn't real and wanted to see it happen again. I was truly happy in every way. I was pregnant! I had a life other than mine to care for, love, pray for, and nurture. I wanted this little one more than words were capable of expressing and it was actually going to happen! I was going to be a mother, even better, a mommy. And I was going to obsessively prepare and for that every single day for the remaining 38 weeks I had left of pregnancy. Now, when I calculated her due date, it came up December 28th… three days after Christmas. I found out I was pregnant three days after Christmas after meeting “Santa Claus” at a Nashville Predator’s hockey game. Thank you Santa! I will take an early present any year! Woo hoo! Now to move to Japan….

Fat Pants

Well, I am wearing my fat pants today.  This is what I get for moving cross-country and being happy.  I know that sounds weird, but happiness equals pounds for me.  Ever since I was a teenager, if I was miserable, I was thinner and when life was good, I gained more curves than I'd like to admit to.  But admitting it is exactly what I am doing today.  Because if I talk about it, I can deal with it better.  When I was about 17, I lost control of my life and in response, lost about 25 pounds in three months and didn't even realize it.  The day I found out just how much weight I had lost happened because my mom thought I was using drugs.  After the clean test came back, she was just baffled by my behaviors, emotional state, and weight loss.  I was angry at her and marched into her bathroom and stepped onto her scale.  The last time I had used that scale three months earlier, I weighed in at 148 pounds and that day it said 122.  I was floored.  When I looked in a mirror, I saw the same LaNae I had seen three months earlier, but now with that knowledge, I saw something completely different.  I saw a protruding clavical and hip bones with no padding left on them.  I saw a stomache that was sunken in and a head that looked to big for the body supporting it.  I thought back on the hair that had been falling out of my head and how confused I was about it.  When that summer ended, I walked into my senior year swimming in my same clothes I had worn the year before.  I got in trouble because they didn't fit right and kept falling down.  When I got new clothes, I was a size 7 from my previous 12.  I was so small that all the pants were high waters in order to fit at the top.  I lost a full cup size.  And all of this happened without my knowledge.  Unfortunately, once I realized it I became obsessed with keeping at that size and getting even smaller.  It was a tough time and I used my frustration to withhold health from myself.  I had straight A's and was in multiple extra curricular activities and somehow kept moving even when my insides felt like they were collapsing from within me. 
  The turning point was when I moved in with the L family.  R helped me find happiness and had an endless supply of cookies and home cooked meals and it worked miracles.  Over time, I gained weight back but would always be aware of what went into my mouth to the point of feeling imprisoned by it.  My pregnancy with M changed everything.  Once I had her to take care of, I felt this freedom to enjoy food and eat lots and lots of it.  It was life altering for me because once I had each of my babies, I no longer had the solution of withholding food.  I wanted better for them, so I chose to be better as their role model.  I learned how to eat healthy quantities through weight watchers and I exercised.  I would take a dance class or jump into a pool and swim my heart out.  I even found the Couch to 5k program and decided that I would run a 5k.  It worked wonders for me.  After each of my children, I weighed about 175 pounds.  After M I had gained 50 pounds by delivery day and I stayed heavy until getting pregnant with G.  During my pregnancy, I made healthy eating choices so that I wouldn't make matters worse on myself for after she was born and I only gained 30 pounds total.  I nursed G the longest of all my children and I also decided I was not feeling the whole being overweight gig anymore so I started exercising and got down to 160 when the news hit that I was expecting E.  I gained 40 with her and after she was born, I started Weight Watchers, ballet class, and swimming.  I weighed 150 the day I got the test results showing I was pregnant with Z.  So, off I went and I gained about 40 that time knowing that it was okay no matter how much I gained because once he was born and weened, my body would officially belong to me for good. 
  After Z, I have done pretty darn well.  I did weight watchers again and after being inspired by the show "The Biggest Loser", decided I wanted to go for it and train to run a 5k.  I started my training and got down to 150 again and then we moved to San Diego and I sort of just stopped in my tracks and simply waded where I was at.  I wasn't particularly staying at 150, but I wasn't exceeding 155 and when I started work, that little bit of extra shed off simply because I was more active.  More importantly, I was miserable.  Seriously unhappy after maybe the first few months because my family seemed to be falling apart around and within me.  I sort of just stayed suspended in that place and so did my weight.  Then we moved here and I suddenly felt as if about a ton of weight and stress had been removed from my shoulders and heart.  I became happy and content and everything sort of felt like a vacation of sorts and I started eating like it was one...  I have gained 7 pounds since moving here.  7 darn Happy Nae pounds and I am not that upset.  Because I already know what to do, how to do it, and that I have succeeded in the past doing it.  Sure, I am sitting in my fat work pants today and I am frustrated with myself for letting it happen, but I feel like it is a blessing in fat pants disguise because for the first time in almost a year, I feel alive inside with the desire to take care of myself again.  I have drive and enthusiasm and I am looking forward to when I get to where I am heading.  On Labor Day, I will be suiting up and participating in my very first 5k and I couldn't be more excited about it.  I am no longer a miserable me, I am happy and I am going to make happy mean healthy instead of heavy.  Here I come Labor Day and happy Nae!

Where do I go from here?

Everything has been such a mess around here. D was supposed to have hit what is called higher tenior in the Navy. Higher tenior is when a service member hits 14 years in the military and if they have not advanced to the pay grade of E6 (or petty officer first class), the military refuses to re-enlist them. It is their way of robbing people of their retirement and weeding through people making more money to make room for the new people coming in that make significantly less while doing the same job. To add salt to the wound, in D’s specific rate (job) in the Navy, there is only between a 1%-3% advancement for all E5’s every six months. A couple of cycles ago only 20 people Navy-wide made E6 in his rate. 20 people. That is insanity if you ask me.


Well, D didn't make E6 when his final advancement results came out in December so we knew that that meant we were done and would have to accept it and make plans for civilian life. D’s last day was supposed to be May 1st so he decided to take what is called terminal leave so that he would not be working and could get us moved and start looking for work while still receiving his last couple of paychecks from the military. It was our hope to have that hold us over as he found work wherever he could so that we would be receiving income straight through. D was able to start that leave on March 11th and got it approved. So I went ahead and set up my transfer with Target because I knew when we were going to be leaving so I knew when I would be getting there to start work. We thought we had a pretty good plan and D started going through his checking out process with the Navy.

About two to two and a half weeks ago, D called me and told me that they had changed their minds. That there is a new policy in the Navy where they can extend your time left in the Navy just long enough to find out the advancement results one last time in hopes of him making E6 after all. That meant we would be here until June 20th instead of March 11th. They made it sound like it was very likely going to be approved and that he should know in a week. This put me in a bad position with my job. I already put in my transfer and it got approved and I have a starting day of March 22nd that I gave them. So I needed to know as quickly as possible if this was going to happen so that I could extend my time with the Target here and postpone my transfer there until further notice. But my hopes were up pretty high that he was going to be getting extended which was a dream come true for me because it meant we would get to live this life just a little bit longer.

As we were waiting and D was talking to people, they told him that his chances were actually very slim at getting the extension because apparently his rate is 112% over manned and they won’t be looking to give anyone second chances if they can get rid of people to make room. So that sent me spinning into the other extreme of thinking that I needed to get back into the mindset of leaving here March 11th after all. But we still had not received any word on the Navy’s final decision and my last day at this Target was closing in on me with no idea if I needed to stay there or move on to the one in TN still. Finally we are here today. And we STILL don’t know anything. I am supposed to be in TN by March 21st to start work on the 22nd and I still don’t even know what is happening with D. At this point, for me to get there in time to keep my job I have to leave with my four kids by myself and drive across the country with no one else to help me. No matter what the Navy’s decision, there won’t be enough time for us to get packed out, get our house clean up, or get checked out of housing so we can all leave together. D will have to cancel his leave that is supposed to start on Thursday and I will still have to leave that day if I want to see my family one last time before moving across the country from them.

The worst part of all of this is my denial. I have been in complete denial about all of this. I have been avoiding cleaning or packing or doing anything that would line up with us leaving here because the truth is that I start having anxiety attacks just thinking about it. My mind starts spinning into this horrible future filled with unpayable bills, over extending our welcome with my in-laws, struggling to buy food, and piles of medical bills we can’t pay from E’s health needs. Then it starts playing out my marriage deteriorating from the stress of both of us trying to work crappy minimum wage jobs and going to college while our children suffer from not seeing enough of either of us. It is like a nightmare playing out in my mind when I try to even start preparing to leave here. I feel like the floor is going to literally drop out from under me and my family and I am scared to death. What am I supposed to do? I know the economy is in shambles right now and neither D nor myself have a degree of any kind to find good paying work.

So I am sitting on a ledge right now. If D finds out he didn't get this extension, we are done. Either we all leave together or we leave ahead of him and he catches up to us as soon as he can get packed out of the house and checked out of the Navy. If his extension is approved, I have to decide if I want to cancel my extension and stay here with him until June in hopes that he makes E6 or go ahead and go start my job in TN anyway assuming he won’t make it since his chances are 1%-3%. If he gets this extension and I have already left, he will take terminal leave assuming he won’t make it and will be in TN around the first week of May. From there he will look for work until he finds out the results. If he doesn't make it, he is done with the Navy. If he somehow does make it, he will have to head back asap to re-enlist and the kids and I will join him once he has new orders. It is too much to think about. Just too much for me to keep it together anymore. I feel like I have these little hairline fractures in my chest just waiting for the right tap to finally make me break. Like one wrong move will shatter me.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t have the information I need in order to make the right decision. I want to pray about it and get an answer, but I am scared to death I will put myself out there and get no answers and will be left feeling utterly alone in all of this. Don’t think I am questioning God, because I am not. I am questioning where I stand with Him and my worthiness in being able to communicate with Him. I feel like I am not in a good place in His sight and that my behaviors and choices have distanced me so much from him, that I can’t receive anything from Him right now. I feel lost by my own faults. I let go of the rod and wandered off somewhere and I am so ashamed of myself for that that I don’t feel comfortable approaching Him for anything like blessings or answers to anything. And it is all on me that I found myself here. All I want is to go to the temple, fast and pray, and be close to Him, but I feel unworthy of that. I want repentance, but I don’t want to do it out of a motive of getting answers I need right now. I want to go through that process out of an honest desire to revert back to the person I once was and I don’t know what is holding me back from that.

What do I do now? Where do I go from here? I feel trapped in this awful place and I wish I could wake up and it would all be gone and my life could go on safe and secure like it has been over the last six years. I don’t want E’s health to tear our family apart with dept and stress and hold me back from getting her the best care because of money. She deserves better. She is my baby. My sweet baby girl that has fought her way through so much with the significant aid of her medical teams. She has gotten amazing support and care and now that is about to be taken away from her. I don’t know how to cope with that. I guess there are state and federal aids available that I will do research into and get her as soon as possible once our time with the Navy has ended, but I am so stressed out right now. Scared. What else should I be when I am denying myself context with the Lord out of guilt? I have to overcome this. I have to open my closet and face my icky skeletons now. I have to get the right foundation under me before this hurricane hits or I can’t begin to imagine what could happen to my family.

To be honest, all I want is to be able to be at home with my babies and raise them. I don’t want to be leaving them to go to work. I absolutely detest the idea of putting any of them in daycare because it isn't where I feel they belong. No one else is their mommy and no one else besides D and I should be raising them. That is a personal opinion and I do not judge anyone else’s feeling that are contradictory to my own because I trust that most parents know what is best for their own children and families. But I need to be with my children. I guess when it really comes down to it, all of my anxiety is based on my love for them. I want that safety and security and coverage for them. My kids need their parents. So I guess what it really comes down to is that I have to get myself gathered and brave and face my demons once and for all because my children are depending on me to do it. I have to love them enough to do what scares me. I have to find that rod so that I have something to hold onto when the storm finally arrives. I have to love more than I fear and I believe I can do it.

Lovable

There was a lesson in Relief Society today in church and it was about love. I had my energetic baby boy going just crazy wanting to get into what he could and I was majorly distracted about 90% of the class. I finally was able to do a swap with D and go back into the class for the last maybe ten minutes of it with no cute baby distraction. I sat down and listened, but to my chagrin I found myself really trying to process my own reality when it comes to love rather than listening to what she was teaching. What does love really even mean to me? When did I fall into real love for the first time? With whom? What about love for friends? Even more questionably, strangers? What was my perception of love before joining the church? Who loves me and in what ways?

I have a nasty tendency of wanting to make comments during classes. I catch myself not listening so much as looking for an opportunity to insert my experiences or feelings. I have actually made a point of breaking this habit because I know that I have way more to learn than to teach and that if I just stop and listen, I can learn a lot. Buuuuuuutttttt, I still have my little relapses on occasion and that started happening today. I can’t hardly remember anything in the lesson because my mind spun off into my own little place trying to comb over all my experiences with love and how they pertained to the lesson. Luckily, I caught myself and kept my mouth shut, but it did get me thinking about some rather serious issues I have been skimming over for a long time.

Growing up, I was a rather cold friend. I could love you one minute and completely wash my hands of you the next, no explanations offered. I was disconnected somehow. As a small child, I felt like a 21 year old trapped in a child’s body so other children frustrated me and a lot of bullying toward me took place. As a result, my ability to connect to other children was always at face value. As I grew up, looking at little kids younger than myself didn’t make me think of how cute they were, I saw them as little piranha fish ready to go after the weakest thing in the playground. Little kids equaled cruelty in my mind. As I hit Junior High, I would rather have lost an arm than go through each new day. I hated the social atmosphere. I felt alone no matter what friends I had or how many. I knew it was all fair weather for them and for me. Love was not my forte to put it lightly, survival was.

Instead of loving people, I loved music. I loved the cello and I loved to sing. I felt safe and natural when I did those things. I loved being on the swim team. Swimming was another natural thing for me and although it was a team, it was an individual’s sort of team. I swam for me, not for anyone else and no one else was going to beat me down because I wasn’t good enough for them. It was just me, the coach, and the strokes in the water. Those loves were the ones I had as a child and preteen. High school was when the firestorm hit. I thought I loved everybody! I loved my friends, I loved boys, I loved all my extracurricular activities! I was just soooo in love! I felt like all the mean kids were too busy trying to find their own place in this bigger school with older kids in it, that they just didn’t have the time to torture me anymore. There were older boys to chase after and new friends to make. It was great!

Well, as that settled I went through about seven boyfriends from Freshman to Senior years. Some of them were utterly forgettable and some of them were utterly unforgettable. Friendships I also went through. Only two friends really and truly stood out against the rest. There was Sara and there was Kari. They are to this day the only two friends from high school that I seemed to be truly best friends with in a way were there was a real friendship level of love. How they broke through the callous around my heart, I doubt I will ever know, but they did and it was in those friendships that something started to come to life within me. It became possible to emotionally attach to another human being my own age. The thought had never even occurred to me before that.

Now, in regards to being in love, I thought I was five times before meeting D. I had the misconception that loving someone meant that you were more infatuated with them anything and that you should sacrifice being yourself or even being happy in order to receive the love back. This was especially so with one guy in specific and the damage that was done in the two years I spent with him is immeasurable. My heart had been bruised deeply and scars were left by the young age of 18 years old. At the end of this nightmare relationship was when I found the church. And that was when I got a taste of what real love felt like. I suddenly had a whole social clique that I belonged to, people were happy to see me and I was happy to see them too. There was a special sort of glow that I felt inside that I had never felt before. Almost like something warming from the inside outward and I knew that that feeling must be what everyone was talking about when they used the L word, not the hollow thing I had been mistaking it for.

By the time I met D, I had figured out love in the aspect of family, friends, and even religion, but I was utterly lost with men. I kept trying to find that love connection with the guys I was supposed to, but it just wasn't happening. So I tried with the guys I was NOT supposed to and that, too, was not a success. Thankfully, I figured out that I was just a lost child in regards to it and I gave up. That was when the real deal fell at my feet. It wasn't forced, it wasn't awkward, it wasn't formal. It was natural and effortless. It just fit as if it had always been there. I learned what it meant to be loved simply because I was me. I didn't have to be anything or anyone else and I was loved completely. Even more amazingly, I loved him back. As is. I knew I loved him as a human being immediately and it took no time to fall all the way into love with him. Just like music and swimming, it was just right and made me happy and comfortable in my skin.

I knew I wanted to have a baby as soon as we got married. He wanted one immediately as well. So our precious little girl joined our family one year and one month after we got married. I still remember the moment that I learned what it meant to love a child. I was sitting on our couch after feeding M shortly after bringing her home from the hospital. She fell asleep in my arms. She was in a little pink onesie with stripes and care bears on it. I sat there taking her in and I suddenly became overwhelmed with love for her and before I knew it, I was crying. For the first time in my life, I loved someone so much that the only thing I could do was cry. That moment changed me forever. Every time I saw a child, I didn't see a piranha, I saw someone’s baby. In fact, almost every person I saw was someone that I could relate something to that made them lovable. It was all so alien, but I enjoyed it so much.

In the present, I am still learning. It feels like a slippery slope. I have to ask myself if I am capable of actually trusting another person enough to love them. Due to my history of not being the biggest fan of being vulnerable, I am especially cautious when it pertains to loving other people. But that isn't what love is supposed to be about. God doesn't teach us to love the perfect because we would be alone forever. He teaches us to love one another. Period. To look at one another as a brother or sister. As God’s own children (yourself included). Since having my four, I understand a fraction of the intensity of love God feels for each of his children and it is astounding. I am working on learning the difference between trusting another person versus loving them. Trust is an earned privilege and in no way should be given to all while love is an essential piece of happiness for everyone. I don’t trust everyone I love, but I love them nonetheless and I know they love me too. Thankfully, I know that in God, I get the best of both worlds no matter what. And even better, I know he loves me back.  I guess my greatest question at the end of all this is if I ever really learned how to love me?

Deep Breath

Breath good air in, breath bad air out. Good air in, bad air out. Feel your heart rate slow, feel yourself calming down. Feel the quiet. Take it in, absorb it. Every releasing breath takes the pain and stress and tension from your body. Feel the relaxation moving its way from your core outward. Okay, okay, I am okay. I’m okay now.


My mom knew what to do with an easily stressed out child and to this day, I hear her voice telling me the steps to take to bring myself down to earth again. And not crash to the surface, but float safely down. I did that last night. Shortly after coming home from going to the movies to watch “Avatar” (incredible movie!) in an effort to calm the meanness down, I went to bed. As I settled into bed I was trying to gather my thoughts after reading all the wonderful posts on my previous blog and what they meant to me. I had received advice, support, new perspective on what others are going through, and words of admiration. I felt unworthy, but overcome with love for each of these beautiful women and amazement at their ability to heal through words of comfort. How blessed am I.

As these thoughts played out, E woke up and called out “Mama, Mama”. My heart ached just hearing her calling out to me and D went and brought her to me with a fresh diaper on. I pulled her tiny frame into my arms and she slipped peacefully back to sleep instantly, knowing she was in her mommy’s safe and loving arms. It was then that my heart swelled with indescribable gratitude. Here I was in this comfortable bed holding this precious gift from God. I could feel how much she loved me and needed my love to make her feel safe. In my mind’s eye, I could see each one of my children in their own individual beauty and love and gratitude poured from my heart outward to God and Jesus Christ. As I expressed this to my father in heaven, flashes of the temple entered my mind. I felt a presence that can only be described as the Holy Ghost. Peace and love and most importantly gratitude. No more self pity. No more meanness.

My mind traveled to these places that are not describable with words and I knew that when I woke up in the morning, I was going to be okay. I just had to remember to breath the good air in and the bad air out. Close my eyes and look at what is in my heart. I know that I will face my challenges again and again, but I have to remember that I am loved and more importantly that I love. Most importantly, I have to be grateful. I have to open my eyes, look around, and realize every single opportunity at being grateful. No matter what happens with D’s work, I will still have these children to love, so I know that we will be okay. I know God is watching over us, trying to reach us through this blanket of rain clouds that have circle above us for so long. I know he loves me. I know he loves these children and has found me worthy of entrusting my husband and I with them. Which means he knows me better than I know myself. Somehow, I have to remember that regardless of all these terrible complaints I have, I am not doing this alone and the only person bringing me down is me. Not God, not the Navy, and not my family. I am my greatest opposition so it is time to put down the gloves. I am going to be human now. I am going to be flawed and unashamed of it.

I am LaNae. I love to sing, read, write, play the cello, and swim.  I am strong willed and opinionated. I have a tendency at being controlling and thinking I know more than I do. I am goofy and sarcastic. I have always leaned toward modesty with my body and have always hungered for religion. I have never fit in. I used to get bullied constantly because I was “weird” and I understand that I will never be in the “in” crowd. I am okay with that because I learned how to find good people to be friends with. I struggle with being judgmental of myself and unfortunately others, but I work hard against it every time I catch myself doing it. I am a mother. I have four precious children that have opened my heart in ways I didn't know possible. I am a Latter-day Saint (mormon) and I believe this church to be the true church on this earth. I respect when others feel the same about their own faiths. I am a friend. I try to be the best friend I can be. I am far more fragile than I let on, but I know the necessity of being tough on the outside for protection’s sake. I am a fighter (just ask all the doctors I dealt with on the journey to E’s diagnosis).  It is a dream of mine to get a college degree and become a nurse.

I am a daughter of God. He made my spirit and body. He has loved and guided me. He has strengthened me through scary times and enjoyed my happiest times with me. He gave me courage to survive events that could have destroyed me easily. He has protected me from myself and others. He has been incomprehensibly patient and forgiving with me.  And right now, he is my teacher. He is doing his best to teach me the things I need to know before my time on this earth has come to its end. This is my moment. My time to experience all these things that will eventually mold me into the person that stands before him. This is who I am. I am LaNae.