Adjusting Our Grip: Waiting for Happy

Chapter 3 – Waiting for Happy


So far as I am personally concerned, I am here as a candidate for eternity, for heaven and for happiness. I want to secure, by my acts, a peace in another world that will impart that happiness and bliss for which I am seeking.
                                                          John Taylor

Andy and I were coming home from a trip to Nauvoo a few years ago, we stopped to buy souvenirs for family. I noticed some jars of locally produced honey and honey butter with the byline “Happiness in a Bottle.” I imagined that to be true. Don’t you just love honey butter? Seriously! I bought a jar, alright, maybe six or seven. It was sooooooo good. (I didn’t give any of it away, not a jar.) In my guilt, (and obsession) I tried to order it online but the company no longer exists. So I pursue the perfect honey butter still to this day.

If you could bottle happiness and sell it (and believe me, people do) what would it look like for you?

My bottle would be filled with that honey butter but since it can’t be, I’d put in sugar, flour and butter and a great Bollywood movie.

Aside from my family, which is a given (and includes two dogs), my two favorite things in the world are desserts and stories/storytelling. Consequently, I find true happiness in not disguising it - 100 percent of us are searching for lasting happiness. The pursuit of happiness is positively primeval and madly modern.

I like being happy. Creativity, productivity and a good challenge make me the happiest. For me, those things are all embodied in what I do for a living. Lucky me! I have directed plays for 30 years and I have cried with joy at the curtain call of an opening night when just 24 hours before I wondered if we were going to make it on stage at all. Thinking back, maybe I cried in response to relief and not happiness at all. Ha!

Here’s what troubles me - It seems that if I give certain of my students a good challenge, thinking that it will make them happy like it does me, it just makes them melt into a nasty puddle that smells like surrender. I hate that smell. Or if I have an expectation that creating and eating something that is terribly bad for me while watching a new episode of my favorite television sitcom. It’s fleeting happiness, but nevertheless, I do feel it.

I always think the young women I work with at church are going to love something creative to do, like plant a flower garden, but several of them just want to play in the hose instead. I should be okay with that instead of turning the hose on them. Their happiness is not my happiness. Their honey butter is not my honey butter. So can we really define happiness for anyone but ourselves?

I’m going to try to gather a general idea anyway and say that happiness is more than contentment and less than joy. For me, it’s a state of well-being combined with sincere satisfaction with life. It’s no wonder everyone in the world is looking for it but we all have our own version of it, don’t we?

Recently it was asserted by a Relief Society teacher that true happiness and joy can only be felt if we are living the commandments of God. It made me wonder what true joy is and why I’m not happier. I try really hard to live the commandments. I love all the people around me and I truly love and need God in my life. So...why is happiness so elusive?

Is happiness a commodity to be met and measured? Can it really be defined? This dear sister lamented that her adult son was making her miserable because of the decisions he was making. He hadn’t been active in the church for years. From her perspective, he was not teaching her grandchildren to follow a “covenant path.” In fact, she nodded her head back and forth in disgust, he had taken his wife and children on his only weekend off, out to the lake camping when they “should be in church.” In my mind, I thought, “I would give anything to have kids to take camping.” My happiness - not her happiness I guess.

I planned an anonymous letter to this sister to tell her that her son was never going to make her happy if she was requiring him to provide it. Maybe he had been offended, maybe his children needed him, maybe coming to church would cause him to crawl up into the fetal position in fear. I don’t know! Whatever it was, his decision to take his kids camping made him happy and that made his decision easy. We search for and do things that make us happy. Everyone does. Too bad his actions were making her miserable. Of course, I didn’t say any of those things, instead, I just raised my hand and said “Happiness is different for different people, I guess,” as vaguely as I could so as not to offend anyone. It still shut the room down cold. I wished I was the one out camping right then.

Ohhh, I LOVE camping. I love browsing the sporting goods stores looking for cool camping gadgets. I like to set up a tent. I like looking for firewood and roasting a marshmallow until its outside skin cannot defy gravity and must take the long slow stretch into my mouth. I own four Dutch ovens in various sizes, a stand-up camp stove, king-sized camp chairs with little attached tables, a hammock, five coolers (there are two of us!)…I take pictures of nature with no people in them and then I oooh and ahhhh over those pictures years later. Nature gives me its rest, which in turn gives me strength - a feeling of well-being. Consequently, everything about camping makes me happy! On the contrary – I have a brother-in-law that would rather eat dirt than camp. Everything about camping makes him feel “homeless and hairy.” Nature to him is a thing to be conquered not enjoyed.

I also love gardening. I feel joy when I can pull a weed, root and all! I get giddy when I survey a garden full of living green stuff. I rejoice when I lift a jar full of tomatoes from the pressure canner knowing that I will eat well in January! On the contrary, my husband rolls his eyes when I ask him to help weed. It’s torture to him. Sheer torture. (Though a warm bowl of tomato soup in the middle on the winter with a sourdough grilled cheese sandwich does, in fact, bring him joy – I have seen the dipping and heard the squealing of joy. You’re welcome.)

There are people that find joy in searching for new clothes – I’d rather die. “Retail therapy,” I think is what they call it. I call it torture. For me, the time spent searching for the right dress or pair of shoes is time lost. The biggest factor in my search for happiness is lost time. I have a genuine fear of wasting time. I have to call every event I do something important or I won’t do it.

Take “self-care” for example. I think this is the trendy new vernacular for taking time to do things for yourself, things that benefit YOU. Self-care, for example, includes spending your precious resources (time, money, etc…) on your physical person. I think. My small perception of self-care includes getting my nails done (how would I garden?), getting a massage (I would have to shave e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g first – what a pain), retail therapy (see the paragraph above), going to the gym (I have stairs in my house), taking a bath instead of a shower (I actually redesigned our bathroom to have the jetted-tub taken out – truth.) So until I change my perception of self-care - watching an old episode of Downton Abbey with one dachshund (Gus) tucked in on my left and the other (Lily) on my right is my version of self-care. I have felt great surges of joy during these moments even though there might be twelve things that need to be done, even 1200. When I make my world still for a minute, even with the rumble of laundry going on in the background, there are surges of true joy.

And that might be the key: a surge of happy.

When I was in my early 20’s my perception of the people around me that “had it all” included constant, contented happiness. And they all lived happily EVER after. All the time. 24/7 after. Sure there was the time Cinderella went through natural labor, and the time the Prince got food poisoning from eating the shrimp appetizer that was left out too long, but they were h.a.p.p.p.p.p.y. always. They had it all.

I had been taught that the gold standard of “all” included a temple-worthy, temple-attending spouse, and happy, well-educated, church-attending children. So, I surmised that the opposite was also true – you could not have full happiness without those things. So why bother? Sounds like a horrible risk! Because my perception was that if I lived the commandments and stayed worthy of the gold standard life, that's what I would get in return.

I went in search of happiness and joy early in my life. I would hear lessons in church about it – “Men are that they might have JOY”and then a lesson about what joy IS – an actual definition of JOY, a goal that included making righteous choices down a long, straight and narrow path which included the “Great Plan of Happiness.” I was also told that the absolute pinnacle of all happiness was finding an incredible husband and being a mother. “My husband completes me,” “Children are everything,” “I never knew what love was until I became a mother,” gushed everyone - all the time - always. I heard it last week. Call it brainwashing, call it whatever you want, but it was in my immediate ear-shot all the time. It became my perception, my truth.

Of course, the path is universal to the membership (and, truthfully to everyone on earth - but that’s not important right now) and included obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. I was taught, that without obedience there is no joy (in my feeble mind ie..husband and children). I was taught that if I walked this narrow path and fulfilled the covenants (my mind = found a husband and had children) that were in place before me, I might have joy. I MIGHT be happy always. Eventually. I MIGHT have joy. That’s the old debater in me. Might isn’t a guarantee. There were things I needed to do before the joy (find a husband and have children.) It wasn’t going to be handed to me.

So as the years of acceptable covenant-making approached, I made those promises in full expectation that I was on the path to happiness and joy. Eventually. I was happily baptized at eight years old. I happily searched for the Holy Ghost in my life. I happily took the steps to receive and make my first covenants in the holy temple to prepare for a mission. I happily served that mission and happily obeyed the mission rules in expectation that when I returned I would be able to find a mate, fill a dinner table with children and FINALLY be happy, find ultimate joy, for t.i.m.e. a.n.d. a.l.l. e.t.e.r.n.i.t.y. with that family.

I looked around me. It was taking my friends between 21 to 25 years to accomplish all that. It looked so easy.

HA!

In between the surges of all that happy are years of supplementing my search as I created my specific path using my God-given gifts and my God-given agency. I never felt truly gifted and I did use my agency in darkness and impatience at times. I had my LDS moment of Amish Rumspringa. That set me back. I knew it. I had been taught that it would. It did. But when I did use my agency to make creative non-gospel driven choices, it didn’t make me happy and the darkness I felt could be easily identified because of the lack of happy that existed in it.

I don’t recommend it, but for me, going off the narrow path helped me comprehend the path so clearly. I perceived the light around my friends, I basked in their light but provided none of my own; I was choking on my own darkness. I didn’t see it then, but in retrospect, I see it now. My spirit’s progress as a human had slowed to a crawl. In my early 20s, I really had to get my “poop in a group” as my dad would say.

So I did. But since no two of us have the same gifts, environment or DNA, no two paths are going to be alike. Then there is that thing about “I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord, I’ll do what you need me to do... stuff. That. That slows a girl like me, with my bedrock LDS upbringing and training, down. So far down. I always wanted to run down the path toward my joy! I wanted to collect as much of it as I could – all of it – all the happiness to be had! I’m very competitive. But when you are also trying to do what your God wants you to do – and faithfully, on His time – there is the waiting. I. j.u.s.t. h.a.t.e. t.h.a.t. I couldn’t just go out and buy happiness, I had to do it in God’s time and on his covenant path. Otherwise - two steps forward and a thousand back.

I find no happiness in waiting around. For anything. So it’s in those human moments that we foolishly call waiting that I have experienced my darkest darks. It’s that in-between time – in between the surges of joy and happiness that the darkness swallows me sometimes. Consequently, I have learned two great things 1) I do not wait for anything that I can initiate myself and 2) I must give everything and everyone the patience that God gives me.

God has to have patience with us because he has given all of us the opportunity to make choices that take us far, far away from Him - some of you will watch others take those opportunities and be smart enough to learn life’s lessons vicariously through those of us that recklessly, enthusiastically took those opportunities. Mercifully, it is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that every single one of us will live eternally. And that, my friends, is a long, long time to live, and yet, for some of us, living until tomorrow might be a long, long time to live. I had that time too. I had to stop waiting for my joy to arrive and rescue me. When that happened, and I will talk about that extensively in the book, my day became a week, my week a decade and my decade became a book.

Now go back and notice that I said MY joy. Remember my joy isn’t your joy. What I am waiting for might not be what you are waiting for. What makes your heart swell with happiness might make me shrink with fear. I know that now. I truly did ache for the righteous husband, two to eight children, the loaded dinner table, science projects and the lot.

That’s not what happened.

Here’s the rub - I do believe that I am doing EXACTLY what I should be doing, even if is isn’t raising my own children. I believe God has put a stamp of approval on what I do with the time He has given me. Because I believe that contentment is the seed of happiness, I am content, fulfilled and pursuing happiness. I also believe the prophet Nephi when he said, “...the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.”

That’s an amazing promise.

So I wait...on the Lord..

But even today as I write this – I feel that happiness is off in the distance and joy illusively teases me like a butterfly in the garden hopping from leaf to branch to flower. It’s there, and then it isn’t. You can reach out to grab it and then it flies just out of your reach. But can I live just watching the butterflies? YES! They give me absolute joy. And in the meantime, I will not wait to see what else there is in this garden of life. I will keep moving, keep asking, keep doing, keep growing gardens. I’m definitely going to keep trying out honey butter recipes. That makes me really happy.

Chapter 3 Waiting for Happy Recipe

Happy Fry Bread (Thanks Upward Bound SUU 1989!)

When I was in college, one of my many jobs was being a counselor to a group of fantastic high school kids from Arizona. They taught me how to make fry bread and I can’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse because you can make it in a few minutes, but then I do. Make it. All the time. Dang it. Gosh, I loved those kids.

Now, I know it’s a contradiction to put a sort of “instant bread” recipe in the book right after Patience Bread. But hey - I’m the modern Saint remember. I need bread right now. I need honey butter right now. I need a “Navajo Taco” right now. Here you go:

Step 1. Put 1 - 2 inches of cooking oil in a deep frying pan or wok. Turn the heat to medium high. Oil needs to get to 350 degrees and maintain its heat after you drop in a big piece of room temperature dough. So start your oil FIRST - before you do anything else.

Then gather into a big bowl:

2 cups of flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm water

That’s literally it.


Mix the dry ingredients together then add the water. The dough will be shaggy. Knead it around with a fork until it comes together in a uniform ball, but not more than that. Overkneading will make it tough. Divide the dough into four to six equal pieces. Roll each piece out onto a floured surface making a ¼” thin disc. Cover with plastic wrap then WALK AWAY for 15 - 20 minutes. Let those babies rest.

Meanwhile, your oil should be ready. Check the temperature and make sure you are at 350 - 360 degrees. Fry each disc until they are golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towel.

You can cover these amazing treats in honey butter, jam, powdered sugar or a cinnamon and sugar combo. We also use them to pile on ground beef, cheese, onions, lettuce, beans, olives, guacamole and salsa...I need to go now.


Chapter 3 Happy Homework Assignment

The Fry Bread recipe makes 4-6 BIG pieces of bread. You are not allowed to eat all of that by yourself. You must call someone to share it with. It doesn’t matter who, but it can’t be delivered or dropped off. You must consume it with someone.

Identify FIVE moments in your life when you were absolutely happy.


a.


b.


c.


d.


e.

3. What was the common denominator of those five moments in time?





4. If you could bottle pure happiness and sell it, what would be inside that jar, metaphorically? Sell your whole brand! What would it be called?

#LoveWins

Is anyone else taking up space on the DVR with Sister Wives? I'm addicted to it. Not sure why...fascinated by another TLC reality show I guess, except this reality is a little too close to home and it raises the hair on the back of my neck sometimes. I first started watching because it was about a family from Lehi, Utah where I grew up. I recognized the neighbors yard and called my sister who lives in the same part of town. She said "Yes - it's being filmed down the street and their kids are in my kids classes at school." I was hooked instantly, waiting for it to be the next TLC train wreck. 

When Big Love came out, the HBO series about a man with three wives, I followed the news about it, including the episode where one of the characters wore her sacred temple clothes and enacted portions of the endowment ordinance. I can't speak for all Mormons but the Utah crowd cried out in vain. (Even though it wasn't about their religion. Not sure why everyone got so uptight about it.) However, I think if you know that a religion would rather not expose their most sacred ordinances to the public... out of respect, you might think twice about airing that information. Out of respect. But ratings are ratings. Tom Hanks (the producer) disappointed me. That was lazy T.V. Quick to entertain, quick to raise some eyebrows, big ratings, but sad for those that consider those ordinances sacred. Kudos to Cody Brown for not televising his last marriage ceremony on TV. He said "we consider that a sacred ceremony not to be put before public scrutiny." Brilliant! Not only did they get to hold the ceremony in private, but the entire nation of viewers got to fill in the blanks with their sick and twisted imaginations. Even better. Great for ratings, TLC.

Apostolic United Brethren (the religion of the Sister Wives) is not affiliated with the Mormons, though they believe in the Book of Mormon. Just as any religion that was ever created has also spawned disgruntled sects of that religion, the Book of Mormon is a powerful testament of Jesus Christ and has it's fair share of believers that don't call themselves "Mormon." Last week we were in Nauvoo, Illinois, and we learned that in the 1840's, 8 religious groups branched off of the original LDS church. The polygamists believe that John Taylor, the third President of the Mormon church kept a small group of men ordained to carry on the principle of polygamy. I mean...great... if you love stress and multiple "Honey-do" lists. Do you think Cody Brown runs to the store for tampons, bread and milk several times a day? Do you think he loves doing yard work on 4 homes or going to 20+ kids piano recitals? NO! I think he's too busy running back and forth between homes. I think Cody is a raving lunatic to take all that upon himself and still feel like he can be available to all of those people ever day when they need him. But it's a sacred tenet of their religion and he appears to be doing his best to uphold it. I'm happy to watch his show like an addict and he's happy to let TLC pay for his culdesac. 

Confession! I have come to really like their family! Jeanelle is definitely my favorite wife. You go girl! I'm really proud of the Browns for always pointing out (for what its worth) that they are not mainstream Mormons. They obviously don't want to be mainstream because in the mainstream Mormon church you can only have one wife at a time. Now, there was a time...but that's a crazy can of sour gummy worms that can be opened by someone who cares more than I do. However, when I see similar artwork in their house and mine, pictures of Joseph Smith and hear them reading from the Book of Mormon, it makes me nervous that people group all of us with a Joseph Smith background into one goofy group. (Through a TLC filter, no less!) None of us are crazy. We're just abiding by the tenets of our faith. Though after a week on Facebook after the new ruling on same-sex marriage, I can honestly say that some of us are pious pinheads. 

Andy and I have had the amazing opportunity to work together, in the same school, for our entire married life. I see him all morning, we eat lunch together every day and we go home together...every day. Now for some, this might seem like torture. But not to us. As I write this Andy is coming over to my dorm room at the National Theatre Conference just to see me because he had to judge a competition this morning and hasn't seen me since breakfast. It's sickeningly sweet isn't it? I am so lucky and I know it.

Could I share Andy with someone else? Could I sit on a couch with other women and Andy in the middle without being next to him, holding his hand?

N.o. 

I never have been good at sharing my stuff. I'm an oldest child of eight. If it has my name on it, leave it alone. I just can't imagine sharing my husbands secrets, insecurities, body fluids... with three or four other women. And that's okay. I don't have too. And because I feel like I am a mainstream Mormon with a modern sensibility of sorts, I'm truly okay with those that have multiple wives. It's true. I don't really care. Be married to four men too if you want! Or someone of your own sex. The sanctity of my marriage will not be determined by the Browns or by the gays or by anyone but me, my husband and God. What denigrates marriage is people like Brittany Spears or the Kardashians 17 week/minute marriages that make a mockery of committed love. Cody Brown seems ultimately committed to all of his wives and his children. He runs from house to house; he's not walking. In my book that is committed love and a big family usually equals...pardon the pun, BIG LOVE. Kids need a family bunker in today's war against them no matter how many siblings they have to share their dad with (at least they have and know their dad.) I can't imagine my life without my seven siblings. They are, collectively, my support system and safety net. 

I admit that I am only seeing the family through the lens of the TLC camera, but I wish the Browns every success. It looks like its working. That's that key for me. Does a relationship promote peace, love and the welfare of the community? If causing extra gossip and judgement in the neighborhood is the only detriment to having a polygamous, same-sex or unmarried couple next door, then shame on us. 

It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the marriage department for the United States as a whole, hasn't it? Allowing same-sex marriages as a constitutional right has gotten half of my Facebook friends projecting their profile pics through a rainbow filter and the other half crying all kinds of apocalyptic doom and gloom...it was heartbreaking see some of my Uber-religious Facebook friends (Mormon and not) and acquaintances post such vitriol. Then to see the backlash from the gay community in ugly expletives and stinky in-your-face sarcasm...GAH!!!! I finally just had to shut it down.  Ironically, we spent the same week studying the history of the LDS church as they were pushed out of town after town, then building the second largest city in Illinois at the time - the City Beautiful (Nauvoo), only to watch their prophet be murdered, and witness their temple burn as they walked away to cross the plains to escape more torture. I watched so many people quickly forget what it is like to be the oppressed.

We need to remember that Facebook is an international site. While it is our right as a people to fight for what we believe in, we must respect both sides of the fight on behalf of peace in the community and for our children. It will all work out. I don't believe that the expanded rights that were given to all citizens of this country will affect my marriage. I hope it will positively affect my cake decorating business, ;-) and my gay friends are enjoying a new level of social acceptance that, I pray, will decrease the bullying, the discrimination and the suicides over time. Remember Mormons - what we asking our gay brothers and sisters is an awful lot.  That One Blog about Mormons and Homosexuality

The definition of marriage in my world is a religious ceremony called "a sealing." It's specific to my church and my worthiness to participate in it. There are enough words in the ceremony to appease the civil requirements, but the rest of the ceremony is as expansive as all eternity and as simple as the word "Yes." In addition to connecting us together civilly for all those worldly benefits, Mormons believe that this ceremony "seal" us spiritually, to our spouse forever. I mean...today and an infinity of tomorrows. I will be bugged that Andy lets our dogs chew up his black socks from now to endless nows. 

If I had a sister-wife, there might be less black socks on the floor. If I had a sister-wife at home during the day, I could relax at night and not worry about laundry or if we have clean underwear or what needs to be ironed for the next day. Our dogs might not be feral. Our garden might have less weeds. Our mail pile might magically disappear. I might be able to come home to a cooked meal instead of standing in front of the open freezer...crying. 

I guess I'll just have to cry. I'm always going to work, there will always be black socks and I'm not willing to share Andy. But now is the time for us to show what we are really made of and stop the ugly judgments and the passive aggressive posts about how the "Mormons are squirming now!" or "Satan's army is getting a grip on us!" What we don't see is Satan smiling as we both piously push "post." 

#LoveWins.

50

Written on November 23, 2014

I always like to dedicate these to someone…but this one is just for me. WARNING: Read at your risk. It’s heavy and I don’t want your pity. I just want to record, for my own benefit, the things that have made me who I am today on my 50^th birthday. Be warned…despite this being the season of Thanksgiving, I’m not taking it well.

WHERE DID THE TIME GO?

My 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Bone, (oh, how I loved her) made us figure out what year it would be when we turned 25, 50, 80, etc... I very clearly recall saying "in 2014, I will turn 50 years old!" As if the world would come to a full stop. The horror of it! I shook it off with a Lucy van Pelt "BLECH!" then recess or lunch or something and I moved on as if time didn't matter, because in 4th grade, time is relative and moves like cold tar down a low hill.

Good times, 4th grade.

Forward 40 years...My official papers say I'm 50 years old today. I'm not dead yet, however, every time I ascend a set of stairs and listen to my carbonated knees or empty a brush full of the hair I used to have, I feel that death is walking slowly down the hall toward me.

When did that happen? There I was sitting at the feet of my beloved Mrs. Bone and in a blink I’m still sitting in school (there’s half my problem right there)…but I’m the teacher and I’m signing up for classes about my impending retirement!

While shopping for props for a show, I saw a black balloon with a big “50” on it and it said “Over the hill!” When did I finish climbing the hill? I know I must have, because I have a very distinctive feeling that I am skidding down the other side of it now. When did I reach the top? Did I not pause to look out and appreciate the moment? I must have been in rehearsal when that happened. Damn plays, they rule my life.

I guess I should be grateful I can still see the trail before me and I can still remember the 4th grade, so that's pretty good.

But what did I do with all those years and what do I have to show for it? I feel, today, like I showed up at the bank to withdraw $1000 for a trip and all I had in the account was $87.50. Where did the rest of it go? What did I spend it on?

THE DEFINING MOMENTS

SEASON ONE AND TWO – The Classical Period

When I was a kid, every minute that I wasn’t in school I was putting on little plays, spook alleys, creating parties and fun. I have always liked to entertain people and I recognized early on, that that might be my only skilled contribution to the world. I was not a beauty queen. I learned that almost the first day I stepped into public school. I would never play Juliet. I would never be a famous scientist or lawyer because I was not the sharpest pencil in the box (I learned that on the second day.) But I could move people. I mean physically get them to do what I said and despite the early bullying era before I figured out how best to use my powers, people kept me around because I made them laugh, and gave them stories that made them forget about themselves for a minute. I would then pushed them into some kind of action. So I figured out how to catapult these skills into a career and I went about getting some papers proving that I could do it and teach others how to do it too.

SEASON THREE – The Medieval Times

I call this the Middle Ages, not because I was starting into my middle ages, but because it was dark. Like the Dark Ages. Almost Gothic in tone and style really. It was this time in my life that I was figuring out who I was. I didn’t do it in the teenage years like most people, I guess. In my early thirties I lost a man, a best friend, whom I thought I couldn’t live without. I gave a diamond back and burned a wedding dress. For about a year after it happened, I wasted time on hate. Then as time passed, I clung onto the idea that he might realize his mistake and return.

What I didn’t have the courage to do was to empty my heart of him. I became a person I didn’t like. I was scared to go into a grocery store for fear I would run into him. I became a kind of agoraphobic and stuck to my school and bedroom. I buried myself in my work until I was a recluse. I ate every meal in my car. In 1998 I produced 8 plays. One every six weeks. No human should do that. I thought – if he didn’t like me enough to marry me, there must be something very wrong with me…

…as I suspected.

I spent this season of my life wrestling with my conscience, my self-image, my natural man. I fought my religion, even my art was stale and canned…I fought everything and everyone that tried to tell me what I needed to do to be happy. I was so lonely and I could see my siblings little families taking off like wild fire which normally would make me so happy! But soon enough I had a dozen nieces and nephews and I was livid about it. Not with them, but with God. I built up a wall of bitterness that could be seen from the moon. I built a house to manifest my singular power. I thought that house would say “I can have anything a married couple has!”  But the house engulfed me in loneliness further magnifying what I didn’t have.

In answer to the “stale and canned” art I was turning out, I went back to school and got a Master’s Degree in directing to further prove my prowess as a single person and I thought it would help restart the creative juices. It might boost my self-worth at least. When I was finished, with a 4.0, I was a top candidate for a theatre position at BYU. In the final interview, I was summoned to the church office building in SLC for my final interview with a General Authority.  It was a polite interview, more of the same questions and then…he asked me why I wasn’t married.

Gah! My heart stopped.

(This next part is real. It was a defining moment in my life and that’s why I include it.)

He said “We prefer to hire married women because we’ve had some trouble with our single faculty members…you understand.”  I did not, but I could assume some things based on his eye-rolling. He asked me if I was dating anyone and I was, sort of, dating a man I didn’t have romantic feelings for. But I sure appreciated him. I had dated a lot of men but did not feel the Spirit push me to pursue any of them romantically. I wanted to say “Do you know what’s out there?” but decided not to.

He then explained to me “perhaps you have the mentality of the high school students you teach. Love isn’t about the bells and whistles. You can fall in love with anyone over time…” This poor man that had been asked to interview me…he didn’t know how bitter I was, and how I was about to run screaming out of his office and out of the church. My head was swimming and then the nail went shattering into the coffin: “Sister Shelton, are you a Lesbian?” For the record I didn’t scream and go running out of the church office building or the church. I held it together until I got to my car in the parking garage and then I cried for two hours before I could even raise my hand to turn the ignition. In hindsight I wish I’d have said to him “being a Lesbian might be easier” just to see the look on his face. But I didn’t.

And for five more years it just got darker and darker. 

As the years went on I told people “I don’t need a man to complete me.” I started writing a book about this time of my life called “Ladies in Waiting.” It’s about patience. I hope someday I can finish that book and share it with other single women that feel lonely and left out of their very culture. However, getting married didn’t solve the problem. I still have that feeling today…only the category is different…but…

…I digress.

SEASON FOUR – The Renaissance

It took me nearly a decade to apply the old Buddhist adage “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” I was positively poisonous when I turned 40. It was no wonder I was still single. I think I was addicted to bitterness at that point.

The fact is, despite my catastrophic attempt at trying to get into BYU, I kept going to church – for one reason: I needed a companion in my life and I could not deny that Jesus Christ was that person for me during that time. I leaned on Him. I felt His presence in my life. He was in my home, in my classroom and His Spirit was all around me. I had no one else. Inadvertently, through those murky years, I was developing a concrete relationship with my deity that would prepare me for a Renaissance.

One Sunday, I saw a young family sitting on a church pew ahead of me with three little kids sandwiched between them and my heart leapt into my throat. I remained in my seat. I was determined to “grow up” and quit belly-aching about what I didn’t have and think about my blessings. I have always been blessed with a great amount of hope and faith. I just kept adjusting my grip to the proverbial iron rod because I could not deny the testimony I have that I am a daughter of God and that I am continually sustained by His angels around me.

So, after getting all of their kids settled into coloring books and Cheerios, the dad leaned over with his arm along the back of the bench and rubbed his thumb over his wife’s shoulder blade. They turned, smiled at each other and locked eyes for a long time, their eternal bond effortlessly projected. I will never forget that moment as long as I live.

 

I lost it.

I stood up and left the building.

I drove immediately to the nearest LDS temple parking lot and just sat in my car. I promised God that if he would take away my feelings of bitterness, I would serve him all the days of my life. But I was not going to keep searching for a man. I was done. He was going to have to give me one on His own. I was going to have to be okay with myself first. I was going to have to be able to see myself as a whole person and not some “Lady in Waiting.” Waiting for what?

So for birthday number 40 I reacquainted myself with myself. I let go of all of the feelings of guilt I had for not going to all those singles dances, I got rid of my account on LDSsingles.com, I buried myself in my work and I started consciously trying to expunge myself of the bitterness. BUT…I found out you can’t do it alone. You have to trust God and stay near your family.

A week after my 40^th birthday, Hyrum Smith, not the brother of Joseph, but the guy that invented the Franklin Day Planner, came to my work and shook my hand. He said “come to work for me.” And I picked up and left my students, my hometown, my parents, and my bitterness.

And I started over by myself.   

What a person doesn’t realize is that you can do nothing by yourself. Working for Tuacahn was difficult because of the way I was hired. Nobody knew what to do with me. ( Chim Chim Cheree blog) I fought to be of value to them by staying at work for 18 hours a day. But on the weekends I visited my friends in Cedar City. One of those friends was Andy Hunsaker:  August 9th

Within one year of working down under I had married the “The Renaissance Man” as I like to call him. He was able to take me through a Mormon temple to be sealed to him for “time and all eternity.” Poor sucker. He could have had anyone. But we are like Harold and Maude – completely addicted to each other and living a kind of secret love affair every day. He is everything any woman could ask for. I was, after 41 years of waiting, rewarded with a spouse that sent me 50 roses for my birthday and has accepted the fact, that because he married someone with 50 year-old eggs, he will not raise children in this life. And he’s okay with that. Or so he says. I’m not okay with it. So I still wrestle with those feelings in my heart every single day.  But every time we attempt to go to an adoption conference or we secretly look into the foster care system, we have positively sick feelings about it. And if you’ve never felt the Spirit yell “NO” at you, then you don’t understand. Take my word for it. I want the kids on the church bench, the coloring books and the cheerios but God wants us to do something else with our time.

So…we do.

We raise other people’s kids.

But we are together…I am not alone.

SEASON FIVE…The Modern “Us.”

For the sacrifice of marrying me and putting up with my antics, God has blessed Andy with a new group of kids that are incredible in every way. He loves them so much and I believe it is a mutual admiration society. They are bright, well-adjusted, and crazy passionate about what they do. He works his butt off creating his Kingdom. From the looks of it, and of him (since he’s now 300 pounds lighter than he was 18 months ago) he has the amazing ability to look at each day and take what comes with humor, love and energy. He just goes and goes. I’m so proud of his first musical here – The Drowsy Chaperone. The audiences never stopped laughing. I didn’t go into one rehearsal. I felt…well I won’t say I felt good about it, but I felt good about leaving him to do what I know he is so good at himself…and it was amazing…without me lording over him…and that’s good. He’s getting a taste of what it was like to be me at 26 and he could easily spend 24/7 in his theatre classroom and directing his season, but he doesn’t have to, because…

…he has me backstage. I’ll own that role. It’s just a little bit painful.

Because I, on the other hand, am still fat. I’m still living in someone else’s house and I’m not teaching the thing I know and love, theatre, but I am teaching English (in a theatrical kind of way…the only way I know.) My kingdom has four walls and a couple of bulletin boards that I haven’t committed to yet. This is the first time I’ve dealt with kids that don’t take my class for fun. I try to read To Kill a Mockingbird in a way that will make them say “My English teacher rocks! I love that class!” SAID NO SOPHOMORE EVER. I am not used to that. I stay in the wings in Andy’s world because it’s his Kingdom. He deserves it. He is the ruler over his dominion at last and I am not his boss anymore, but just another faculty member in another building somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I love giving that last part away. I hated administration and everyone knew it. It was me that wanted to get back in the classroom where I belong. But I am a stranger to this classroom and this curriculum.

I am good at what I do and I’m an actress who pulls off a great act 8 hours a day…but I am miserable. I am not happy when I don’t have goals and vision and right now I have neither one. I have become a Lady in Waiting. Waiting for further light and knowledge…

Again.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t had a funeral (or two) for my identity.

The only thing I can do at this point is keep working. I know I will eventually get comfortable and make this my home. I found this quote – thanks to whoever posted it on Facebook – and it helped me so much. It is e.x.a.c.t.l.y. how I feel.

So I have to accept this change. I sat in God’s holy temple and told him I would be appreciative if he could help me give away this new bitterness and a flood of memories came back to me reminding me of the dark bitterness I traveled though without Andy. As I sat there, it was confirmed to me that I was doing the right thing and exquisite blessings would come my way if I made this sacrifice work for me. So I will watch and wait patiently because patience is my gift.  

…but I get to wallow for a while.

THERE ARE SOME GREAT THINGS ABOUT TURNING 50

Just recently, I started to notice that I have completely stopped worrying about what other people think of me. I am 100% comfortable in my skin when it comes to other people’s opinions about what I am doing, wearing, saying, eating, believing… I’m not sure it’s always a good thing (it has gotten me in trouble on this blog for example) but I feel so free from worrying what I am doing, wearing, saying or believing. I just don’t care anymore about so many things.

And I think that’s part of my problem right now. You thought I might say that the aging process frees you from all your cares? No. You just do it with no makeup on. AND you acquire this little passive aggressive smile because you don’t give a $*!&# when someone tells you what you ought to be doing, wearing, saying or believing. You will find out that someday all those supermodels you went to school with will be fat and shopping at Lane Giant with the rest of us. Someday all those wealthy hipsters that celebrate their birthdays with $20,000 bottles of champagne will realize that there are still starving children in Nairobi. Someday, all the naysayers will be wrapped in the arms of God anyway…because that’s how He is. So you just give up worrying about it.

Some things become null and void at 50 at last. The sliver of hope that I might be able to bear my own living child is officially gone. And that’s a good thing, believe it or not. I know what you're thinking. What about that woman in China that had a baby at 62? “Why don't you adopt? There's always foster care…” First: If I end up having a child at 62 you'd better start locking down for Armageddon because that will officially be a sign of the times. I’m not attending any high school graduations at 80. And secondly, see the paragraph where God says “no.” He sometimes says no. And He needs you to be okay with that because He’s probably trying to make something else happen for you. Sometimes, we need to step out of His way. Sometimes it takes 50 years or so for you to be able to look back and say “OH. I didn’t know that’s what you were trying to do. Excuse me for standing in the way…for being the obstacle of my own progression.”

50 takes your nagging hope away for good. I mean, for a while - all the way up until my last miscarriage (at 48) I lived with a little light in my heart that I might deserve the miracle of Elizabeth and one of those babies would live. But no. There were officially ten miscarriages total and ten is nine too many for any person’s heart to survive without some hard core therapy. That is coming.

And so, believe it or not, 50 is a good thing. I need closure there for sure. There is nothing worse than being pregnant when you know you probably won’t carry the baby full term and if you do there might be something terribly wrong with the child, and is that fair to a baby being brought into this nutsy world with aging parents, and what if it’s perfect in every way…shouldn’t we keep trying for that opportunity, he could be the next Abraham Lincoln…oh $*?&*!  SEE WHAT I MEAN?!? Yeah, that tightrope across a river 3000 feet below has been crossed. I did not fall, but my heart still aches when we sit among the young families in our ward during church. I’m told, from others who have been in my situation longer than I have, that it will never go away. But at least the anxiety of “whether or not” has gone. 

SOME NOT SO GREAT THINGS ABOUT 50

My body is literally falling apart. I sleep until 4 or 4:30 every morning and then my shoulders are on fire or my feet, so I have to get up and move. Then I’m wide awake and I spent an hour lying there thinking “Why don’t you just get up and study your scriptures or exercise?” But I don’t. I just lay there and think about what I’m going to teach that day and make lists…so many lists.

When did I go from taking a single multi-vitamin every day to spending 30 minutes a week filling up my pill dispenser? If you saw my bathroom you would think I was addicted to supplements and every time a new trend comes out I think...maybe I should take that. I’m panicking in part because of a decision I made nearly 9 years ago when I married someone so much younger than me.

 

My husband is still in his 30's and now I am in my 50's. I sometimes have the feeling that one day he'll wake up, turn over and say "when did this old lady crawl into my bed? What kind of trick is this?”

WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE

Mormons are blessed in their early Mormondom with a thing called a Patriarchal Blessing. It is given to us by someone that has been given Priesthood authority to channel God’s promises and blessings that I will enjoy throughout my life should I remain faithful and live a good life. It’s the greatest thing about being Mormon! The prayer, on paper, is about 2 pages long single-spaced. When I was on my mission, my mission president suggested that I memorize it. Have the promises in my blessing come to pass? After 50 years I can now look back and say yes, yes, yes. Amazingly, yes. But one promise in particular has not been as literal as I would like it to be.

Here’s the passage that haunts me. It reads: “You will be blessed to be a mother in Zion. Your children, and their children, will sit at your feet, and called you blessed for your honesty and your fairness.”

There was a moment a few years ago after my last miscarriage, when I was wallowing in my depression – I was pretty down – and I went to a rehearsal as usual, and after the rehearsal I said “carpet up!” as usual – which means “come-sit-at-my-feet-because-I’m-not-leaving-this-chair-and-I-will-give-you-notes-about-your-performance.” Everybody knows that after rehearsal, the director gives notes to the cast to fix for next time. They aren’t always positive, but my job as a director is to make them look good, so the notes are always honest. This is the part where I have been known to say “let’s take the suck out of that scene next time.” But over the years I have learned to add a lot of humor so the notes become less chastening and more “you can do it, we’re all in this together!” It was in that moment that I looked around at the setting and remembered my blessing… “your children will sit at your feet…”

And my heart was full.

And the memories flooded back of kids sobbing in my office, asking my advice, preparing for college auditions, hanging out in my classroom at lunch, saying “we heard you laughing in the audience!” hugging me on closing night. All of those memories are mine! All of those blessings –my kids gave me all of those blessings.

I need to slap out of this 50 thing. I need to listen to my own advice! It’s all about patience… and now – even the blessing of being 50 allows me to look back and see how blessed I have been!

And will be.

This I know for sure.