Living Happily Ever After
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Keep Going

Date: October 19, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” (James Cash Penney)

Not too long ago I had the opportunity to experience G-forces, courtesy of the summer training bobsled at Park City, Utah Olympians use to prepare for the winter Olympic games. I’m a pretty cautious person: there is a reason I’ve never had stitches or broken a bone (other than my nose in an unfortunate accident courtesy of my ex-husband, another friend and a lack of intelligence on my part many years ago.) Alpine slides, not Olympic training bobsleds, are the only degree of risk I’m comfortable with but the bobsled opportunity was free (offered at a work party), my husband and sons really wanted to do it and they needed an extra rider and then my company’s new COO joined us so I was pretty much trapped into participating!

As I climbed in the sled I thought, “What am I doing?”

As the driver oriented us, told us what to do and explained the forces we would experience I really wondered why I was in that bobsled—sons, husband or COO not withstanding.

And then as we were tearing down the track during THE MOST MISERABLE 60 seconds of my life, the G-forces wreaking havoc on my body and my psyche all I could think was, “I’m in my mid-forties, I’ve had four children, I hope and pray I don’t have an accident!” (ANY type of accident, take that any way you desire, they’d all be accurate.)

I got through it only by hanging on for dear life, trying my best to breathe deeply and in a relaxed manner while gritting my teeth, closing my eyes and counting to 30. (I figured I could survive 30 seconds of anything, which in this case I did—but barely!) And holding on, enduring, until the boblsed came to an eventual stop. THE LONGEST 60 seconds of my life.

Long story short, I survived. And I realize, now, that I did it by doing what we must do to get through anything life hands us: hang on for dear life, remember to breathe (sometimes that’s all you can do), grit your teeth when necessary to power through, and know that at some point, “this too, shall pass.”

And it always does.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” (Winston Churchill)

Hang in there!

Keep Going

Date: January 31, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I’d just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about doing that anyway.” (Jack Handy)

Funny, but when my love affair (called my 20-year marriage) ended, I didn’t have the luxury of quitting my job and becoming a bum. In the midst of life loss, divorce and everything else, I had to GET A JOB as well. Believe me, I wanted to lay down and die on more than one occasion, but I couldn’t. I had four children to provide for.

Not only did I have four children to feed, I had to set an example for them. I had to show them what to do when adversity strikes. Because hard times come to everyone, and it isn’t so much what happens to you, but what you do with it that counts. Quitting isn’t an option. (Even my five-year-old knows that. He runs around the house, cape flying behind him, chanting, “Never give up! Never surrender!” from, I’m told, the movie, “Galaxy Quest.” Pretty motivating if you think about it.)

I, personally, couldn’t give up because I had been raised to carry on no matter what. And then in approximately 1997, I had read a story about a pioneer woman and her husband traveling across the plains to Utah with a handcart that inspired me. Their trek was intense: long days, no comforts, no food, no shoes, just hardship; a complete and physical nightmare. The husband reached his breaking point. He lay down on the ground, told his wife he couldn’t go any further and he quit–prepared to die. But the wife didn’t quit. She didn’t even leave her husband. She put him in the handcart and she pulled him to Utah.

I hoped I would be like that woman. Although I lived in a different day and age and my hardships were different, I determined then and there to be a woman like that. I just never imagined I’d get my chance to prove it.

After all, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” (Winston Churchill) So that’s what I’ve done since my unexpected life began.

And at some point, you’ll look around and realize the scenery has changed. Your unexpected life may not be heaven (yet); it may not have metamorphosed into your paradise. But things will have improved just the same. All because you kept going. In your unexpected life.

That’s Real Glory

Date: January 14, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

I called my sister today. She asked, “So what’s up?”

“Nothing,” I replied. And almost at the same time we both said, “That is a nice change! Isn’t that wonderful!”

We chatted a little bit about everything good in our lives and then my sister said, “This is terrible, but it makes me wonder when it’s going to end.”

We’ve had that conversation before, several times, over the course of our lives.

It reminded me of when we were teenagers and we’d lay in bed at night, talking, as we drifted off to sleep. I remember one conversation in particular. The night we discussed how great our life was. It seemed like all of our friends had major challenges and struggles, and we couldn’t really even think of any small ones. We had it pretty darn good. Almost perfect. Nearly too good to be true. And even though we were teenagers, we both knew how good our life was. (I believe we thought it bordered on perfection, marred only to a tiny degree because we’d been blessed with twin brothers who were overly…rambunctious, you could say.) One of us wondered when our fairy tale was going to end.

Turns out, 1986. (When our dad died unexpectedly in a plane crash, we lost everything, our widowed mom moved the family to Utah and our mother returned to work to support her five teenagers she was left to raise alone.)

It was glorious, let me tell you. But not in the way you might think.

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.” (Vince Lombardi)

That experience knocked us to our knees. But our mom led our family in a comeback that changed my life forever and prepared me for my unexpected life, and my divorce, better than I ever could have imagined.

So in 2009, when my unexpected life hit and I got divorced, when I not only got knocked to my knees but felt as if my legs had been amputated at the knees, I knew a comeback was required; that somehow, some way, I was going to rise up again. I was going for the glory. I had to–because of the way I’d been raised, and for my children.

That’s one thing I’ve learned: No matter what knocks you down, no matter how far you fall, it is possible to come back. It is glorious to come back. In fact, there’s nothing like a comeback!

“There’s nothing as exciting as a comeback – seeing someone with dreams, watching them fail, and then getting a second chance.” (Rachel Griffiths)

Comebacks are real.

And while you’re making a comeback, don’t forget to note what you’ve learned because, “If you’re going to go through hell…I suggest you come back learning something.” (Drew Barrymore)

In other words, don’t waste your experiences. We’ll all get our feet knocked out from under us (multiple times throughout our lives, probably.) And when we think we’re down for the count, we have two choices: stay down or get up. (It can be a bummer that there are only two options. I remember in the midst of my unexpected life experiences in 2009 that neither of those options were my ideal and I SO wished there were more to choose from! But there aren’t.) The additional options come AFTER we pull ourselves up, after we work through the hardship, misery and pain, AFTER we don’t quit and decide to try again.

That’s what makes a comeback what it is.

Glorious glory. Courtesy of our unexpected life and resulting from things we possibly brought upon ourselves (aka. things that can be considered our failures) through choices we made and occasionally, from nothing we did. It really doesn’t matter how they come to us, it’s what we choose to do with them that counts. Our comeback.

“Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.” (Oliver Goldsmith)