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Proma Drama

Date: April 19, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I get letters from all over, all sorts. It’s really cool. I get a lot from inmates, which is kind of scary. But the best was the guy who wanted to send me a plane ticket to fly me to his prom.” (Laura Prepon)

Prom (at our house) is 10 days away and the drama continues. In fact, it has resulted in modifications to the English language: Proma Drama (say it like it rhymes with drama). Although my husband coined the term, if it were in any dictionary you could find it defined as, “anything having to do with the events leading up to the high school ritual known as Prom.” Or something like that.

Date to prom? Check.

As reported earlier, my daughter was asked to prom. A boy she works with and goes to school with asked her. (The invitation itself caused drama, as I’ve mentioned earlier, because the boy asked my daughter and another girl at the school walked around school for days crying in the halls and all of her classes and told everyone it was because the boy she wanted to go to prom with asked my daughter!)

We live in Utah, where “creative dating” is practiced by teens, so the boy didn’t just ask my daughter in person or text or call with his invitation, he did it in a creative way. Late one night our doorbell rang, I opened the door to find no one there, looked down and there sat three goldfish swimming in a container with the message: “If wishes were fishes and I had three, I’d use them to ask, ‘Will you go to prom with me?’” (Cute, huh? They even came with fish food!)

Due to my daughter’s busy school, work and spring track schedule she didn’t have time to answer for a few days. In the meantime, everyone enjoyed the fish. And fed them. Until sadly, I don’t believe any were actually alive by the time the reply was delivered. Oops!

Prom dress? Check.

Believe it or not, we found it online—a far different prom dress shopping experience than mine were in the 1980s. I never actually did find one that was “perfect,” which resulted in my mom designing and sewing me the perfect dress for prom my junior year (she was a fabulous seamstress, as good as any professional anywhere)—and then flying to another state the following year in quest of the perfect prom dress so she wouldn’t have to EVER sew another one!

Referencing prom throughout the days and weeks leading up to it? Check.

For example, my daughter’s birthday came a few weeks after the “fishy” prom invitation. Her birthday incorporated a bit of Proma Drama when her best friend sent her a beautiful bouquet of roses with two wishes: “Happy Birthday! I hope these flowers live longer than the fish did!” (For the record, the flowers are still thriving and looking beautiful.)

And then the moment came when my daughter’s date had to be told what color her dress is so their attire could be coordinated.

Stay tuned.

Oh. And speaking of dresses: “Some women hold up dresses that are so ugly and they always say the same thing: ‘This looks much better on.’ On what? On fire?” (Rita Rudner)

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.

Written In Pencil

Date: March 23, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Friends will write me letters. They run out of room on the front of the letter. They write ‘over’ on the bottom of the letter–like I’m that much of a moron; like I need that there. Because if it wasn’t there, I’d get to the bottom of the page: ‘And so Kathy and I went shopping and we–’ That’s the craziest thing! I don’t know why she would just end it that way.” (Ellen Degeneres)

I asked my former husband for THE letter.

He asked me why I wanted it. I told him the truth: I wanted the peace of mind it would give me. Since neither of us knew what the future held, or where he was going, I told him I didn’t want to someday need it and not be able to find him or reach him.

He said, “Tell me, would you use that letter today if you could?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Absolutely.”

In reality, though, I couldn’t. You can’t apply for a cancellation until you have the opportunity to marry someone else. But I needed him to know I felt there was no chance for reconciliation.

So he wrote one.

It was in pencil (prison inmates aren’t allowed to have pens). Written in October 2009. Mailed from a Colorado jail.

When it arrived, I opened it, read it and put it away never thinking I’d need it. It was a very nice letter, though, and I appreciated his willingness to write it. Later, he called me, collect, to discuss it.

I saw how hard it must have been for him to write that letter because he told me some untrue ramifications of me using that letter. I knew they were the last efforts of a sinking ship to attempt to rescue itself, I guess, but I had had it. I had been lied to for too long by the man, too many times; we were divorced; he wasn’t my husband; I didn’t feel an obligation to “obey” him any longer and I wasn’t going to stand for one single additional lie. So I called him on it:”That’s not true, ” I said. “That is a lie. You’ve lied to me for the LAST time!”

He said, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

And that was that.

I kept the letter in a drawer for the next 6 months. And then one day, unexpectedly, I needed it. I sat in my pastor’s office, handed the letter to him, and he told me he’d have to check to see if it could be used in conjunction with my application because it hadn’t been requested via certified mail, it had been sent directly to me and it had been written a few months earlier.

“I get mail; therefore I am.” (Scott Adams) 

 

Letters

Date: March 22, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters… I could be their leader.” (Charlie Brown)

Going from happily married for 20 years to what I discovered was traumatic. The idea of divorce, alone, was very traumatic to me, not to mention everything else. So to ease things for both of us in that moment on that day when everything was so shocking, new and unexpected (remember, my marriage never disintegrated over time, my reality simply shattered in a moment; I had yet to “fall out of love” with my husband) I said, “I see no other consequence to what you have done than divorce. The consequence of your choices IS divorce. It’s not something I’ve come to decide lightly. But that doesn’t mean when you get out of prison and I’m single that we couldn’t try to rebuild something–IF we decided we could love or trust each other again. But who knows? You may not even be interested in me at that point.”

I was married to a stranger who terrified me in the way finding out someone you have trusted and loved for two decades has been living not just a secret/double life, but a criminal life, and you NEVER HAD A CLUE. And when he didn’t think divorce was necessary…sometimes it just didn’t seem to me that he understood what he had done was as terrible and reprehensible as it was.

We divorced.

I moved to Utah.

He was taken into custody.

And our relationship transitioned from husband and wife, companionship, friendship and everything else we’d had to friendly former family members with the occasional strained relationship of what I assume is typical of divorced couples.

He wrote letters from jail. His letters expressed his sorrow for what he had done (that was appreciated) but they also contained expressions of love. To me.

I think he did that because he felt that way toward me, but also probably to build me up and to help me at such a hard time and when I was so shattered, so humiliated, felt so worthless and thought everyone could tell just by looking at me what a loser I was. But after our divorce, my move to Utah and my progression through the process of grieving and healing those expressions of love became a problem for me.

With each passing day and with each new realization I came to as I worked through the mess he had created and left for me, I felt increasingly uncomfortable with his expressions of love.

Some days they bothered me, as in irritated me.

Some days they hurt me, as in made me cry.

Some days I just didn’t want to hear them.

Some days they made me mad.

And around that same time, the fall of 2009, I realized I would never remarry him.

I’ve said it before: I believe in repentance and forgiveness. I just didn’t think I would ever be able to trust him completely, 100%, again–regardless of the changes he had made. And trust, to me, is a huge part of marriage. I didn’t want to wonder at any future date if my husband was telling me the truth; to wonder when he headed out the door to go to work, if that is really what he was doing and where he was going; or to live in fear of, heaven forbid, another Ponzi scheme or other such crime.

I was also afraid that regardless of the changes he made and the man he became, a part of me (if I stayed with him) would never quite feel he deserved me. And that isn’t right. If he changes and somehow through all he is enduring as a result of his choices finally becomes the man I always thought he was and that he always represented himself to be, he deserves to have a wife who completely loves, trusts, and feels he deserves her.

That will never be me. (I’m not a big enough person, I guess.) One day, while talking to a Colorado friend, I realized I would rather be alone the rest of my life than remarry Shawn Merriman. As soon as that came out of my mouth she stopped me and said, “Do you realize what you just said? That says a lot to me about how you feel to know that you would rather be alone the rest of your life than remarry Shawn.”

I guess it did.

It was an epiphany. I realized, truly, how I felt and what the future held for me: nothing.

I was going to be alone the rest of my life. Because I preferred that option to remarrying, someday, the man I had loved for 20 years. (Amazing what a Ponzi scheme, betrayals, and decades of lies can do, huh?)

I realized then and there that I had to put a stop to his confessions of love. I didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want him to have any false hope, I felt that would be dishonest of me. So I told him how I felt, but he didn’t stop telling me what a wonderful wife I had always been, that he still loved me and always would, and that someday he was going to win me back.

I felt I had to put a stop to that, too. It made me feel uncomfortable. And I couldn’t let him believe one thing when I felt another. So to show him how completely serious I was, and how real my feelings were, I asked him to write a letter authorizing me to apply for a cancellation of our marriage/sealing that would allow me to remarry and be sealed to someone else in a L.D.S. temple.

I don’t think he expected that.

The Importance of a Kind Word

Date: November 4, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said, ‘Parking Fine.’” (Tommy Cooper)

Years ago, a young woman I knew, and her parents, were killed in an airplane crash as they flew their daughter to college. They left behind three other children to continue on in a life they never expected. At the funeral someone shared that the mother sent notes to people. It was her “thing.” Her thoughtful way to express her gratitude, love, hope and encouragement to others. I was surprised at that revelation. I had received one of those notes, yet had never stopped to think that others might have too. I remember how much I appreciated that note. And then I realized how much effort, on a daily basis, that must have been for her. But what a wonderful way to live life. Taking a few moments each day to send a little light, in the form of a note, to someone else.

Recently I was cleaning out my closet and found a box. It was filled with cards, letters, notes, empathetic expressions and encouraging words from THAT time. Spring 2009. When my world fell apart. At the time I received them, I was in shock and living a nightmare. I read them as they arrived, grateful for each and every one of them. I appreciated the various methods of delivery–some came in the mail, some were tucked in the crack of my front door, some were placed under the wiper blade on the windshield of my car, some were scribbled on scraps of paper and shoved in my hand as the writer passed me in the hall at church or my children’s schools. However they arrived, whatever they were written on, each lifted me and helped me press on. Then I put them away in a box–saved them for when I moved from Colorado to Utah, alone, didn’t know anyone, and needed of a kind word of encouragement from a friend.

It seemed like rereading those thoughtful notes was the only word of encouragement I got from anyone some days.

Bachelor #5 is really good to write thoughtful messages and cards for any occasion (or no occasion), that truly brighten my day. And not just me. The day my son lettered in Varsity track, Bachelor #5 had a card for him, too. I think some people have a talent for that. But I also believe it’s a talent we all can, and probably should, develop. Especially with so many people in the world confronted by unexpected lives and in need of a kind word.

I’m going to write more notes.

I’m on the other side of my unexpected life now. I’ve risen from the ashes of destruction, I’m past the shock and trauma. I’m healing–I guess you could say I’m in the rebuilding/recreating phase. But I received a Facebook message from an old friend that brightened my outlook on life the same as other notes did in 2009: “Well, the old geezer is checking up on ya! Almost a year since our last exchange. Knowing you from many years ago, I think it’s a good bet that the sun is back in the sky. I have thought of you often…but am certain you have found a way to not only survive but excel, it’s just who you are. So, young lady, dare you to prove me wrong, dare ya! Fill me in on your adventure!”

Besides the fact that he called me “Young Lady,” I LOVE his digital note. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve been through, how can you NOT feel like you’re going to make it when someone sends such a positive note of confidence in your ability to do that? I am so thankful for him, and for the many good people everywhere, who have taken the time to encourage me, verbally or in writing.

I think I’ll send him a note and tell him that.

And then maybe I’ll suggest he read my blog, so he can read my adventure for himself.:)