Living Happily Ever After
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“Oh, How Nice!”

Date: April 19, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.” (Mark Twain)

Actually, it was the first of March…but it showed me pretty much the same thing April was bound to.

Our first Sunday back at church after our honeymoon, our pastor asked #5 and I to address our congregation the following week. The Sunday of our assigned talks, I gave mine and sat down. I was followed by #5, who gave an excellent and heartfelt talk and ended it by expressing his love and gratitude for his wife; thanking her for her good example and for all she had taught him.

I sat there watching #5 conclude his talk, listening to him express his love and gratitude for his wife, and never thinking a thing of it–other than to think to myself in a very detached way (like I did the entire time I was single), “Oh, how nice. That man is married and that man loves his wife.”

He finished, turned to sit down and then suddenly it hit me:  Wait! He was talking about ME! I was HIS wife!

Married two weeks, and I’d already forgotten who my husband was! I’d found adjusting to being single after 20 years of marriage very difficult. I never imagined that the fulfillment of my dream–to find an amazing man, fall in love and remarry–would be an adjustment, too! But apparently it was going to be, since I experienced a total brain freeze about being married again just two weeks into it!

Second marriage moment #3.

“If it’s hard to remember, it’ll be difficult to forget.” (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Thank goodness my forgetfulness only lasted a moment.:)

The Packet

Date: March 19, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows, That we one jot of former love retain.” (Michael Drayton)

As I said, to obtain the necessary cancellation and clearance to remarry in a L.D.S. temple, a packet of paperwork must be completed and submitted to your local pastor.

As part of that packet, you must write a letter regarding your first marriage; when and where it took place, why your marriage ended, if there is any hope for reconciliation, and other personal information; your former spouse must write a letter–they’re free to share whatever they want to share, I think; your pastor must write a letter; and the pastor of the person you’re engaged to must write a letter. All of that is included with your application.

You must then be interviewed by your pastor.

You must then be interviewed by the local church leader who presides over your pastor’s congregation and several other L.D.S. congregations and pastors.

And then your packet is sent to Church Headquarters, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Your fiance goes through the same application process on his end and his packet is also sent to Salt Lake City.

When both are received, the applications are reviewed. If information is missing, if more information is required, or if there are any other questions, the paperwork is returned for additional information. Sometimes a certain amount of time must pass before an application can be made. Sometimes it’s an issue of rounding everything up from everyone involved–it can take awhile! Factor in holidays, vacations, mail time, missed phone calls, wait time for appointments, and the rest of life…it takes a fair amount of time to complete the necessary paperwork, gather the required letters and obtain the authorization.

You never know how long it will take.

And as it is a very private matter, you don’t always know the reasons for the delays.

And you wait.

In my case, while you wait, you hear a lot of stories. And now here comes the gossip (feel free to skip it, every bit of the following is hearsay and could be completely inaccurate or untrue–having passed through who knows how many mouths and ears–but all shared with me by well-meaning people with the good intention of helping me know what to expect.) I call it “divorced L.D.S. gossip,” but here is just some of what I’ve heard the past 9 1/2 months: a church leader and his wife of 20 years STILL waiting for their authorization to be sealed in the temple; a worthy couple, both with regular temple recommends, waiting 2 years for their authorization to be sealed in the temple; a couple waiting four months for their authorization; and that the average wait for authorization is anywhere between 30 days and three months–it depends on each individual and situation, and to what degree additional information is needed.

I began the process, so did #5.

“What’s interesting about the process…is how often you don’t know what you’re doing.” (Alan Rickman)

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.

The Day After My First Date

Date: June 16, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“If you think there are no new frontiers, watch a boy ring the front doorbell on his first date.” (Olin Miller)

Or try re-entering the dating scene after being married, and out of it, for 20 years!

The day after my first date (not the first date of my life, when I turned 16 in 1983 and saw the movie “Strange Brew” with a boy I’d liked since I was 15 years old)–the first date of my newly single, unexpected life in 2009, my pastor and his family invited my children and I over for Sunday dinner.

After we were seated around the table and the food had been blessed, he turned to me and asked what I had been up to. I decided then was as good a time as any to be honest about my foray into dating, so I said, “You won’t believe it, but I went on a date last night!”

I don’t think that is what my pastor expected to hear. He choked on his soup!

When he recovered, he asked me what I’d done for my date. I told him I’d gone to a singles dance at a local university. He and his wife exchanged a look across the table…and BOTH of them choked on their soup!

The conversation turned to other things, but after the children finished eating and left the table, they told me to be careful. As part of their church assignment, they said they had chaperoned those types of activities and had heard a lot of scary things went on at those type of gatherings. My pastor admonished me to never go alone as the parking lots were especially “dangerous” for single women.

Instead, he encouraged me to try a different type of single activity–Sunday night meetings where guest speakers presented spiritual messages to the singles group and everyone stayed afterward to eat refreshments and mingle. He said the type of people who attended those activities were a better caliber of people. He made me promise I would try one of those.

If there is one thing about me, it’s that I am committed. When I give my word, I follow through. That promise nagged at the back of my mind for a few weeks until I finally decided to try one of the Sunday night meetings, just so I wouldn’t have anything hanging over my head. One night, on impulse (there I go again!) I went to a Sunday night gathering. But instead, afterward, I was the one who wanted to choke!

I went alone. Although I was meeting some single men, the online thing wasn’t helpful for meeting single women. I researched the location on the internet and drove off to the building. I wasn’t expecting much. I imagined the gathering would take place in a small room of a church building, with maybe 13 people in attendance. I planned to sit through the talk and then leave as soon as it was over. I was shocked when I pulled up to the building and saw the parking lot was full, and that cars were parked on the streets too! I saw several people walking in. Clearly, it was going to be more than I anticipated.

I walked toward the entrance, alone, in the dark. I could see a man actually running toward the building. I started to wonder what I was doing. I felt 12 years old again, watching a boy RUN to not be late to an important event. I started to shake my head and laugh that this was my new life at the same moment the man ran past me. Then he stopped, turned around, walked back to me, shook my hand, introduced himself, and turned and ran into the building! The door slammed behind him just as I arrived at it. I opened the door for myself and went in.

The meeting was not being held in a small room of the church building. Instead, it was in the chapel and overflow area and it was packed with people. “Are there this many single people in my city?” I wondered. I was shocked. (I found out later that Utah County has approximately 40,000-50,000 singles. I guess I moved to the right place to meet single people. I just had to figure out how!) The next thing that shocked me was the age of the crowd. It seemed like everyone was older, gray-haired, and looked like a grandma or a grandpa. I thought of my mom, who had been widowed and single for 20 years–NOT of myself! I felt like the youngest person there, and I could have been (or it could have been that whole age denial thing going on there too.)

I sat on the back row and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. Every time I looked up I saw people quickly look away. Every time the outside door opened, I noticed a sea of heads turn in the direction of the door to check out who was entering the room! I wondered if people were there for the message or to people watch instead! I was betting on the latter. The expression from the 1980s, “meat market,” came to mind. Weird to see grandmas and grandpas doing that though!

The message was about marriage. The speaker said he had gotten married because he had worked to make that a possibility, and that marriage was possible for everyone if they just wanted it bad enough and worked hard enough to make it happen. He was a lot older and more experienced than I am, so he may know more than I do about that, but I had only one thought as I sat there: what about those people who were married, and did all they could to love and serve and support and trust their spouse, and ended up single through no fault or plan of their own? I wondered where I fit in. Or, if I even “fit” at all.

I didn’t feel like I did.

As soon as the meeting was over, I escaped out the door as quickly as I could and drove home. Alone. In the dark. I had kept my promise but I have to say, I didn’t leave feeling encouraged. The message had only raised questions that I’d never thought of. As much as I try to keep my chin up and remain optimistic, my thoughts as I drove home that night were this: I was destined to be single the rest of my life, and so was everyone else I’d seen at the meeting. Nothing made me feel more hopeless about remarriage than that Sunday meeting, my initial impression of the people in attendance, and the message…unless it was a singles dance!

But I’m not a quitter. I believe you can’t judge something by your first impression. I felt I owed my pastor one more shot at a singles gathering before I made up my mind about it.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m a glutton for punishment.