Living Happily Ever After

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O Christmas Tree

“Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree.  In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.” (Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas)

Christmas. It’s in the air. Especially in Utah where there are radio stations that begin playing all Christmas music, all of the time…in October!

It causes me to reflect on Christmases past—and Christmas now.

I remember my first Christmas as a married woman, arriving home from work in the early darkness of a winter evening. As I drove up the street, approaching my little starter home, I could see lights BLAZING from a neighbor’s home (glowing in the fashion of the Griswold’s lit up home in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” movie.) I laughed to myself, “Oh-ho! Now THERE is someone who loves Christmas! I’ve never seen so many lights, in person, on one house! I wonder who the Christmas fan is?”

And imagine my surprise, as I got closer to the spectacle, to see it was my house. Apparently, the fan was me.

Those were also the days of giant, towering, beautiful and majestic Christmas trees.

Enter the unexpected life.

Last year, Christmas was a bit of a struggle. Christmas 2009 was our first, on the heels of a lot of life change. It was lonely and worrisome. I’d never done Christmas lights before. I’d never set up a Christmas tree by myself before. I’d never had to earn my own money for Christmas gifts before. And despite the fact I felt quite healed from much of what had transpired earlier that year, I had to leave the celebration a few times and go up into my bedroom, alone, to cry.

But somehow we got through it.

My children and I had never set up a fake Christmas tree by ourselves before, but eventually we figured it out. (Ok, the honest truth is my daughter did!) My oldest son did our Christmas lights. (I drove home from work to discover all of our bushes illuminated. A special Christmas memory for my first Christmas as a single mother!) And an uncle, a family friend and a small bonus from work helped with the Christmas gifts.We held on to what traditions we could, let a few go and did some things in new and different ways.

Very similar to what you do when an unexpected life hits, actually. Cry, some. (If you’re like me.) Hold on to what you can, let a few things go, do some things in new and different ways and somehow, you get through it. You figure it out. And through it all, you get by with a little help from friends.

A year has passed. I like to (naively) believe we’ve gone through our “firsts” of everything although I’m learning that healing and life, including the unexpected one, is a process. Just when you think you’re healed or have learned what you needed to learn, occasionally something happens that shows you you’re not totally through the process. There’s a little bit left to heal. A little bit more to be conquered. Always more to learn. But with each passing day, and each challenge you rise above, you’re wiser, stronger, better, more capable and always able to see a new tender mercy or count an additional blessing.

And you can look back and see how you’ve grown. How far you’ve come.

For instance, this year, December 2010, yesterday, my children got our Christmas tree. While I was at work, they loaded in the car, drove to Home Depot, looked through all of the trees, chose the one they liked best, paid for it, hauled it home and I arrived home to a Christmas tree on our front porch! (In fact, the only thing they “forgot” to do was take a photo to document the experience.)

Today’s holiday adventure at the Merriman home will include hauling a real tree into the house and learning to master a Christmas tree stand. And if it’s like everything else, every other adventure we’ve encountered since entering our unexpected life, I’m pretty sure we’ll figure it out.

“An adventure may be worn as a muddy spot or it may be worn as a proud insignia. It is the woman wearing it who makes it the one thing or the other.” (Norma Shearer)

The unexpected life.

Bachelor #28: “Old” Blue Eyes

“Blue eyes say, Love me or I die; black eyes say, Love me or I kill thee.” (Spanish Proverb)

I’ve never been a big “eyes” person. I think I was married to my former spouse before I noticed his eye color. But I noticed Bachelor #28′s beautiful blue eyes the moment I met him. With his dark hair, perfect white teeth and huge smile, you couldn’t miss them!

Bachelor #28 was a widower with one son. He was an absolutely nice, normal, friendly, outgoing, loving, wonderful man. He was also funny, successful, 6’5,” and handsome–everything I was looking for in lots of ways, especially the shallow ones! But we were different at the core; in our religious beliefs.

I was in over my head with Bachelor #28 for entirely different reasons than the Barracuda. “If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” I knew I wasn’t “tall” enough for this one.

But Dr. Seuss had the solution. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know.”

I did know what to do. So I did it. I steered myself away from Bachelor #28. For my own good.

But those blue eyes.

“I picture my epitaph: ‘Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.’” (Paul Newman)

May his blue eyes never “fail.” Bachelor #28.

However, I’ll miss his stories. He had one of the best I’ve heard.

We had some great and animated discussions comparing notes on who had been on dates with the most memorable people. I’ve held my own in those types of competitions (as evidenced by this blog) but I had to give Bachelor #28 the victory when he recounted a friend’s experience at dinner with a man she met online who showed up wearing a Superman cape.

Seriously.

He made an excuse about having just been somewhere where he had to wear it, yet he never removed it despite the fact his reason for it was over. He wore the cape throughout the entire meal and date. The woman was mortified.

Bachelor #28 verified it to be absolutely true, as well, when he told the story to another friend, a bartender in Park City, UT, whose face lit up with recognition. She, too, had met and seen the man (but never dated him) about town as well! She noticed him because he always wore a Superman cape!

I give.

I’ve met some memorable people, but no superheroes! (So far.)

Farewell, Bachelor #28.