What Your Pill Problem Has Done To Me.

This post was originally written and posted on May 30, 2011.  I would like to add that while my relationship with my mom still feels strained at times, we are on much better ground with life than we were at the point when I wrote this, and she is in a much healthier place.

Dear Mom,

First, let me say that the apologies don't really count when they're covered with enabling excuses. I know you were in a car accident. That happened 30 years ago. I know you had breast cancer. That happened 13 years ago.

Maybe I don't understand.

But let me tell you what you don't understand.

I remember lying in my bed in the middle of the night, and listening to you upstairs, getting up every half hour (oh how I wish this were an exaggeration) and going to the pill cabinet. Until I finally crept up the stairs and took the bottle I knew you were going after. I took it and hid it in my bedroom. And then I got to listen to you get up every half hour and dig with more frantic sounds through the pills, dropping bottles everywhere as you couldn't find it. I don't even know what the pills were.

I remember my high school boyfriend finding your pills in my jacket pocket and looking at me angrily. Until I had to explain to him that the only reason they were there in my pocket, was simply so you couldn't find them.

I remember coming home after a date to popcorn spilled all over the floor, and knowing that you had just stumbled from the couch to your bed, not caring or perhaps not comprehending the mess you were creating.

I remember you trying to talk to my friends in slurs and fragmented sentences. And the drift that was created between my brother and me because I stopped bringing my friends home, and thus stopped being home.  He's blamed me for not being there for the family ever since.

I remember coming home after a date and telling you I was home. You were in bed but asked me about my night and we would stumble through a 15 minute conversation. Only to have you scold me the next morning for not checking in when I got home. You didn't remember anything about our conversation.

I remember the letter you tried to write me... that was nothing but scribbles and illegible words. Until it finally just dropped off.

As an adult I remember taking my brand new baby to visit you. And as you held her you weaved and stumbled, and then got angry and threw a fit when we took her away from you.

And how you faked the seizures in the kitchen until we hauled you off to the hospital. What you don't know is that Dad and I took the E.R. doctor aside and told him of your medication problem. He said he wouldn't give you anything that would "affect" you. But once you knew you had your medicine, you started acting "loopy". Being flippant with the nurses and calling loudly across the hall at the doctor. When my 8 month pregnant body screamed for bed after hours in the ER I decided it was time for me to leave.  I don't remember the degrading remarks you made to me for leaving, but I remember they were made. And I remember how embarrassed Dad was by them.  And how empty it made me after all that I had done for you that night.

Every conversation was slurred. And full of chronic diseases. And I finally stopped answering your calls.

And now you need a place to live. With a pending neck surgery and a bag full of pills. And I don't think I can do it.

I can't have my Circus watching it. I can't have them living it. I can't listen to your excuses as to why we should all put up with it. I can't listen to the apologies that are nothing but "feel bad for me's". I can't feel bad for you. I'm too hurt for myself.

I'm too hurt that the pills take precedent to your family.

 I'm too hurt that I raised myself, with Dad being at the fire station and you...

I'm too hurt that I can't handle a conversation with you that goes deeper than the latest mod podge project.

And I'm too hurt to bring it into my home now.

 I'm sorry, but there are some things that medicine can't fix.

And no one can fix this but you.

With Real Intent

This morning, as I was checking my email, I found one from Your LDS Blog that mentioned some EFY (Especially For Youth) songs that I hadn't heard yet.

Being the curious soul that I am, I went to YouTube to find them.

My day is better for it already.

Check this one out.

Glorious, written by Stephanie Smith and preformed by Russ Dixon (who, by the way, is one of the master minds behind Beyond 5 (here)).



Tyler Castleton and Russ Dixon (Beyond 5 masterminds) have been using their talents in the music industry for a very long time, and have had their hand in a lot of EFY music.  Together they put together the 2014 EFY CD, Anxiously Engaged.

Which I own.

Which I love.

You need to hear this song from it.  It's preformed by Patch Crowe (a member of Beyond 5.  Are you guys catching on to how awesome Beyond 5 is yet?)



If you want to read the whole blog post on Russ Dixon and Tyler Castleton and their music ventures you can find it here.

Also, last night I was reading Broken Things To Mend by Jeffrey R. Holland, who is a rockstar in his own right.  In it he quotes part of the scriptures 2 Nephi 31:13, 17; a scripture I've heard and read so often but something about it struck me last night.

The phrase "with real intent" settled into my understanding and took on real meaning.  I stopped reading, all of 6 pages in on that book and I tested out the weight of those words.

With real intent.

And I wondered: what is my intent?  What am I trying to accomplish right now in my life?  Are my efforts real?  Is my desire coming from a sincere place?

Do I have real intent?

I've read on another blog (71toes.com) that every year she picks a motto for herself to live by.  I always liked that idea, but I never got around to doing it for myself.  I know the year is half way over, but I think for the next six months "With Real Intent" is going to be my motto.

I'm going to live the gospel with real intent.
I'm going to mother with real intent.
I'm going to be a wife with real intent.
I'm going to serve the young women in my ward with real intent.
I'm going to study the scriptures and other church books with real intent.

This also goes hand in hand with thoughts I've been having lately.  After praying and praying (and praying) for guidance with the direction of my life it keeps coming to me that I need to focus on the spiritual side of things, study the gospel, focus on teaching the gospel to my girls and in my calling, and if I do that the rest will take care of itself.

It's all just swirling around me, again and again.  Live the gospel.  With real intent.  Study the gospel.  With real intent.  Teach the gospel.  With real intent.

And that's all I need to know.

A Keeping It Real Post. Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence.

I found myself emailing with a friend that I haven't seen in a really long time.  And I found myself answering her inquiry of, "So how are you?  I see little updates on Facebook and Instagram, but how are things?"

Usually when someone asks, "How are you?" they don't really want to know, the question has become more of a standard greeting than an actual question with hopes of an honest answer, and as the standard greeting goes we all just answer with various replies of, "I'm doing well, how are you?"  And in turn we've just made it a greeting, we're not really asking.

Usually when someone asks me how I am I simply answer, "Wonderful."

But in this email I stopped and thought for a minute.  This was different since the question came at the end of the email, it had a bit more inquiry to it.

Obviously my friend really wanted to know how I am.

So I stopped typing and sat and thought.

And I tried to feel it out.

How am I?

And I wrote: "Life for me is good.  So good.  West is amazing.  It blows my mind every day the differences in my marriage with him and my marriage with (my ex).  It was a long road to finding West but I am so, so happy I did.  I'm working full time as a legal secretary.  I have six kids, half of which are teenagers *eek*, I've gone back to school (graduating SLCC in May and headed up to the U woohoo), and now West has "pushed" me into starting an online boutique.  Because, you know, I didn't have enough on my plate. Oh, and not to mention that I'm currently in the YW's presidency.  Having said all of that I kind of feel lost in it all.  I feel like I'm just being busy but don't really know what direction I want my life to go in, and I've been struggling with that for the past little bit.  I hope that as I progress with my schooling and get up to the U and into my bachelor's classes that something will open up for me career wise and I can feel like I've found my niche in life.  Unless my niche is crazy busy person who has a lot of irons in the fire, then by all means, I'm so there."

I feel like I drop a lot of balls lately and I'm not even sure why I'm doing any of it.  I don't have a solid direction in my life, though I do have thoughts of a couple that I would like to chase but I think what's holding me back and making me feel so confused are the thoughts that I'm not good enough to actually make that happen.  I'm afraid that for the rest of my life I will be that crazy person who pushes and pushes for dreams to happen when everyone around them is watching and asking, "When will she get it?  She's not even that good and really needs to think of something more realistic."

Maybe I'm wanting too much out of life and what I really need to be doing is just focusing on being grateful for what I do have.  Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful for what I do have.  I just yearn for progression in my personal life.  I don't like feeling like I've become stagnant.

Why am I so afraid of going after things or making things happen?

And then I found this:



"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.  For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." (Heb 10:35-36)  

"Once there has been genuine illumination, beware of the temptation to retreat from a good thing.  When it was right when you prayed about it, and trusted it, and lived for it, it's right now.  Don't give up when the pressure mounts."

{pic source}

"Certainly don't give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of your happiness.  He wants everyone to be miserable like unto himself.  Face your doubts, master your fears, cast not away therefore your confidence.  Stay the course, and see the beauty of life unfold for you."

"Remember how urgently you have needed help in earlier times, and that you got it.  The Red Sea will open to the honest seeker of revelation.  The adversary does have power to hedge up the way, to marshal Pharaoh's forces, dog our escape right to the water's edge, but he can't produce the real thing.  He can not conquer if we will it otherwise."

"It is in the process of revelation, and making important decisions, fear almost always plays a destructive, sometimes paralyzing, role.  To Oliver Cowdry, who missed the opportunity of a lifetime because he didn't seize it in the lifetime of the opportunity, the Lord said, 'you did not continue as you commenced.'"

"Some days we'll be miraculously lead out of Egypt, seemingly free, seemingly on our way, only to come to yet another confrontation, like all that water lying before us.  At those times we must resist the temptation to panic, and to give up.  At those times fear will be the strongest of the adversary's weapons against us.  And Moses said to the people, 'fear ye not.  Stand still and see the revelation of the Lord.  The Lord shall fight for you.  In confirmation the great Jehovah said, 'Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.'"

"With the spirit of revelation dismiss your fears and wade in with both feet."

"Go forward and not backward."

"Along with the illuminating revelation that points us toward a righteous purpose or duty, God will also provide the means and power to achieve that purpose. Trust in that eternal truth. Please.  If God has told you something is right, if something is indeed true for you, He will provide the way for you to accomplish it."

"Therefore He said, let not your hearts faint.  Mine angels shall go before you, and also my presence, and in time ye shall posses the goodly land.  What goodly land?  Your goodly land.  Your promised land, your New Jerusalem, your own little acre flowing with milk and honey, your future, your dreams, your destiny.  I believe that in our own individual ways God takes us to the grove, or the mountain, or the temple, sometimes the privacy of our own bedroom or closet, and there shows us the wonder of what His plan is for us.  We may not see it as fully as Moses, or Nephi, or the brother of Jared did, but we see as much as we need to see in order to know the Lord's will for us, and to know that He loves us beyond mortal comprehension." 

Food for thought for me this weekend.

I hope it's a good one for you.  It's a kidless one for us.  Which boldly translates to date weekend.  And loosely translates to a lot of math homework for me.

And a nap.