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Garden Report 2011

Date: August 29, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

Neighbors have begun sharing the bounty from their gardens. My co-workers are bringing their home-grown produce for lunch. Looks like it’s time for a report on my attempt at gardening this year. (Note the foreshadowing.)

Of the four almost two-year-old fruit trees I began the growing season with…two were chopped down by my youngest and his friend wielding toy swords. The third tree, loaded with approximately 30 little apples when I left on vacation earlier in the summer, was stripped bare 10 days later when I arrived home. (No sign or trace anywhere that there had once been the hope of fruit. I don’t know if little neighbor boys, birds or some other force of nature deserve the credit!) The fourth tree currently has 5 small nectarines clinging to two of its delicate branches; my husband is considering offering our youngest a cash reward if the fruit is allowed to remain there until it ripens!

The surviving peony bush (one of three hauled to Utah in orange Home Depot buckets from my Colorado yard in 2009 and transplanted in my Utah yard shortly after my arrival) still hasn’t bloomed. It has now been two years. I cut it some slack last year, wondering if perhaps it was still in shock at the upheaval and turmoil it had endured (I could SO relate!), but no fluffy pink flowers yet.

Of the flowers purchased by me and my husband at a local nursery earlier this year, the hanging basket (as I reported earlier) died within weeks; the rest were planted in three different pots and placed on the front porch. One pot died within a month, one is half dead, and the last bunch, though struggling terribly, is still hanging on.

Our pumpkin plants grew huge, beautiful leaves and approximately 75 blossoms (more blossoms than I’ve ever seen on anything.) The bounteous green vines are mounding and spreading…yielding, so far, two small light orange pumpkins and one tiny green one!

The zuchini starts we planted never did anything—in fact, they look about the same as when we bought them. The 8 tomato plants are all still alive, although two never blossomed or grew anything, one we harvested 4 small tomatoes from and the rest appear to be loaded with green tomatoes. Of the 6-7 lettuce plants, we made salad out of 3 of them before the rest died.

You know, life is like a garden. Some years, the growing conditions are easy-breezy; other years are more challenging. Some years plants thrive. Some years, not much appears to survive. The point is to keep watering and weeding, acknowledge every bit of growth or progress and to never quit planting. Always make the best of the plot you’re blessed with.

“I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” (Abraham Lincoln)

So What Do You Do When…

Date: August 17, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

Not too long ago my youngest was in the tub singing as he bathed. Thanks to the influence of my husband and his performance in Sundance resort’s summer theater production of “The Sound of Music” (I think), eventually the singing turned to yodeling (or shall we say, “attempted” yodeling?)

So what do you do when your son is yodeling? If you’re me, you join him!

There he sat in the tub as I stood at the counter doing my hair, both of us providing QUITE an impression of Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp children’s song about goats! Later in the day, when my husband called to say hello, I let him know what my son and I had been up to in the bathroom before the neighbors did. I’m proud and thankful to report that accidentally shaving an eyebrow off wasn’t in the report this time. My husband listened quietly as I detailed our activity.

I don’t know what I expected him to say, but here’s what happened. Without missing a beat, he started yodeling the song from Disneyland’s “It’s A Small World” ride—demonstrating a suggestion for future material my son and I could yodel to!

Second marriage moment #22.

Because if you had told me, pre-March 18, 2009, that in 2011 I’d be working full-time, residing in any state other than Colorado, married to a different man than the previous 20 years, living a completely different life (aka. yodeling in a Utah bathroom and actually married to a man who sings, yodels, dances, plays musical instruments and wears lederhosen when the occasion requires it)…I NEVER would have believed it!

Still loving the unexpected life.

How’s yours?

“If you ever teach a yodeling class, probably the hardest thing is to keep the students from just trying to yodel right off. You see, we build to that.” (Jack Handy)

Good to know.


I Didn’t Even Plan It

Date: February 5, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

The auction of many of the possessions from my former life took place one week ago.

Thank goodness ”We are not the sum of our possessions” (George H.W. Bush) or I’d be a pretty empty equation. Because the sum of my possessions is quite limited these days–thanks to the crimes and Ponzi scheme perpetrated by my former spouse.

After he revealed his crimes, federal authorities seized everything of value that could be sold, the proceeds going to pay back victims who invested their money under the guise of his investment company, Market Street Advisors. I hope it was successful and that every investor/victim receives compensation and restitution.

As for me, I have my jewels (my children.) My treasures (their artwork and handmade gifts they’ve given me over the years; family photos; and the like.) And a few things handed down to me from my ancestors–dresses from my mother, grandmothers and a great-grandmother; costume jewelry from my mother and grandmothers; a book about Paris from my grandpa; a table and chairs from a grandmother; a white trunk that traveled from England and carted the entirety of my great-great grandmother, Mary Ann Quinn’s, worldly possessions to Utah in the 1800s; and various family stories, all of which I appreciate because “Family stories make the most valuable heirlooms.” (Unknown)

In case anyone is wondering how I ended up with ANYTHING, you’re not alone. The day my former husband revealed his crimes to me, March 18, 2009, and told me federal authorities had frozen our bank accounts and our assets, that we were losing everything, I envisioned that, literally, to be the case. In my mind I saw giant government semi trucks, with dark tinted windows, pulling up to my home and removing everything from it, including my clothes, my shoes, furniture, jewelry, my treasures (like a painting my deceased mother painted), etc… In fact, terrible as this may be, one of the things I did that day before I went to bed to not sleep was go to my closet and remove the tags from a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn yet–hoping that if my jeans couldn’t be returned to the store, maybe the government would let me keep them! (I just knew I’d never have money to make a single purchase again in my entire life.)

But I was wrong. Just one more thing I’ve learned from my unexpected life.

In an asset seizure (resulting from a Ponzi scheme, anyway, I don’t know if all asset seizure are the same or different), they let you keep your clothes and your shoes. They allow you to keep your family heirlooms. They even allowed me to keep a lot of my furniture so I could establish my little family in a home in a new place. They were good to my kids. They let them keep their clothes and shoes, bicycles and even allowed me to keep their outdoor playset–but they took their pedal cars, dirt bikes and ATVs, my 16-year-old’s Mini Cooper and other things that were fun but luxury items, non-essential to basic living needs. So contrary to what I envisioned in those first moments of March 18, 2009, it wasn’t quite as dire as losing every single thing I had ever owned, touched or possessed with nothing but a cardboard box to use for clothing AND shelter. (I was shocked and imagined the worst, that day, what can I say?)

It’s very nice that they do that, that they allowed us to keep the basics we would need to live, but I also learned in 2009 that they actually HAVE to do that. They told me they had to, “there are laws in place to protect the innocent,” although sometimes I felt like somehow those laws weren’t enacted on my behalf because there were MANY things that did not work out for me, truth be told. Color me able to relate to the investment scheme victims in that regard, as well, I guess!

I learned they can’t seize something that wasn’t paid for with “ill gotten gains”–as they referred to everything I owned that had been purchased by Ponzi scheme proceeds. So I got to keep anything not paid for with those funds. Like things purchased prior to the date the Ponzi scheme began.

Edgar Watson Howe said, ”Everyone has something ancestral, even if it is nothing more than a disease.” That’s true even in my case, former family member of a criminal, with most of her possessions tainted by crime. If I had something my parents had given me, that I’d inherited, I got to keep that stuff too.

They let you keep gifts, as long as those gifts weren’t given to you by the criminal (in my case, that meant not only did I lose everything of material value I thought I had but also most of the gifts my husband had given to me over the almost two decades we were married!)

However, when you’ve been married 20 years, and to a man who was perpetrating a Ponzi scheme unbeknownst to you, that doesn’t leave much. Most everything, including money, ends up mingled together–which means you lose it when the Feds swoop in and seize all of the valuable assets. But I did end up with a a few things. In particular, my piano (used, from the 1950s, but a good one) and a violin. (MY violin. I’d had it since 1982 and I had it–through the 2009 drama, media coverage, scrutiny of neighbors and others, the asset seizure, my divorce, my move to Utah, my Utah flood and my new life.)

I had my violin until last week, that is.

It was a nice bit of irony, actually. One of my few material possessions of value, my violin, left my possession the same week everything of value from my former life got auctioned off to the highest bidder. And I didn’t even plan it that way.

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” (E.B. White)

The coincidences in an unexpected life.

I’m Not Superman

Date: February 1, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Of course I’m scared. I’m not Superman.” (Jackie Chan)

We’re into superheroes at our house. I can’t escape them–just this morning I folded and put away a padded, muscular Batman shirt, and tripped over a Superman cape on my way to complete the task!

As the mother of three sons, I’ve learned my fair share about superheroes. And I confess, I like them for more than their muscular build. I admire superheroes for the way they rise to the challenge. They do the right thing, even when it’s hard. They’re willing to stand alone. They aren’t afraid of anything. And they come out on top.

I’ve been taught to rise to the challenge; I try to do the right thing; I’m definitely willing to stand alone. But I’ve been afraid of a lot; I’m no superhero. And nothing showed me that more than my unexpected life.

I wasn’t just scared, I was terrified. Each day I operated like John Johnson who said, ”Every day I run scared. That’s the only way I can stay ahead.” (John Johnson) Only I couldn’t seem to stay ahead of each scary new challenge that became mine on a daily basis, courtesy of each new revelation by my former spouse. Frankly, I’m surprised all of the shock and uncertainty didn’t induce a heart attack! (Oh yes, that’s right. That would have been impossible as my heart was already broken, crushed and numb.)

There were so many thing to fear back then, it seemed it didn’t take much to scare me. I was even wary of opening the front door! “I am scared easily, here is a list of my adrenaline-production: 1) small children, 2) policeman, 3) high places, 4) that my next movie will not be as good as the last one.” (Alfred Hitchcock) Only my adrenaline-producers were little things like crime, a Ponzi scheme, asset seizure, U.S. Marshals, inspectors, attorneys, media coverage, neighbors scrutinizing my every move and reporting each little tidbit they gleaned to government authorities, frozen bank accounts, financial ruin, potential bankruptcy, knowing there were victims who had been hurt by the action of the man I’d been married to, and the uncertainty of what actually would happen and when, to my former husband as well as to my family, to name a few.

I felt like such a failure to be so absolutely scared on all counts, on every front. I longed to be less fearful and more brave.

But the passage of time has helped me see something now what I didn’t realize then. It’s ok to be scared. And actually, I don’t think it matters one bit if you’re scared or brave. You can’t always help what you feel. (In fact, you need to let yourself feel what you feel so that you can work through it, get past it and heal.) What matters is that you carry on and face what needs to be faced. That’s true courage. That’s real bravery.

“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.” (Omar Bradley)

That’s also…the unexpected life.

So whatever you’re facing, whatever your challenge or fear, choose bravery.  Perform properly. Do the right thing despite all of your fears, and someday you’ll be able to look back and see how courageous you actually were.

Junk Vs. Joan

Date: January 21, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard.” (Paul McCartney)

My life, my focus, has never been about “things.” In fact, if I’ve ever been consumed by a quest to acquire anything, it’s memories. Making good memories with my loved ones. Because I’ve never believed you can take “it” with you. I believe the only thing I’ll leave this life with is my spirit–some would call it my soul, my memories, my intelligence, the things I have learned and the knowledge I’ve acquired.

However, I was married to a man who looked at “things” differently than I did. He talked all the right talk, of course. He would nod his head and look sorrowful (I thought, in agreement with me) when we’d talk about how sad it was that some people chose to sell their soul for things. He was generous with his means (although now I know he was generous with what was never actually his.) And he acquired a lot of “stuff” in the process, though I never actually knew exactly what, or how much, because he stored it all in the building behind our home, where his “office” was, and I rarely went back there. It was his “manspace;” really cluttered and filled with all manner of junk and disorganized chaos, not the way I lived or operated, so I stayed out of it!

When my unexpected life began, there were things that needed serious purging. Namely, contents of a household that was downsizing. As featured on news reports about the Ponzi scheme my former husband perpetrated, I had ties to some material things. (I don’t know if those broadcasts are still around, but feel free to check them out if you’re curious: watch the motor home driving away towing the boat; see the “mansion” nestled in the trees; hear about the cabin in Idaho and the fine art; learn about the trailer loads of “things” that were hauled away over several days when the asset seizure began.)

In criminal/fraud situations, the government seizes everything of value from the criminal (my former husband) so victims can receive some compensation for their losses, which is all as it should be. The hard part, however, is what to do with everything that has no value. Everything the government doesn’t want.

Like the 9 crockpots–four from my home and four  my cabin (we frequently hosted large group gatherings) and one from the motorhome.

A yard sale wasn’t an option. I had seen my home and property featured on the news enough; my neighbors were stalking us with cameras as my children and I came and went, when we were outside, if we left the garage door open, and through the un-curtained windows of our home. Our neighbors gathered in front of our home to talk and trade notes of what was going on, what they had seen or heard, and they sometimes made it difficult to get to my home if they weren’t in the mood to allow anyone to pass their human barricade.

Case in point. One day a pastor attempted to go to our home to retrieve a set of scriptures from inside. Our neighbors were standing in the cul-de-sac we lived on, our driveway and all around the property and refused to let the pastor through. He explained who he was and the one simple thing he wanted from the house but they wouldn’t let him pass. Their crowd mentality, their hostily and venom, made him apprehensive so he called another neighbor, a mutual friend of his and the neighborhood crowd, and asked that friend to vouch for him so the neighbors would let him pass. The friend refused.

Those were crazy times, but a reason why a yard sale wasn’t an option–I didn’t think neighbors would allow anyone to participate in a yard sale at my home, IF anyone even tried to show up or buy anything!

So the crockpots met me in Utah and now sit on a shelf in my garage awaiting the someday I host a large group gathering again (if that day ever comes) or, alas, finally part with them in a yard sale!

Junk, leftover from my previous life, taking up space in my unexpected new one.

I’m hoping it’s true that, “Junk is the ideal product… the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy.” (William S. Burroughs) Someday.

Or maybe I’ll become an inventor. “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” (Thomas A. Edison) If that’s the case, I may qualify for a patent yet.

Regardless, I try not to worry about it too much. (A key to living an unexpected life: don’t worry, be happy.) Because, “You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping.” (Rudyard Kipling)

Junk vs. Joan.

I’m going with Joan.

Manner of Travel

Date: December 10, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Driving a brand new car feels like driving around in an open billfold with the dollars flapping by your ears as they fly out the window.” (Grey Livingston)

Not that I know a heck of a lot about driving a brand new car these days. However, when in one moment you discover all of your possessions (including your money, your home and your automobiles) have been seized by the government, and you’re visualizing being left alone as a single mother to raise your four children in a cardboard box on the street, you’re grateful for ANY vehicle to drive, regardless of how used it is.

At least, that’s how I felt and what I was telling myself the day the passenger window of our little, used, red car unrolled itself for no reason as we drove down the street—and unfortunately, wouldn’t roll itself up again. We tried everything we could think of to “fix” it, but to no avail. We consulted a car dealer who estimated it would cost between $200-$300 to fix. So we taped up the gaping hole with garbage bags and hockey tape (no duct tape for the Merrimans, we’re a hockey family!) and drove the car as it was while my children and I contemplated what we were going to sacrifice to be able to afford to fix the window.

It was a chilly, unforgettable experience that resulted in having to keep a close eye on Utah weather, to ensure our little car was in the garage when it rained, or snowed.

“…that’s the wonderful thing about family travel:  it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.” (Dave Barry)

As the temperature dropped and the precipitation increased, and as I experienced the unforgettable memories that come with driving a car in the winter with no window, buried under blankets and blasting the heat in an attempt to stay somewhat comfortable as I drove around town…I had to shake my head and laugh at another unexpected adventure that was now mine! How far I’ve come from my previous life! (It was a chilly reminder of some not so subtle differences between my old life and now.)

And then, safety reasons aside, it simply got too cold. There was no other choice; we had to fix the window. And as in more times than I can count since moving into the cul-de-sac with the greatest neighbors in the history of Utah and the world, once again, a neighbor came to my rescue.

One neighbor noticed the “garbage bag window” and suggested we have her husband look at it. Her husband followed up on her offer before I could even call him. He recommended a repair place, we dropped the car off, and when my son went to pick it up, the repair shop wouldn’t let us pay for it because my neighbor had taken care of it. I called my neighbor, asked how much I owed him, and he wouldn’t let me pay him. When I tried to argue against that, he hung up on me. (Just kidding. He said the call dropped for no apparent reason.) But the bottom line was, my neighbor took care of our car problem for us. (Not for the first time, I might add.)

Scar tissue. It comes with the territory of an unexpected life. But the above is an example of the kind of “scar tissue” I’m experiencing. The kind that covers everything. And heals.

Thanks to our neighbors, we’re traveling in style (with all windows in the car) again. And we couldn’t be happier.

“Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.” (Margaret B. Runbeck)

Isn’t that the truth?

And many thanks, again, to all those who exemplify traveling in such style and who help us make happiness our manner of traveling, as well.

So Famous I Had My Own Paparazzi!

Date: April 28, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Have you ever been so famous, or perhaps infamous is a better word in the case of the Merriman family, that you had your own paparazzi?

I have.

And in case you were wondering, no, it isn’t as fabulous as it sounds.

During the events of 2009, after my spouse revealed the crimes He had committed and prepared to go to prison and as I prepared to leave the only life I’d ever known, we were blessed with our own paparazzi. Our own totally amateur and unprofessional frenzied followers, but our own paparazzi all the same.

My spouse handled it by becoming a mole. He stayed indoors, only went out at night, and kept a low profile. I don’t know that I “handled” it at all. I was simply appalled. So great was my horror of what some had degenerated to doing, I didn’t want to be like them in any way. So I continued to attempt to live my life and hold my head high as I did it. It was effort, let me tell you. To hold your head up when you’d really like, instead, to crawl under a rock!

“When you have the paparazzi hiding in the bushes outside your home, the only thing you can control is how you respond publicly.” (Portia de Rossi)

As we came and went, we’d see neighbors holding cameras, photographing us. And it seemed like every day, the government called us about something the neighbors had complained about. One day, the U.S. attorney called to ask about all of the boxes we’d been hauling out of our house. The problem? We hadn’t hauled any boxes away. But friends had hauled empty boxes to us so we could pack!

Another day, a government official called to say the neighbors had complained about me “hanging out on my porch and having fun.” They reported to the government that it looked like I was having fun and that made them mad! I could tell the government official was disgusted, and I admit, I hung up the phone and shook my head. WHO, in their right minds, would EVER look at me and be dumb enough to think I was enjoying myself? Sure, it’s a total dream come true to be hated and persecuted when you’re innocent. Yes, I LOVED to know I’d been lied to and betrayed for nearly 3/4 of my 20 year marriage. It was WONDERFUL to lose my money, home, cars, things, and life, and to lose it all so publicly. I was having the time of my life!

One day a government representative dropped by to check on things. Friends were in short supply, and he must have known it or saw the hungry desperation for a kind word in our eyes, because he generously stood in the entryway of our home and chatted for a few minutes before he left. As we talked, he got a text, checked it, gave a snort of disgust and shook his head. When I asked if everything was ok, he revealed the text. It said, “We saw you go in to the Merriman’s house and you haven’t come out yet. What is going on? Is everything all right?” I couldn’t believe it. I thought, “What? Are they going to accuse the Merriman family of murder, now, too?” It was crazy!

On July 4, 2009, instead of the usual holiday celebration, our family was forced to stay indoors to avoid the cameras, questions and complaints of neighbors. The holiday was a total bust. And of course, all my little boys wanted to do was light sparklers. Their dad absolutely forbid it due to the actions of our neighbors. Finally, at 10 p.m., it was completely dark outside and I couldn’t take it anymore. I took my children outside to light a few sparklers. After they each did about four, their dad made them stop and go back in to the house. My heart broke for innocent children who were even denied the childish pleasure of sparklers in the driveway of our home!

A few nights later, I was out front with my three year old. We were watched so closely I assumed all of the neighbors knew, but I guess they didn’t, because shortly I heard a “click-click-click” sound, looked over, and one of my non-victim neighbors was learning over the fence between our houses and photographing my car, my open garage door and all of the contents inside. I snapped. I said, “EXCUSE ME, can I help you?” He jumped about two feet in the air. Startled. And after accusing ME of stealing money from my neighbors, turned and hustled into his house as fast as he could go.

I continued to be watched like a hawk, even the day I moved from Colorado to Utah. After I arrived in Utah I found it had been circulated around the neighborhood the exact time I drove away. A friend called to let me know she heard I had driven away at 12:23 p.m. (That was right on, by the way.)

Paparazzi.

“The only thing I think I can be accused of about paparazzi is being really naive. I didn’t think about it coming along with the job and I never…fantasized about one bit of it.” (Paul Bettany)

I SO get what he’s saying.

The insanity of notoriety, for whatever reason or due to whatever cause.

Paparazzi.

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What Do You Do When The Feds Come?

Date: April 13, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Last April, one year ago, government authorities came to my home, as a result of my spouse’s crimes and ponzi scheme, and seized many of our possessions.  (To those not experienced with these kinds of things, lol, I’m talking about when they officially show up and haul everything away!)

What do you do when The Feds come?

I don’t know what other people do, but I spent the morning putting away clutter that had accumulated during our three weeks of trauma thus far so The Feds wouldn’t think we housed a criminal AND were trashy, dirty, messy people!

The U.S. Marshalls arrived in the afternoon and began packing things up and hauling them away.  My spouse wanted me to be gone, but I stood my ground and stayed.  I had done nothing wrong.  And besides, where was I going to go?

I can tell you what my neighbors did.  They all took the day off work to watch our demise.  They stood on the deck of our next door neighbor’s home, with drinks in their hands, watching our downfall while their children and grandchildren ran and played around them.  They talked, gestured, pointed, and appeared to glory in all that was our lot.

Meanwhile, reporters and camera men came and filmed the proceedings and a few of our neighbors followed them around, walked with them, and made sure they filmed all angles of our home and property.  Some of our neighbors stood, with their own cameras, and filmed my children and I coming and going as well.  Several reporters rang our doorbell; one even asked my spouse for a comment.  He declined to comment but said that He had four children and would appreciate it if the children could be left alone.  The reporter said, “I understand,” and walked away.

Despite the fact I’d worked as a journalist, I doubted my peers.  I didn’t think they could possibly understand.  But I guess they did, after all.  I never saw one report that included any photographs of my children or myself.

Later, the neighbors moved their gathering to the cul-de-sac in front of my house.  As I arrived home after running an errand and attempted to drive to my driveway, those same neighbors stood in their group, talking amongst themselves, blocking the road, unmoving, and glaring at me.

What do you do?  I laughed. (Inside.)

I laughed and joked with myself at what I like to refer to as their trust of me, my character, and my emotional stability in the face of my trauma.  Clearly they had NO CLUE how fragile I felt on the inside or they never would have stood, blocking my way, as I sat in the driver’s seat of an SUV, engine running, my foot inches away from the accelerator!

It entertained me the whole time I waited for them to finally move, and as I drove down the driveway and into my garage.

What else did we do when The Feds came?

We had my son’s birthday cake that night. (Note:  The government was sensitive to our family situation.  They intentionally scheduled the seizure of our assets for the day after my son’s birthday so that he wouldn’t have the seizure as his 16th birthday memory. However, my son got so many treats from friends who went out of their way to be kind to him on his birthday that he didn’t want his birthday cake that day. So we had it the next day–and that’s how we ended up having birthday cake the first day of the seizure.) The day The Feds came.

A friend drove my 3rd grader home from lacrosse practice that day but my son was afraid to get out of the car due to the circus of media, neighbors, and U.S. Marshalls everywhere.  I went out and brought him in to be with us.  There was a feeling in the air that even a little boy could sense and it must have engendered some defensive instinct in him because he turned to me as we walked into the house and said, “Mom, do you know what I want to say to all those people?”

I asked, “What?”

And he lifted his pinky in the air to let me know he wanted to give them a finger…or THE finger.  (I didn’t even know he knew about that yet!)

What do you do when The Feds come?

I laughed, I put my arm around him, and I encouraged him to rise above all of the filth of venomous hatred and choose the right (although a part of me certainly could relate to his desire!)

That’s what WE did when The Feds came.

Eight Hours To Think

Date: March 10, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Like I said, I drove off in my trusty Subaru without a backward glance to the life I had lived for nearly 20 years in Denver, Colorado.  It had been a good life, with many great experiences and good memories, which made it all the more difficult,and poignant, for me.  I had eight hours to think.

I couldn’t help but reflect on who I’d been when I arrived there–a college graduate as of the day before I arrived; a newlywed with hopes and dreams and my whole life ahead of me; I had had a mom visiting me there through the years.  I realized how much I had learned and grown in Denver.  I realized I had, really, grown up in Denver.

I had entered the workforce and learned valuable lessons; I had learned to be a wife; I had learned to work to have what I thought was a real and great marriage; I had become a mother; I had served in the community; I had served in my church and had learned what it meant to be a Christian and to live a Christian life; I had made friends; I had traveled the world and had life-enriching cultural experiences; I had informally continued my education; participated in book clubs and learned about new things.  And I knew all of that was ending.  Actually, it was already over.

I had discovered my marriage had been built on lies and a sham of epic proportions (in my little world) with its tentacles reaching into every aspect of my personal, public, religious, and family life; I was re-entering the workforce; and my mom was dead.  Everything I’d ever known or had, it seemed, was gone.

I had been unrighteously judged and accused of things I had never known about much less participated in by literally hundreds of people who knew me (and who should have known better) and by countless other hundreds of strangers (that is all I can admit to myself, who knows? It could be in the thousands, really.)  Except for the support of a very small network of friends and family who had not betrayed me and abandoned me in my hour of need, I was alone.  And I felt more alone than I knew one person could feel.

I don’t know how I would have done it, how I could have driven off to face my new opportunities, had I not had a very important epiphany.  You see, I had my two youngest children with me in the backseat.  So I couldn’t cry, wail, or do anything else that felt natural and right, to me, in that moment.  I couldn’t upset them like that.  Their life seemed like it was going to have enough challenges ahead without me adding to them.  All I could do was think.  Eight hours to think.

Thoughts ran through my mind at warp speed, so many, so quickly I don’t know that I processed them all.  But I do remember wondering to myself, “How can I do this?  How can this be happening?  How can I be leaving my LIFE?  How can I be abandoning all I have become and built over the past almost 20 years?  How can this be real?”  And then it hit me like a bolt of lightening. I won’t have a scar from it like Harry Potter, but it has been forever seared in my mind.

I realized I could do it, and had done it with as much grace and dignity as I could muster, I could drive off without a backward glance, I could be an example to my children and show them how you carry on and do what you have to do (even do what you don’t want to do) with your head held high, even when the direction seems impossible because…I had been blessed (yes, I realize now, BLESSED) with my neighbors.

My neighbors were good people.  But some had been affected by my former spouse’s choices (and those that hadn’t, for some reason, jumped on the bandwagon anyway) and had gone from being like family to me to turning in to absolutely the most hateful and hostile people I have personally ever had the opportunity to know!

I reflected on my neighbors and realized they had a purpose in my life.  I saw them for what they were to me–a blessing, in their own way.  Corrie Ten Boom, author of “The Hiding Place,” was sent to a German concentration camp.  Her story taught me about gratitude and choosing to give thanks in all things for SOME thing.  And to look for the tender mercies that come to each of us in our lives.

In her trying and miserable existence, one day the only thing Corrie and her sister could find to be grateful for was fleas!  It seemed a little ridiculous but they chose to be thankful for the fleas they lived with.  (After all, gratitude is always a choice, isn’t it?)  They even prayed to God and expressed their gratitude for the fleas.  And do you know what? Those fleas ended up saving Corrie’s life when Nazi soldiers wouldn’t enter their barracks for inspections–because of the fleas!

I haven’t had the chance to thank those neighbors for being true fleas to me until now.  But thank you.  I mean that, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart.

Each of you made it easier for me to do what I had to do, and to do it with gratitude, and I will always be grateful.

Onward I drove.  Eight hours to think.

Divorced–And $1 More!

Date: March 8, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

July 13, 2009, was a day I never expected to live.  Here’s what happened.

I got up in the morning, got ready (I remember I wore a skirt), drove to a courthouse in Arapahoe County, Colorado, with my then-spouse, chatting and making small talk as we drove. And then we got divorced.  An alien experience in the great expectations I’d always had for my life.

Getting divorced itself, in my opinion, was not like it’s depicted in the movies.  I expected a huge, empty court room, with just a judge, myself, and my spouse, but that isn’t what I got.  I got a tiny courtroom (seems like it was the size of a large master bedroom), 8-10 strangers observing my proceeding and hearing my private business, and a magistrate signing the paperwork.  And where were the attorneys that were always present in divorce?  Oh. That’s right.  I didn’t have a dime and neither did my former spouse.  We couldn’t afford attorneys.  (I had paid a family lawyer for unbundled services and basically wrote my divorce myself, with her help, input from my friend Holly, and the aid of life experience from what I’d observed my divorcing friends go through.  All 2 of my friends who’d divorced.  Obviously, my experience with divorce was pretty limited!)

I had the opportunity to hear the private business of the parties who went before my turn came.  If I could have been ANYWHERE else, I would have been.  But since I had to be there, I tried to not hear what was going on.  I tried not to think.

When my turn came, I stepped to the table and spoke into the microphone.  While I had done everything required, my former spouse had not taken care of details he was supposed to have and the magistrate did not look kindly upon him.  I was granted everything I asked for…and $1 more!

You see, due to the choices of my former spouse, there was no way I would get any financial support of any kind.  I wouldn’t even have asked for any, but legally he has to pay something, so the court assigned him minimum wage (even though he was not employed and didn’t anticipate that he would be for quite some time) and stipulated he should pay me $563 each month to support our four children.  (HA!  Not that he’d be able to pay me, but my health insurance is $400/month!  My daycare and preschool is close to $600/month!  My car insurance, for a teenage driver, is $300! $563 doesn’t even cover our food! But whatever makes everyone else feel better about the situation…I’ve know I’ve gotten shafted financially, and every other possible way, but who’s complaining:)

Back to the divorce proceeding.  The magistrate noted I had been a stay-at-home mom and homemaker for almost our entire 20 year marriage and asked if I was requesting maintenance from my former spouse.  When I wasn’t, she added $1 to the amount of child support for MY maintenance, signed the papers, and I was divorced.  As quickly as that.

Divorced and $1 more!

We walked to the car, got in, and drove “home.” I don’t know about him, but I was trying not to think about what had just happened and the reasons for it.  I had other events to get through that day.

When we arrived home, we hauled my suitcases out and loaded them in my new (to me) 2005 Subaru Outback station wagon.  We loaded our two dogs (Joe, a 100 pound yellow lab and Ella, a 25 pound cocker spaniel) into their crates and into the Subaru.  I put my two youngest children, my 9 year old and my 3 year old in the car, ignored the staring neighbors, and drove off without a backward glance.

I wish I could say I drove off into the sunset.  But that isn’t what happened.  That isn’t where I was headed.  Call me the Queen of Denial, but at that moment, I couldn’t look back on any part of my previous life or I’d never be able to move forward.  I drove out of my Colorado neighborhood for the last time, heading to Utah, acting like I was going on a quick roadtrip–NOT starting an entirely new life in a new state as a single mother who works full time, the sole emotional/physical/financial support of 4 children!

I didn’t take one last walk through the home that had been mine for 16 years.  I didn’t walk my yard, look at my flowers, or “say goodbye” to any part of my home, property or old life.  I knew I would never be able to move on if I allowed myself to look back, even one little moment or at one tiny little thing.

Because I had never felt more inadequate for any task in my life.  I knew I had an emotional marathon ahead of me of unimagineable proportions.  Had I really been trained for it?  Was I really prepared?  It certainly wasn’t an exercise I’d ever planned on or expected.  I hoped I was up to the race of my life.  My childrens’ futures, and mine, hung in the balance.