Living Happily Ever After
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The Speech, Part I

Date: March 5, 2014  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.” (Oprah Winfrey)

Everyone struggles. Everyone has a story. And the stories can be incredibly overwhelming and difficult.

Infertility, job loss, abuse, sickness, betrayal, death, pornography, crime…or a combination of one or more or ALL these together and more!

So I have to tell you I BELIEVE IN BEING HAPPY. I always have! (And despite my personal struggles with things I’ve had to overcome, I still do.) Either my parents did a REALLY good job teaching me that I was meant to be happy, or I was born that way, because even as a teenager I tried to live by these inspiring words from Martha Washington:

“I believe in being happy in whatever situation I may be. For I know that our happiness or misery, in large part, depends upon our attitude and not our circumstances.”

I’m older now. I’ve lived a long time and I’ve lived THROUGH a lot. But my philosophy is still optimistic and hopeful, and it’s very simlar to Audrey Hepburn’s:

“I believe in wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be join wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles.”

I personally believe there is a miracle for every person. Actually, I believe, no, I KNOW, there are many tender mercies and miracles for each one of us. And perhaps the greatest miracle of all: I believe no matter what has happened, it IS possible to rise from the ashes of devastation and rebuild.

It IS possible to overcome anything and everything.

It IS possible to be happy again.

It isn’t what happens to you, IT’S WHAT YOU DO WITH IT, that matters.

Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on you.

Opportunities for growth and happiness lie in the most unexpected places. I call mine “The Unexpected Life.”

(Tune in tomorrow–and in coming days–for more of the speech!)

Find Humor in Anything

Date: December 7, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.” (Bill Cosby)

Step three to surviving anything and living a thankful life: look for the humor in your misery—it will be there.

As Marjorie Hinckley said, “In life, you can choose to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh!”

Me too.

For example, the very night Shawn Merriman destroyed not just my world but our children’s world and we found out everything we’d thought was ours was gone and we’d be moving who-knows-where to rebuild a new life from scratch as the Five Musketeers (me, the mother, and my four children), my oldest son went downstairs and found a live mouse on the floor of his bathroom. (We lived on 3 acres, surrounded by fields; pests from the outside trying to get inside our home were an on and off again battle.)

He came upstairs to report the discovery and how he’d handled it—he’d scooped it up, dropped it in the toilet, and flushed! I brushed aside worries of what something like that does to the plumbing of a home—who knew how much longer we’d be inhabiting our home, anyway—and we looked at each other, laughed and said, “That’s one thing we won’t miss about this house and our life—MICE!” And chose to laugh at the “bright side” of our loss.

I also laughed several weeks later when my daughter gave her soon-to-be-single mother some advice about love and marriage. She told me I needed to get married to a good man so I “wouldn’t be alone forever.” Honestly, at that stage of the nightmare game we’d been forced to participate in, love was the least of my worries.  I told her I wouldn’t marry again because I was an ‘old bag.’ She helpfully said, “Mom! Botox!” No disagreement with my assessment, just a helpful suggestion. I’ll never forget that one. In fact, I’m STILL laughing about it.

Turns out, we survived. And Bill Cosby was right: “Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.” (Bill Cosby)

Keep laughing.

Time Capsule

Date: May 19, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“And yet, I suppose you mourn the loss or the death of what you thought your life was, even if you find your life is better after. You mourn the future that you thought you’d planned.”  (Lynn Redgrave)

Later that same day of the unexpected dream, the mail came, and in it, a very unexpected delivery: a time capsule.

I had completely forgotten about it. My oldest created it in 1999 as a first grader at Creekside Elementary in the Cherry Creek School District in Aurora, CO. It contained newspaper clippings, pictures, letters from his parents and other things that represented our life then, as well as plenty of our hopes and dreams.

I was shocked to receive a communication from an elementary school in Colorado several years after any of my children had attended there. I was surprised they’d found me. And I was very touched by the effort of many good people who have taught my children over the years, who have helped my children learn and create meaningful things, and who went to the effort to find us in Utah so we could have a memory and appreciate the contents of our time capsule.

I stood in my Utah kitchen, read through the contents of the time capsule, and once again, tears I couldn’t control streamed down my cheeks. I was overwhelmed by the contents of the time capsule compared to the reality we had actually lived through and had finally settled into. How was it all possible? How could it all have taken place? I’d never had ANY idea of all that was in store for my oldest and our family at the time he created the time capsule.

Not only was it finally, really, hitting me that my oldest is graduating and leaving home, I think I cried about all we have lived through and experienced since that time capsule was created. When I helped him compile the items for the time capsule, when I wrote my 1999 letter to him, life was very different. I was a stay at home mom; my mom was still alive; I only had 2 children; I’d never experienced grief and pain to the extent I did in 2009; back then, divorce was not even in my vocabulary (neither were Ponzi schemes, by the way, I had no idea what those even were at that time!); and the letter to my son from his father was written by a man now residing in prison for the next decade or more. Looking back, like was very simple then in 1999. It almost overwhelmed me that the expectations for the future as seen through the eyes of 1999 was very different than the reality we actually lived, and I felt additional sorrow at all my son has had to endure as a result of the choices his father made.

But I pulled myself together again, for the second time that day, and went on about my business. I was feeling emotional, but I was going to make it through the day with flying colors, including smiles and laughter. If only I could quit crying.

“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.  Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.  Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.  And this is all life really means.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

At least, that was my goal. But would you believe it? ANOTHER emotional breakdown…to come.

Something Better

Date: December 9, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

As the calendar year draws to a close, I can’t help but reflect on the events of the past 12 months.

Another year of unexpected experiences and new developments, new friends, some challenges (although thankfully very minor compared to 2009), but overall a year of work, growth, laughter, fun and great memories.

Another year of life.

How thankful I am for the opportunity to live it and for all I have learned, again, this year. It’s amazing what can transpire, or be accomplished, in the course of just one year, especially if you let each new experience mold you into something better.

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” (Benjamin Franklin)

First Date

Date: June 7, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I guess you could call my first experience with “internet dating” entertaining. It was so entertaining, in fact, I lasted less than 24 hours on the site! Here’s what happened.

I woke up the first morning after signing up to an inbox full of messages from men. Strangers. And before I could even read the first one, the IM window popped open and a man was there talking to me, live, online.

I didn’t know WHAT to do but through trial and error, quite a bit of error, I figured it out. The man was a lot more computer savvy than I was (or he’d been single a lot longer!) because every time I typed something, I accidentally canceled the chat session, but the man gamely contacted me again and opened a new window. I typed my apologies, tried again, and eventually learned how to IM to some degree.

What I remember most about that conversation was sitting in front of my computer screen and laughing out loud. The sound of real laughter, coming out of my mouth, was a shock to me. I realized it had been a long time since I’d laughed and truly meant it. The man had a GREAT sense of humor. I think my laughter was a shock to the whole family. A few of my children who were in the house when I was chatting with the man, came into the room to see why I was making that noise they hadn’t heard, for real, for quite some time.

The man told me a little about himself, asked me about myself, asked for my phone number (I didn’t know what to do about that either, I wasn’t expecting that) and when I hesitated, he gave me his phone number and asked me to call him. He also asked me out. He told me there was a huge, bi-annual singles dance at a local university that night, and he was game to take me if I felt ready to go to it. I told him I wasn’t sure what I was ready for. He was understanding about that, told me to call him that night if I changed my mind, and we left it at that.

Meanwhile, my sister and her friends from high school were in town and getting together for dinner that night. They’d invited me to join them and my sister arrived to pick me up. As soon as I got in the car, she asked me what I’d been up to.

My heart stopped. Not only had I done something totally impusively, planning to keep it a secret (but that got ruined by my inability to even load my own picture onto the website, so my teenage son now knew) and now I was going to have to tell my sister! I knew she was seriously going to doubt my sanity.

I said, “You will die at what I’ve done. You’re not going to believe it, and you’re going to think I’m insane.”

She looked at me with some degree of trepidation and said, “Uh-oh. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

So I did. “I signed up on an online singles site.”

Her reaction wasn’t what I’d been expecting. She screamed, clapped her hands and was clearly enthusiastic about it. She told me, “Andrea, I’ve been thinking the whole 1 1/2 hour drive up here how I could persuade you to sign up online! I really think it’s what you should do. I’ve thought it for awhile and have just been waiting for the right time to broach that subject with you. All of my single friends are online. They tell me it’s how you meet people these days. I am so glad you did that!”

I still needed reassurance. “So you don’t think I’m a lunatic, then?”

She assured me she didn’t think I was. And we drove to dinner.

I hadn’t seen her friends since approximately 1988, and there I was, walking in to meet them for the first time in years after living through some of the biggest humiliations I’d never imagined existed–at least not in my life. I was a little apprehensive about what questions they might ask (I was still thinking secrecy was the only option I had to go on to rebuild a “normal” life) but I should have known better. Like all childhood friends, they were exactly the same. Open, friendly, caring…and no one asked me about anything I didn’t volunteer or want to talk about. (In fact, I found out later one friend didn’t know anything about my situation. She was confused about some of the comments I had made but never even asked for clarification.) All of them very good women.

At some point in the conversation, my sister told them about my online experience and the potential date I had that night. They all told me I should go. So with four cheerleaders in my corner, I picked up the phone, called the man and asked, “Is it too late to change my mind?”

He was kind, said it wasn’t a problem at all, and told me he’d pick me up at 9:45 p.m. I hung up the phone and thought, not for the first time that day, “What have I done?”

I also wondered about lots of other things: what was I going to wear, was I crazy to meet a stranger, would I be safe? But my sister assured me she had a good feeling about the whole thing, and the man, and we were going to follow through with it. We raced home after dinner so I could get ready for my first date in decades.

It was a surreal experience to be getting ready for a date, a date with a stranger no less, for the first time since 1989. Thank goodness I had help–my sister AND my teenage daughter–helping me select the right outfit, talking to me while I did my hair, choosing my jewelry, debating with me about what shoes to wear, etc… In some ways, it was the 80s again. (Well, the 80s plus one. I NEVER imagined I’d be getting ready for a date with the assistance of a daughter!)

And before I knew it, I had a text that the man was outside waiting for me. (I’d asked him not to come to the door as I had children.) I walked out to face the consequence of my decision. Nothing like walking out the door to go on a date…with four sets of eyes of your children watching…and your sister watching…and I was pretty sure the neighbors were too!

He stepped out of the car, introduced himself and shook my hand, opened my door for me, and we headed off to a singles dance!

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