Learned Lesson Number Twenty-Six: Know When To Submit

There is some duality in this title. It comes both from my position as a Writer, and as a Mere Human. (Please, feel free to juxtapose those two titles against each other in any way you choose…) I was sitting in church when the word “submit” began rolling around in my consciousness, begging for some examination. My initial thoughts on this had more to do with the writer’s perspective, because I write all the time and never submit anything for publication. I am a procrastinator and a bit of a coward. I never feel like anything I write is “really ready” to give up, to toss into the clutches of the Big Bad Judgmental World. So I write my rambling little blog posts for family and friends, and I write song lyrics and leave them in a notebook, and I write about how I need to get serious about my writing. And I plan to submit, but I never do.

So I was sitting in church, and I was thinking about the “why” attached to this reluctance to submit, and wondering exactly what it is I am afraid of. Wondering why I feel the need to polish my words to perfection, when I know perfection is not possible. One definition of “submit” is “to give over or yield to the power or authority of another.” Which can be a scary thing when it comes to what I have written, but honestly, the things that I have put out there for public consumption have actually been fairly well-received. I used to write letters to the editor of the local newspaper on a semi-regular basis, and every one of them was published. Once, I sent two poems to a poetry website, and they were included in a “coffee table collection,” which was then peddled to everyone who submitted material. I bought my copy, and can technically say that my poetry is in a book that was bound and sold, so therefore, was published. But I know these things don’t really count. They are the equivalent of sticking my toe in the water and saying I went for a swim. Not really true submission.

Anyway, on Sunday I was thinking about these things. About knowing when to submit, (both literally and, um... "literarily") and about the meaning of true submissiveness, which some people mistakenly equate with weakness. And I jotted down a couple of notes, came home, and set aside the idea. Until today, when I got some rather painful clarity about a thing I have struggled with for quite some time, and realized that the kind of submitting I needed to do was going to be much, much harder than sending a manuscript off to a publisher. 

Have you ever gotten a message that you did not want to accept? I mean, REALLY did not want to accept? But knew that you must, in order to move forward? Even when it flies in the face of everything you thought you had been told was true? Today was that.

If, like me, you believe in a Higher Power, one who created you and knows, over the long haul, what is best for you, then you must learn the art of graceful submission. You must. I must. Submitting to the will of that higher power can sometimes mean parting with what (or who) you really believe you want and love. It can mean surrendering your hope, and hope can be a stubborn force. It’s hard to know when to part with it. To be able to see whether it is holding you up or holding you back, and when to separate it from a desired or imagined outcome that is clearly not manifesting itself. 

And then to let go. With both hands. 

It’s a free-fall at first, and it’s terrifying. And then there is peace. Because you realize that the misplaced hope you were fiercely holding onto was, in fact, a burden. A burden that He has already agreed to bear, if you will just part with it. So relax. And submit, already.

Learned Lesson Number Twenty-Five: Enough is as Good as a Feast

This blog is not about holidays, or pilgrims, or turkey dinner. Although Thanksgiving does tend to spawn ruminations on gratitude for me, and I kind of believe one’s level of gratitude determines their definition of what “enough” means. So maybe that’s the answer to the big question and I don’t need to go any further. Be grateful for what you have, and it will be enough, yes? Well, yes, if you can master that practice. And I already wrote that blog. But lately I have had some experiences that have caused me to  ponder the concept of “enough” a little more deeply, and this title phrase has come bubbling up from my memories of the countless times “Mary Poppins” played on our VCR when my kids were small. It was her answer to kids who wanted more, when she had determined they already had enough. So how much is enough? How much time, how much sleep? How much food, how much money? How much fun, how much love? Is it possible to have enough and still feel empty? Well, yeah. It is. But we’ll get to that.

Let’s address the question of time. We all have 24 hours in a day. I am not the first person ever to say that. We have all been told that everyone has the same amount of time, and that it’s just about how we spend it. I saw a movie recently called “In Time” where everyone stopped aging at 25, but was then given a ration of just one years’ time thereafter. There was a meter on their arm that measured their time, and they could trade it for other necessities, gamble it, give it to loved ones, or, if they had the means, buy more. But when it ran out, you were done. Boom. Dead on the ground. No chance to borrow a few more minutes to sort things out. No debt in that scenario. Broke is broke, and dead is dead.

The main character in this film liked to run things close to empty. (A quality he and I sort of share, but which I am trying to change.) He was a gambler who was unexpectedly given a surplus of time by a man who had far too much of it and was tired of living. He was then accused of killing the man to steal his time, and I don’t think I have to tell you that lessons in “just how green another person’s grass really is” ensued. So at which point in the story did this man have enough time? At every point, as long as he was not dead? Or at no point, because he was continually being pursued by those who wanted to steal his time?

I found this concept intriguing because I am not so good at managing time. (Or money, which operates on very similar principles.) I never have been. So the idea that running out of time could carry an instant death sentence was a little frightening to me. My current reality consists of trying desperately to meet online homework deadlines, about 5 nights a week, in pursuit of an elusive college degree, while also working a full-time job, and playing the Mom and Grandma Roles. Usually I finish within minutes of the deadline and don’t always beat it. No matter how well I try to plan, I always feel like I don’t have enough time.

The past 7 years have felt particularly chaotic and frightening because I have been trying to achieve “enough” in so many different areas, and am continually feeling like I am falling short. No matter how surrounded I am by friends and family who love me, I feel like it’s not enough because I don’t have a partner.  No matter how many healthy strides I try to make, I feel like it’s not enough because I am too old/tired/whatever to change. No matter this, not enough that, and so on. We may all have the same number of hours in a day, but some of us have more persistent forces attempting to steal our precious hours away.  Or at least it feels that way. And since time is the framework within which we try to get “enough” out of life, and money is the means whereby we acquire most of what we need, it sort of follows that if we want to have enough of everything else in life, we first have to acquire enough time and money. But how much is that? Is there a magic number?

I was incredibly blessed earlier this year to have received an inheritance from my grandmother. It was a big number. A big enough number that I thought it could change my life permanently if I handled it properly. Surely with that much money, I could create a lasting foundation on which to build, and never again feel like I didn't have enough. Well, as carefully and prayerfully as I approached my choices concerning these funds, they went quickly. On good things, of course, but I found it to be true that needs will rise to meet income. My needs and those of my children and grandchildren were met during a time they would not have been otherwise. Yet I went through this period of beating myself up because there were so many other things I had wanted to do with the money that I was not able to. My perspective on what constituted “enough” changed drastically through this experience. My levels of gratitude and appreciation for my Depression-era grandparents and their years of self-sustained provident living have increased exponentially. They took a garden and a house built with their own hands, and turned it into a fortune for their posterity. A certain story about loaves and fishes comes to mind.

So if there is an answer to the question of how much is enough, this is mine; Whether I am paying cash for a reliable car, or shaking change out of a piggy bank to put enough gas in the tank of that car to get to work on payday, it is enough. Keeping balance between feast and famine is an ongoing challenge. On every level.  So when my parents, children, and grandchildren are all in the same room with me, or when my ex-husband’s family invites me to Thanksgiving dinner and continues to embrace me as one of their own, it is enough. And it is also a feast. (No matter how much or how little I eat.)

Real life is similar to the movie, in that none of us knows when our time meter is going to run out, but as long as we still have any time at all on the clock, it has to be enough. We have to decide that what we have is enough, and that enough is good enough to feast upon. Although I think it might not be that bad to stop aging at 25.

Learned Lesson Number Twenty-Four: When It Comes To Love, Sometimes a Half-Empty Glass Is OK

I have a tendency toward depression this time of year. From January, February, and sometimes even into March, my glass feels like it is half empty. And draining quickly. I can’t really explain it. I can’t blame it on the weather either, because I live where the sun shines incessantly during these months, and the temperature averages about 65. Yet I have trouble getting moving, and I have trouble getting happy. The most basic chores exhaust me. Taking a shower feels like training for a marathon, and cooking? Forget about it. I am a frequent flyer at the fast food drive-through. If I am enrolled in classes, (and I usually am) they suffer. Everything suffers. The intensity of this condition has increased since I got divorced, and not because I wish I was still married. I do not wish that. Ever. But I feel homesick. For where, who, or what, I can’t always determine. I do know that it has to do with what is missing from my life. It is a specific emptiness. It is not ingratitude or self-pity. It is just this painful thing that I have to acknowledge and attempt to maneuver around. Usually, I can. Eventually. But it is a cycle that repeats.

Today is Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is kind of like the “hump day” (…and NO, that is NOT what I mean…) of this cycle. As in, the middle, the top of the hill, the most exhausting part. The “Wednesday”. I think I am not alone when I say that for most of us, this day is difficult to ignore, no matter what you tell yourself about its meaning, or lack thereof. When you are a kid, no matter how many colorful, candy-filled valentines are stuffed into that decorated shoebox, if you didn’t get one from that One Cute Boy, all the candy hearts in the world just could not make up for that. And when you are a bigger kid, no matter how many expressions of love you receive from Friends and Family, if you don’t get what you need from that One Cute Boy, everything else pales. The difference (hopefully) is that when you are older, you at least feel guilty for not being appreciative enough of everyone else. But the bottom line is that we all long for a partner. A companion who is forever, who loves us deeply and beyond doubt. And until we have that, the emptiness will remain.

Having said that, I am beginning to learn, (in my advanced age) that emptiness does not have to be a terrible thing. Emptiness can be an opportunity. While my hopes continue to spring eternal, (that God will eventually bring the Cute Boy to me) I know that His timetable is not my timetable, and I can choose to stay sad in the meantime, or I can get creative about filling the emptiness in other ways. And since the emptiness is about love that is missing, the only way to fill it is to identify the other things that I love. And allow myself to have them.

One of the things I have recently discovered about myself is that I am very, very good at self-deprivation when it comes to the things I REALLY love. But I am learning to excavate those things, polish them up, and assign them the proper value in my life. Of the two big things that I have loved the longest, writing is one, and music is the other. I have always written, (in fact, I can’t stop myself from doing it) but only recently have I really started putting it out there where other people can see it. Not everyone loves it, and that hurts sometimes, but it’s ok. The process fills some of that emptiness, and helps me deal with it; put it in perspective.

And then there is music. I am a singer. I really love to sing. All the time. For anyone who will listen, for no one but myself when I am driving alone in my car, or for a huge arena full of people, should fate ever deal me that particular gift. But it really doesn’t matter where, or for whom I sing. It is the thing I love to do more than anything else in the world. Music, even more so than writing, is the one thing in my life I have never doubted that I love. Yet I do not allow myself enough of it, because I think I am being selfish to do so. I’m too old, it’s too late, and it’s an unrealistic pipe dream, whatever. I am learning to dismiss such negative self-talk, and just do it because I love it. I have also discovered that the pain and regret I have felt in varying levels through the years over my supposedly “lost” musical dreams makes me uniquely qualified to support my children in the pursuit of their own musical and artistic dreams. Which I find incredibly satisfying. It is another of the big things that I really love.

I was talking to a friend the other day, about being fifty (which we both are). She reminded me that if we make it to a hundred, (which we both plan to) then we are only halfway there. In other words, our glass is ONLY HALF FULL. We still GET to fill the other half. And we know so much more about what is worth filling it with than we did in our first fifty years. A simple shift in perspective can change everything. So I guess now I am a “glass half empty” kinda gal. And I like it that way. Emptiness with promise. Space to fill with even more things that I truly love. And plenty of space left to eventually share with the Cute Boy when he decides to show up. The pain of his not being here yet is an effective, driving, force that compels me to fill the emptiness with good things. With other forms of love.

So on this Valentine’s Day, I have chosen to take the sadness of not hearing from the Cute Boy and channel it into a message about the value of the emptiness. Tonight I chose to fill some of that emptiness watching a very UN-sentimental (yet entertaining) TV show with my daughter, followed by a command performance by my not-yet-2-year-old grandson doing the Chicken Dance with Elmo and Spiderman. Sheer joy on his sweet little face. Then I came home and listened to an amazing song that was written by a very old friend and sent to me today. Think I’ll fill my glass with some of that. And tomorrow when I face the emptiness again, I will find some more of that.

Years ago, I went to an art party at a friend’s home. She was selling paintings, and one of them just reached out and grabbed me. It felt like a visual representation of my soul. Scattered hearts and musical instruments, floating in a sea of blue. I really, really wanted that painting, but felt like it was out of my price range. My friend told my husband, and he bought it for me. It is still one of my favorite things. I recently pulled it out of storage, and yesterday I dusted it off, took a photo of it, and have posted it at the top of this message. Perhaps tomorrow I will actually hang it on my wall again. Identify what you really love, then put it where you can see it every day. With enough love around you, emptiness is not nearly so scary.

Learned Lesson Number Twenty-Three: There Is No "X" In Christmas

It is Christmas Eve, and I find myself with some alone time. Which is not the same as finding myself alone at Christmas. I am not alone, and for that, I am continually grateful. At the moment, my kids are with their father and his family, and I just came from a wonderful Swedish Christmas Eve dinner with my brother's family, my sister, and my parents. Now I am home, with a little time to contemplate the nature of Christmas. I have not done Christmas in the "traditional" way this year. Partly by choice, but mostly due to circumstance. I have not decorated, I have not written a festive rhyming Holiday Newsletter, and I have not spent a single dime on gifts for anyone. I didn't even put up a tree, although we do have a tiny artificial one in the living room that my son set up. This is not like me. Usually, I am all over Christmas, from the day after Thanksgiving until January 2nd.

The reasons for my lack of Christmas preparation this year are varied, from being overwhelmed by school and work, to not having any extra funds; from dealing with the passing of my grandmother, to just passively rebelling against the madness. I am not feeling bitter or negative, just a little on the numb side. I love Christmas, and I think I am generally pretty good at embracing the Spirit over the Sales. In fact, I avoid Black Friday like the plague it sounds like it is named after. Which is not to say that I begrudge anyone else the opportunity to get up at the crack of the night before to battle crowds over toys and electronics. Saving money is a good thing. I may even try it one day. But I have enough chaos in my life without purposely adding more. And I don't think there were shoppers pushing each other around in that small stable where it all began.

Still, I have been feeling a little down over letting the season slip by without having accomplished x,y, and z. Even though I do not buy into the crass commercialism that has taken over this sacred Holiday, I do still feel like it is my responsibility to prepare a festive and homey environment for my kids, and I feel I have failed to do that this year. My goal has always been to create a setting wherein they know that this time of the year is different than the rest of the year, because it marks the entrance into this earthly sphere of the Savior of us all.

That is an amazing thing. A thing that gets lost in the shuffle. So lost that His very name, Christ, has been replaced in some instances by an "X". I am not here to pass judgment on anyone who has ever said "Merry X-Mas", I have done it myself in the past. Before I thought about what that really meant. I don't know if the crossing out of Christ came about as a thing of convenience, or as a way to be politically correct with regard to those who might not necessarily be Christian, but removing His name from a holiday that is meant to honor His arrival seems to me to negate the holiday. As does feeling bad for not being able to afford material gifts to celebrate what was a most humble beginning. One that did not involve material wealth.

My feeling tonight is that there is no "correct" way to do Christmas. Except to remember who is being honored, and to treat those around you like He would. We should honor, recognize, and respect the holiday traditions of other faiths, as the Savior Himself would. But this does not mean dismissing or apologizing for our own. And the Holiday traditions can be wonderful. I like my eggnog, going to see Christmas lights, and hoping to experience the superpowers of mistletoe as much as the next person. I am a fan of Santa, and of gift-giving. And there is nothing wrong with that. Gift-giving is symbolic of the great gift that the Savior is to each of us. It is also fun.

However, like life, some Christmases will be richly abundant, and others will be sparse. If you are lucky, some will be both. Because it will likely be the ones that were sparse that will be most treasured and remembered. And when life is bearing down on us, sometimes there are things on our very long and detailed Christmas lists that need to be crossed off and let go of. Just be careful what you draw that "X" through, or you are in danger of losing Christmas altogether. Embrace the people you love, and let go of the rest. That is how you do Christmas right.

Lesson Number Twenty-Two: On Doubting What You Are Sure Of

You may have noticed that I omitted the word "Learned" from this particular title. That is not an oversight. Because I don't know that I can ever claim this lesson as one that is fully learned. So this is more of an exploration than a declaration. This topic has been rolling around in my head for some time now, and it is doubt that has stopped me from addressing it. Doubt in my ability to get the message right; to properly deliver it. So I have started writing, and I have stopped, and I have started again. I have been taking notes and writing down observations for weeks. Because getting this particular message right feels important to me.

About five years ago, a song lyric was brought to my attention, on at least three separate occasions, via three different sources, and in rather quick succession. So I paid attention, and I have remembered. The lyric had to do with God's mercy on those who doubt what they are sure of. The context in which I have interpreted this song lyric has evolved over the past five years, and I now believe that the over-riding message has less to do with the actual meaning of the words, and more to do with the question the words have caused me to keep asking myself; How can I keep my doubts away from what I am sure of? The answer is that I can’t. My doubts will always test the things I am sure of. And that is where the part about God’s mercy comes in. In the midst of the testing.

This blog is about the things I am sure of. The things I feel I can somewhat confidently say that I “know for sure”. Most of what I write about here has already withstood the test of my doubting long enough for me to say “this concept or principle won’t change, and I can trust it”. That is my criteria for declaring a lesson “learned”. That said, there are many things in my life that I used to be sure of, that I no longer am. But this does not have to be tragic.

When I was young and single, the one thing I was just certain I was going to get right in life was Who I Married. I fully believed that if I did everything I was taught to do, if I had faith and was obedient to God’s laws, He would not let me choose poorly. And then when marriage got really, really, hard, I was just certain that we would find a way to work through it all; that God would not allow us to fail. Obviously, finding myself divorced made me question many of the things I had previously been “sure of”, with the aforementioned “certainties” leading the list.

Nonetheless, being the ever-adaptable perpetual optimist that I am, I became certain that I would soon find someone better suited to me, that I might even have more than one contender for the position, and that, oh, “5 or so years from now”, I would finally be happily bound to the Right Man. Six years later, I am a not-so-young-yet-still-single Grandma who is going to college and writing this silly blog, trying to sort out the criteria for determining what I am “sure of”. Seeking a man does not even rank space at the far bottom of my “To-Do” list. I have handed that one off to God and am not even trying to figure out the divine time frame on it. I just trust Him.

We are all sure of certain things at certain times. If we were not, we would never make a single decision. Belief and absolute faith are powerful things. For a certain amount of time, the apostle Peter had absolute faith that he could walk on water. And he did. Right up to the moment he let doubt creep in, and then he began to sink beneath the waves. Doubt can sink us, or it can strengthen us, (sometimes both) depending on how we manage it. Recently a man I greatly admire spoke in church, (humbly, poignantly, and passionately) about the pain of seeing his parents give in to doubt in areas that were close to his heart. This served to remind him (and me) that we can only rely on the beliefs of others for so long before doubt forces us to figure out for ourselves what we are sure of. We have to test what we believe, and we do that by living it, as this particular man does. Those of us who have been recipients of his kindness have no doubts about what he believes.

In this same church meeting, there was a lot of talk about the “tender mercies” of the Lord, and I could not help but connect the message about painful doubts with the message about tender mercies. The point was made that it is the very strengthening nature of our trials that IS the tender mercy of the Lord. He allows us to have the doubts, to sink for a while, to make choices that lead to pain, so that when we reach the point that we are finally sure of something, it has value. Because He loves us. When Peter was sinking into the turbulent ocean, perhaps feeling shame for his own failing faith, he reached out for the hand of the Savior, who had mercy on him in his doubt and lifted him back up.

He will always be merciful to us in our doubts, and of that, I am sure.

In the past few months, there has been much of both the painful doubts and the tender mercies in my life. Reality has conflicted with some things I felt like I knew for sure and could count on, and I have felt like I was left drifting. Drifting and sinking. I beat myself up over and over again for my lack of faith, and this makes it hard to reach upward for the hand of the Savior when I need it. Yet it is always there. Without fail, He has been merciful to me in my doubts. Which are many, and which repeat often.

As does the lesson.

Faith. Doubt. Mercy. Repeat.

Learned Lesson Number Twenty-One: Write It Out

Initially when I see this directive, I visualize a LIST. Lists are somewhat generic, at least as far as writing goes. Write out a grocery list, a Christmas list, a list of New Years’ Resolutions, list the Pros and Cons of a tough decision. Write it out so you don’t forget it, get it in front of you, where you can see it and analyze it. Write it out so someone else will know what you need them to get/be/do for you.

I used to love to make lists. Lists are good things, and indispensible as organizational tools. Without them, we would be…well… “list-less”. OK, ok… I apologize for that bit of bad writing in this bad bit ON writing. But sometimes a bad bit makes things a bit better. Alright, I will really stop now… Anyway… Lists are also meaningless if you don’t take the action that is listed on them. Ya gotta DO things, then check them off.

But this is not what I am talking about when I say “Write it Out” in the context of this message. I am talking about passion, I am talking about problem-solving, and I am talking about how I came to discover what it is I believe I am supposed to do with my life. What’s left of it, anyway.

When I was a kid, I wrote stuff down. Kind of obsessively. I had notebooks. Like “Harriet the Spy”. Only I never wrote bad things about people, (Well. Almost never.) or had my notebooks fall into the wrong hands, subsequently destroying people’s lives. So maybe not exactly like “Harriet the Spy”, but you get the point. I started keeping journals consistently when I was about 12, and I have over 30 volumes now. I won’t tell you that these masterpieces are full of wisdom and optimism, because that would be a lie. (Although I would like to think there is some measure of both, in those precious pages.) Mostly these volumes are full of tortured observations about the boys who tempt and try me. You will notice that I said “are”, and not “were”. Girls whining about the boys who tempt and try them is one of those things in life that does not change with age. Or experience. Or marital status. I will not be debating this point. Nor will I be dwelling on it. I just want to talk about the process.

When I am feeling something extreme, something too big to handle alone, too big to contain within my weak and mortal self, whether it is good or bad, I have to write it out. Out of my head, out of my heart, out of my system. Onto a blank page. To me, there is just nothing more seductive than a blank page. My favorite thing to do when I am feeling overwhelmed is to go to Barnes and Noble and look at the blank books. At the leather-bound journals. To buy a good pen or two. Or five. To then choose the blank book that feels the most representative of where I am in life at that given moment, buy it, and proceed to fill the pages with all my STUFF. It feels good, and it keeps me sane. I think. At least it helps me FEEL sane again, if only momentarily.

To just pour every little thing, even the iceberg-variety “little things” out of my soul and onto the page is the best therapy ever. And the best follow-up therapy is to go back and read it later, when my perspective has changed. It is a way to recycle used-up feelings, hopes, and dreams, to package them with words and see if they look better out there where I can see them. Often they do. Sometimes they don’t. But always I feel a tiny bit more able to move forward, having at least contained within a book whatever is ailing me.

There is much that has been ailing me in my recent past. I pour it raw and unedited into my journals. Which my children may or may not see after I am gone, and that is ok. There needs to be a private place for that. And then sometimes, after I have read back over something of a painful, humorous, or miraculous nature that I have experienced and written about in my journal, there are parts of it that sort of leap out at me, screaming (in their little tiny animated word-voices) that there might be other people who are dealing with similar things who could possibly benefit from my perspective. So I re-write, and then I share with all of you. The still, small voice in my head, (the one that I know is not my own) helps me with the timing and the editing. It feels like the thing I am supposed to be doing, and I am grateful that this thing I feel directed to do is also a thing that I happen to love.

So whenever you are feeling burdened by a thing that hurts, doesn’t make sense, makes you want to break something, or makes you want to break into song, just write it out. Soon, while it’s fresh, and in the form it first comes to you. Once you have done that, sleep on it. Then read what you wrote. Chances are, you will have put it in some kind of order without even realizing it. You will see something you missed before. Or you will cringe, throw the paper away, and swear never to write again. But you will have learned something, I promise you. And you should write again. Whether or not you choose to share what you write, and with whom, should be handled with care. And with prayer. Because words are powerful . They can change lives. In either direction, and sometimes permanently . So choose carefully. That’s all.

Learned Lesson Number Twenty: All the Cute Boys Want Me… To Introduce Them to My Friends.

This is not going to be as much about cute boys and what they want as you might think. And I have sort of battled myself over whether to write this one, because it could be a bit like opening a vein. But I’d like to think I have a little perspective on this by age 50. Or maybe I really don’t, and that’s why I need to write about it. So here goes.

I have a sort of long and stinging history of being the “friend” to the boys. Founder and President of the “Friend Zone”, if you will. The one to whom the male of the species feel they can say, “So, tell me about this friend of yours… She’s really cute/smart/funny/sexy... (pick an adjective)… Do you think she would like me??” This dynamic dates pretty much back to grade school, and now that I am single again, it appears to still be alive and well.

Most of the time, I find this only slightly annoying. I know the drill and I cannot afford to be bothered by it. So I roll my eyes, take a deep breath, and tell them everything they want to know about my beautiful and amazing friend. And since my friends are amazing, that is an easy thing to do. I’m not saying it’s never painful, but there are worse challenges to have. The only time it really hurts is when the male in question is one for whom I myself have been holding out some measure of hope. I have only encountered this a few times in my life, but when it does happen, it is an acid burn to the heart. At any age. In order to recover from such blows, I have had to learn to file the experience under “Things That Just Are What They Are”, aka “Things I Cannot Change”. This is the file I hand off to God for processing.

Last Thursday would have been my 29^th wedding anniversary, and 3 days prior to that marked 6 years since my husband told me he wanted out. In light of the topic at hand, the irony of my marriage was that we were never really friends. Kinda tough to accept, when being a friend was the one thing I thought I was good at. In that oh-so-amicable discussion 6 years ago, he said he wanted to “remain friends”, but this has not occurred. Perhaps because you cannot remain what you have never been. But it has not been for lack of trying on my part. I have used all of my “be a good friend” chops in numerous attempts to make the aftermath smoother, but it has not seemed to help.

So the issue of the ex-husband also goes in that file I hand off to God. In fact, every challenging relationship that I have with other people goes into that file. Because no matter how kind, or clever, or well-intentioned I think I am being, I have learned that when it comes to the agency of others, I have ZERO control. Which is as it should be.

My children test me in this area consistently, particularly my youngest son, who informed me on that same Thursday last week that the school plans we had laid out for this year were not going to work for him. My response was less than stellar. There was screaming and lecturing and frustrated tears on my part, while this 13-year-old boy sat calmly, holding back his own tears and frustration, (a new level of maturity for him) waiting for me to finish my tantrum so he could tell me exactly why he was feeling what he was feeling. The jury is still out on how we will resolve this issue. And the fact that parenting this boy will never be a cakewalk is another of those things that I put in that divine file.

The bottom line is that the people I love the most are always going to choose what they want to choose, regardless of what I think, and I have found that the best (and perhaps only) way to deal with this is to change the way I think about it.

Rather than feel sorry for myself when I see my friends getting stormed by good-looking men, (and I am not so naïve as to believe there isn’t a negative flip side to that dynamic as well…) I choose instead to believe that the one man that God has reserved for me is being polished and prepared by adversity, (as am I) and will be worth the wait. (As will I.)

Rather than mourn “what might have been” in my marriage, I choose instead to celebrate the day in the temple, where I was married; to walk past the always-open door of the room where the ceremony took place, and feel hope instead of regret. I choose to be grateful for the six amazing children and two grandchildren that came from that union. And to further be grateful that the most taxing thing about them is that they are too independent!

I choose to be grateful that I had just come from the temple and had the spiritual strength to handle what felt like a devastating setback, when my son told me what he did last Thursday night. I still did not handle it very well at the time, but my son did. And now I feel like we will be able to find an answer if we work together and exercise mutual respect for one another.

There are things in life that just ARE what they are. My marriage did not make it. But the next one might. My kids will not necessarily choose the path I wish they would. But they are healthy, and they are creative and funny, and they are with me. And the cute boys might always want me to introduce them to my friends. But someday, there might be one who does not. And I only need one.