Living Happily Ever After
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A Perfect Day

Date: October 7, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

When I was a girl, I dreamed of perfection: perfect days. I had a pretty great life, basically a fairy tale life until age 19, and I knew that. I appreciated that. And I looked forward to life’s continuing fairy tale perfection for the remainder of my days until…1986—when “life” hit.

One Tragedy. Loss my teenage mind could hardly comprehend. Grief. Hardship. (And the occasional despair!) I learned to deal with it, but never abandoned my dream of fairy tale perfection. Two decades later I again enjoyed a pretty great life, a fairy tale life in many ways until…2009—when the VERY “unexpected life” hit.

Now that I’m older and have moved through additional storms and am hopefully a little wiser, I think I’ve decided I’d settle for a “perfect” day—although I’m not even sure I’ve been able to create or capture many of those either! There’s always something I fall short in, or a struggle that confronts me, that results in some degree of imperfection during almost every 24-hour period.

So here’s my new ideal:

“Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and—if it all possible—speak a few sensible words. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

That sounds doable, doesn’t it? Especially in today’s web world: hear a little song, read a little something, see something visually uplifting…Even I can do that, I think.

It’s the speaking “a few sensible words” that may be a challenge! Lol.

Make it a perfect day. And be sure and let me know how it went for you.

Never Alone

Date: October 6, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

And while you’re pressing forward in your unexpected life and striving to create and live your “happily ever after,” remember you’re not alone. (Despite the fact it may feel that way sometimes.)

It’s your story, of course, but you’ve got help writing it. I think the master storyteller, Hans Christian Andersen, expressed it best: “Every man’s life is a fairy tale written by God’s fingers.”

 

New Friends: The Same Question

Date: October 5, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

In my unexpected life, even three and a half years later, I meet new friends all the time. Some I become acquainted with in person, a surprising number of them contact me (sometimes anonymously) in the throes of their unexpected difficulties; reaching out to someone, anyone, who might have even a slight empathy or understanding of what they’re facing in the immediate future. A cry for help.

I cried in 2009 too. I remember how alone and scared I was, especially when I was thrust into mu unexpected life. How I wished for someone, anyone, who had been through something similar to what I faced that I could share my questions and concerns with. I always make sure I respond to each new email friend because of that because if ANYTHING I’ve experienced and learned as a result can help someone else, I am happy to share!

A few contacts I’ve received may have been frauds but most, I believe, are real people facing really unexpected and really hard thing in their lives. They’re terrified. But ALL have asked the same question:

How did you do it? How did you survive it?

And my answer is always the same.

To lay down and die, quit, give up, fall off the deep end or any other similar reaction was NOT a choice for me—personally, or for my family situation. That isn’t the way I was raised; that isn’t what I believe the correct response to tragedy or hardship is; and I was a mother with children who deserved a life, and to live (they had their whole lives ahead of them) so I had to make sure they got to live their futures despite the bummer it was that we hit a nightmare of a rough patch in 2009!

In addition to all of the above, fairy tale fan that I always have been, I couldn’t stand the thought of anything but a “happily ever after,” for me, my children or any other life.

As difficult as it may be, you can’t quit or give up when hard things happen. You have to carry on AND LIVE; seek a “happily ever after” no matter the antagonist to your personal story.

After all, “If you can see the magic in a fairy tale, you can face the future.” (Danielle Steele)

 

Speech: Your Happily Ever After

Date: April 21, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

I had the opportunity to speak at a women’s meeting for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ephraim, Utah this week. I was asked to speak on “Your Happily Ever After.” Here are excepts from what I said.

“I was raised on fairy tales: Cinderella, The Goose Girl, Snow White and Rose Red, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Seven Ravens, The Little Tin Soldier, The Emperor’s Nightingale and others.

Every fairy tale began with the words “Once upon a time.” Each one detailed the life of the heroine—which always included extreme adversity. And somehow, despite every hardship and challenge the heroines endured, they were obedient; they were kind to others; they performed their labors with a smile; and while every heroine in the illustrations was always beautiful on the outside they also each demonstrated their true beauty, their inner beauty, as they humbly accepted their unjust circumstances and the wicked treatment of other characters in the story and endured to the end, eventually, enjoying a “happily ever after.”

Fairy tales are and always have been absolutely believable to me. My mom, grandmother, female ancestors and other noble women have all lived them: life stories filled with ups and downs, adversities and triumphs, and in the end, a happily ever after. Doesn’t every woman do that? I believe we do when we endure to the end of challenging plot developments in faith, although each of our stories are in various stages of completion and many chapters have yet to be written.

Now you know my background and what I believed in when I was handed my own, but unexpected, “once upon a time” opportunity: a story of adventure, overwhelming darkness, evil, obstacles, injustice, courage, hope, tender mercies, miracles, overcoming, romance, eventually everlasting love and, of course, a “happily ever after!”

My once upon a time began when I was born to goodly parents. Later I graduated from Brigham Young University, married and enjoyed a happy marriage for the next 20 years, had 4 children, served in our church and community and enjoyed many material blessings as well—a comfortable home, a swimming pool, a Sport Court, luxury cars, a second home in Yellowstone, a world-class art collection that was loaned to museums around the world, world travel and financial means. (Over the years, I’d watched our investments and savings grow to well over $10 million dollars. I thought I was on track for, and living, the happily ever after of my life.)

And then our life, marriage, family, world, everything, ended in one moment when my husband sat me down and confessed that his company was a sham. That in reality, all those years I’d thought he’d been going to work every day and running an investment company, he had actually been perpetuating a Ponzi scheme. He’d already hired an attorney, turned himself in to the government and to church leaders, and anticipated serving 5-7 years in prison. Our house, cars and assets were gone; I was left alone, the sole parent and support of our four children; and my parents were dead.

To this day I can imagine very few storylines worse than the one that was written in to mine! (I even had a friend whose young husband was dying of cancer tell me she’d take her life over mine any day! And sadly, I would have, too.) Oh, and on top of everything else, he told me I’d need an attorney even though I’d done nothing wrong and how sorry he was that he’d maxed out the last of our credit cards paying for his attorney!

I can’t adequately describe the despair, the darkness, the shock, the grief, the fear and the humiliation associated with my nightmare—I mean fairy tale. As an added bonus, my husband’s victims included neighbors, friends, family members as well as my closest lifelong friends, and the shock and rage at my husband and what he had done was extended to my children and me, but especially to me. The hatred was indescribable.

My world collapsed, my marriage ended and it all played out on national television and in newspapers nationwide. The stress was so great it led to what I like to call the felony diet—7 pounds GONE that first day! But the worst was facing my children and witnessing the destruction of their world, their childhood innocence and their fairy tale lives go up in flames (or out the door, courtesy of the U.S. Marshalls.) Shortly after my husband’s revelations, I saw my 9-year-old writing on a piece a paper: “There’s a hole where my heart used to be. My dad is going to prison.”

We lost anything, everything and more that had been paid for with tainted funds; we lost everything of worldly value. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to be thrown into a fairy tale like that. Everything I’d worked toward and built my entire adult life was gone. I didn’t know how I was going to live, to feed my children or survive. I didn’t know what was ahead.

I’ve been asked to get personal with you regarding my experience so I thought I’d share the first person account of what I lived through, a few of my journal entries, written in those dark days—mingled with the things I learned and the principles I tried to live by.

1. As you’re writing your life story never forget that the story may develop in ways you never expected, you may get to live some very unwanted chapters, but that doesn’t have to change the end of your story—or that you’re expected to get there anyway.

Right and wrong don’t change just because your life does. Don’t let yourself make excuses for doing or not doing certain things just because things have become “harder.” And contrary to what I was tempted to believe when I was thrust into my fairy tale opportunity, life doesn’t end just because your world does. You have to keep living. You have to keep striving for happiness and joy in it too, you just may have to get a little more creative or work a little harder to make your life is one of equal happiness and joy to the one you lost! Make sure you’re doing everything you can to triumph, keep on keeping on, let go of anger/resentment/fear, and in the end, you’ll become more than you ever thought possible.

2. No matter what you think you’ve lost, you are still left with something you just may have to look really hard to find it! Count your blessings despite your trials. Look for the good.

“I found out today there will be notices on our home that it’s seized by the government. Embarrassing? Maybe, but I’m counting my blessings that at least it’s a roof over our heads for a little while longer.”

 “I realized today that while my husband has received hate mail from all across the country, I haven’t received one piece! Nasty comments in the public forum, public speculation, vilification by many but no hate mail! Each week I receive a few letters of love and support and good wishes from people, but I haven’t gotten a single piece of hate mail. THAT is a tender mercy. THAT is a blessing. Count your many blessings!”

Some days the only “blessing” I could see was that for some reason, I was still breathing. That’s ok if that’s all you can find to be grateful for.

3. As you’re enduring your fairy tale, keep walking. Keep pressing forward. Don’t quit.

 Years ago, I read a story about a pioneer man who lost his wife crossing the plains, buried her and by that night had lost his infant son as well. He walked back to his wife’s grave, dug her up, buried the baby with her, then returned to the wagon train. He quit writing in his journal for awhile, but when he picked up again, he wrote only, “Still walking.”

“Like that pioneer man who quit writing in his journal for awhile during his adversities, I guess that is me. I haven’t had the time or energy or opportunity to write about my life lately. I haven’t been able to face what is now my life. And I’m not sure why it is my life. I know I shouldn’t ask why, but I am so alone and discouraged I literally can’t hold myself back. I am filled with grief for the many, many things I have lost. And I am so lonely. What did I ever do to deserve any of this besides love and trust my husband—which, I’m told that’s what you’re supposed to do in marriage. I feel so much grief I can’t express it. I hope I can get over it. I hope I can keep going. I hope. I hope. I hope. I guess I do hope, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep trying every day.”

Keep walking.

4. Realize how you react to adversity is a critical factor in whether or not you arrive at your own “happily ever after.” It’s up to us to make of our life and experiences what we will.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught: “You need to know that you will experience your own adversity. None is exempt. You will learn for yourself what every heroine has learned: through overcoming challenges come growth and strength. It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life’s story will develop.”

 “Winston Churchill said ‘to every man [and woman] there comes…that special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to them…what a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.’ It hit me as I read that that I have an opportunity to let this time be my finest hour. It is a critical time. As daunting as it seems, I MUST make this time my finest hour. I don’t know what the future holds, but I have faith. I know there will be one.”

 “It’s taking all of my faith and trust to hope the kids and I don’t end up homeless, on the street, living in a cardboard box. My heart ached all day yesterday and I didn’t know if it’s because my heart is broken or because I was having a heart attack! I’m being dealt so many injustices and there will never be any restitution to me for any of it. I guess I am the one who will just have to let go of it, forgive and go on. I have only one goal: to not hate. Ok, I have two goals: to be cheerful, happy and optimistic again somehow.”

Be of good courage. One day I came across the theme for my new life: “If you can’t jump over life’s hurdles, LIMBO under them!”

It’s all in what you choose to do with it. You can let your trials “ruin” your lives and become an excuse for every future challenge or failure you’ll have; or you can hang in there, get through them, and figure out how to use them for your good, to make you better, and you can learn to smile in spite of them.

5. Remember that your situation never ends up as bed, in the end, as you imagine it’s going to. Things are never quite as bad as they seem. Have patience until things settle. (That was true even for me!)

Jeffrey Holland, president of Brigham Young University when I attended college encouraged: “Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get better. On those days when we have special need… remember there is help. There IS happiness. There really IS light at the end of the tunnel. Hold on. Keep trying. Things will improve…Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can.“

“It is another day of not being able to comprehend how I’ll make it through another day, but I have no choice. I have to try. Each time I think I am healing, or that maybe we can make it, or that everything will be ok, each time I start to feel even a tiny shade of peace or confidence, something HUGE happens to suck me right back in to the black hole I have been trying to crawl out of since March 18. I don’t believe God caused this calamity to come upon us, my husband did; but it doesn’t mean I don’t get to experience it, it means only that the Lord knew I was strong enough to handle this. It means God knows we can survive it if we choose to. It also means that we have to wade through the most incredible garbage I have ever seen! And I also have to hope it means things will, someday, get better.”

 6. Recognize your challenges are opportunities for growth.

“I couldn’t help but laugh at the encouragement from my church leaders regarding tribulation at our recent conference. They always mention economic challenge OR job challenge OR family challenge OR marital challenge OR disappointment OR broken heart, etc…but they haven’t mentioned all of them together at the same time, and THAT is me! (If you add hatred and persecution from neighbors, friends, and many church members; orphaned and without parents; prison, crimes, divorce and everything else with it too!) HOW did I get so blessed? I have been given so many unimaginable opportunities for growth and all at the same time. Lucky me. I hope I can do it.”

You can do it. I did. I’m living proof.

7. Have a sense of humor during the hard chapters of your fairy tale. I firmly believe a sense of humor helps you get through challenges.

 “In church today the teacher asked us to think of our 5 most valuable material possessions. Hmmm. I don’t have any anymore! I had nothing to think of. That struck me so funny I laughed. I always thought ‘you can’t take it with you’ applied to death, but it applies to 41-year-old, alive me!

Another funny thing:  Today my daughter told me I need to get married to a good man so I’m not alone. I told her I won’t marry again because I am an ‘old bag.’ She helpfully said, “Mom! Botox!” (No disagreement on her end that her mother is a disgusting and old ugly ‘bag’, just a helpful suggestion to me on how to overcome it! P.S. to My Daughter: No shelter, no food, no job, no everything also means Botox IS NOT an option!)”

8. Realize that no matter what develops in your life your dreams can still come true—you just might get to them differently than you expected.

 “My high school son dreamed his entire life of playing hockey at the college level. But then our life happened, we moved to Utah, we are literally in the depths of poverty—short of the needed money for our expenses each month—and initially thought every dream had been taken from us. And then today my son was asked, as a high school student, if he had any interest in practicing with the BYU team. Does he? It’s amazing, this experience called life; how things work out for us, and how the Lord moves in mysterious ways and truly can make all things work together for our good. When our world ended, I thought every dream we’d ever had was gone too. Yet, because of my ex-husband’s crimes and the way things worked out for us, we ended up in Utah, right where we are, and my son is probably in a better position now to make his college hockey dream come true than he ever would have been living what we thought was our fairy tale life in Colorado. It proves once again that you can lose your entire life, be gifted a cesspool, and you can still grow flowers out of the manure someone else created for you. That is why you never quit, you never give up, you keep pressing forward, you keep doing what is right and living as excellently as you can, and eventually, you create out of your new life all of the good things you were aiming for in your old one. You arrive at the same happily ever after, you just end up taking a different path to get there.”

Long story short, we survived our losses, my divorce, our move to Utah and everything else which eventually led to a total lapse of sanity on my part resulting in me, on a whim late one Friday night, signing up online for a single’s site; which led me to me re-entering the singles scene!

I wish I could report associations with many handsome princes—and there were a few of those—but the reality consisted of a LOT more frogs! (No disrespect to any men intended.) But I eventually (in fact, a lot quicker than I expected) I found a prince! We married in 2011 and recently celebrated our first wedding anniversary.

 9. Lastly, remember every single life lesson will be worth it.

My 2011 marriage was one of the greatest moments of my life. All I could think was, “This is absolutely perfect. It was worth everything I went through to get here.” I was actually grateful for everything that had happened to me. Not only because of what I learned, but because my experience, MY LOSS, looking back on it, actually freed me.

My unexpected life freed me to find and receive what I’d always wanted, what I’d always thought I had but really hadn’t had—a true happily ever after with a wonderful man.  And not that every story has to end with a handsome prince; but mine did! And I’m so grateful.

“Life is a precious gift as precious a gift as ‘once upon a time.’ It’s our own true story of adventure, trial, opportunity for greatness, nobility, courage and love. But happily ever after doesn’t come without a price. Sandwiched between ‘once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after is great adversity. In stories as in life, adversity teaches us things we cannot learn otherwise. Adversity helps develop a depth of character that comes no other way. Your own wondrous story has already begun. Your once upon a time is now.” (Dieter Uchtdorf)

If you remember nothing else from my remarks tonight, please remember this:

 Happily ever after is not something found only in fairy tales. You can have it. It is available to you. I am living proof—of that and that by seeking to not just endure but triumph in adversity, our challenges can make us better than we would otherwise have been. So keep living, reading and writing your own story with faith and courage regardless of the plot developments, creating your own happily ever after, until the day that you really do experience this phrase again: ‘And they lived happily ever after.’”

 

A Warning

Date: July 27, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” (Benjamin Franklin)

When I was a girl, I remember my dad telling me many times, “We’ve never been parents before. Please forgive us for any mistakes we may have made. Believe us when we say that every mistake has been made out of love.”

Then I grew up and became a mother. Believe me, I’ve shared that sentiment with my own children, many times, over the years, as well.

And THEN I became a stepmother. Or as some would say, “Better a serpent than a stepmother!” (Euripides) Completely new unchartered territory.

Despite their “fairy tale portrayals,” let me set the record straight. Stepmothers actually are human beings. They’re women. They’re mothers. They’re imperfect, like everyone else. Odds are, they’re bound to continue to make parenting mistakes. Even with stepchildren. Especially if they’re me.

I made my first one before I even married my husband. I apologized, my future stepson forgave me, and I realized something would be very handy in the remarriage/blending a family situation: a disclaimer.

Yes, I think parents, especially stepmothers, should come with a warning to the children they love and will parent. Something like, “Please forgive me. I’ve never been a parent before. I’m bound to make mistakes, but every mistake I make will be out of love as I seek to do what is best for you to prepare you for life.”

And along with the disclaimer, a guarantee: “I promise I won’t quit, I won’t let myself fail you, but I may find several ways to do it wrong in my quest to get it right.”

Maybe even 100 ways.

Consider yourself warned.

“One timely cry of warning can save nine of surprise.” (Joshua Thompson)

Holiday

Date: February 14, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Valentine’s Day is not a holiday. Rosh Hashanah, that’s a holiday. Memorial Day, yes a holiday…You know who invented Valentine’s Day? Hershey’s and Hallmark.” (Peter Gallagher, The O.C.)

My oldest walked in to the kitchen, saw I was writing a blog post and asked what I was writing about. I replied, “I think, Valentine’s Day.” To which he responded, “YUCK. I can’t think of a more pointless ‘holiday’ than that!” and he left the room. I had to wonder, how did such a romantic mother raise such a realistic teenage son? LOL. Although I don’t know if #5 would think the mother is so romantic. Case in point: a conversation we had just last week.

We were driving down the road when he asked, “So, are the kids set for Monday night?”

I panicked, trying to recall what was scheduled for Monday night. My mind raced as I tried to remember what I had planned, and how I could have neglected to take care of a tiny but extremely important detail called childcare. I must have given #5 the biggest, blank, deer-caught-in-headlights stare prior to verbalizing a very intelligent, “Huh?”

All he could do was shake his head and offer two words, “Valentine’s Day!” Followed by, “I can’t believe you forgot! How unromantic you are! What would Edward and Bella say?”

He was right. How very unromantic of the woman bent on a happy ending to her fairy tale, who endured the revelation of crime, a Ponzi scheme, divorce, publicity, loss, financial devastation, an unexpected return to the workforce, a return to the single life, dating in her 40s, THE BACHELORS  and everything else, who eventually found her very own Mr. Awesome, and then forgot… Valentine’s Day!

I don’t know what Edward and Bella would think, but here’s what I thought: I thought back to last Valentine’s Day. 2010. My first as a divorcee/single mother. I was pretty overwhelmed by my unexpected life back then, so I don’t remember focusing on it much. I think I was just hoping to get through it, sort of forget it, and look forward to brighter days. But instead, that was the day I arrived home from work to find a beautiful flower arrangement waiting for me on my porch–from #5. He took me to dinner and a play that night. That was also the date I was battling bronchitis and a sinus infection (I know, romantic!), the night #5 warned me that when my antibiotics kicked in, he was taking things to a new level.

How much has transpired since last Valentine’s Day, including this realization: I think I forgot to focus on February 14, Valentine’s Day, 2011, because every day with #5 feels a lot like Valentine’s Day to me. That is something I never expected when I walked through the doors at The Old Spaghetti Factory and saw #5 for the first time; when I sat across the table from him on our first date in 2009.

“How can you tell if two adults eating dinner at a restaurant are in love?

  • Just see if the man picks up the check. That’s how you can tell if he’s in love. (John, age 9)
  • Lovers will just be staring at each other and their food will get cold. Other people care more about the food. (Brad, age 8)
  • It’s love if they order one of those desserts that are on fire. They like to order those because it’s just like how their hearts are on fire.” (Christine, age 9)

Magic

Date: January 16, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Her godmother simply touched her with her wand, and, at the same moment, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all decked with jewels.” (Charles Perrault)

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I was a girl raised on fairy tales. My mom read them to me every day. In fact, my earliest recollections of “art” are the illustrations that were in my fairy tale books. I loved every magical ending to every magical story. And I confess, I think fairy tales contributed a little bit in the formation of my dreams.

Ah, happy endings and fairy godmothers!

Have you ever wished you had a fairy godmother?

I have—on more than one occasion. As a little girl, I dreamed of a fairy godmother who would instinctively know when I needed her (aka. when I was alone and crying in my garden, let’s say), who would show up in the blink of an eye, transform me into a beautiful woman with a dazzling wardrobe, jewels and even a pair of my very own glass slippers; and then would vanish with a “poof” and maybe a little trace of glitter. But everything would be all right again. (Translation: easy.)

As I got older and life got a lot more real, visions of a way out of some of my challenges with a simple wave of a wand overshadowed any childish fantasy of fashion. Wouldn’t it be a dream to escape a trying circumstance without having to pass through it, via a magic wand? Bummer to not have a magic wand when you really need one!

The reality of life, especially the unexpected one, is that “There is no magic wand that can resolve our problems. The solution rests with our work and discipline.” (Jose Eduardo Dos Santos) Our magic wand is actually our labor. The “magic” we put to work to better ourselves or our situation; what we do to help create our fairy tale ending despite the loss of our prince, castle or pumpkin coach.

And as I think about that, and what my unexpected life has taught me is…that’s really all you need. A willingness to work hard, carry on and to never give up despite the setbacks.

Oh. And maybe a little bit of pixie dust.

That’s Real Glory

Date: January 14, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

I called my sister today. She asked, “So what’s up?”

“Nothing,” I replied. And almost at the same time we both said, “That is a nice change! Isn’t that wonderful!”

We chatted a little bit about everything good in our lives and then my sister said, “This is terrible, but it makes me wonder when it’s going to end.”

We’ve had that conversation before, several times, over the course of our lives.

It reminded me of when we were teenagers and we’d lay in bed at night, talking, as we drifted off to sleep. I remember one conversation in particular. The night we discussed how great our life was. It seemed like all of our friends had major challenges and struggles, and we couldn’t really even think of any small ones. We had it pretty darn good. Almost perfect. Nearly too good to be true. And even though we were teenagers, we both knew how good our life was. (I believe we thought it bordered on perfection, marred only to a tiny degree because we’d been blessed with twin brothers who were overly…rambunctious, you could say.) One of us wondered when our fairy tale was going to end.

Turns out, 1986. (When our dad died unexpectedly in a plane crash, we lost everything, our widowed mom moved the family to Utah and our mother returned to work to support her five teenagers she was left to raise alone.)

It was glorious, let me tell you. But not in the way you might think.

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.” (Vince Lombardi)

That experience knocked us to our knees. But our mom led our family in a comeback that changed my life forever and prepared me for my unexpected life, and my divorce, better than I ever could have imagined.

So in 2009, when my unexpected life hit and I got divorced, when I not only got knocked to my knees but felt as if my legs had been amputated at the knees, I knew a comeback was required; that somehow, some way, I was going to rise up again. I was going for the glory. I had to–because of the way I’d been raised, and for my children.

That’s one thing I’ve learned: No matter what knocks you down, no matter how far you fall, it is possible to come back. It is glorious to come back. In fact, there’s nothing like a comeback!

“There’s nothing as exciting as a comeback – seeing someone with dreams, watching them fail, and then getting a second chance.” (Rachel Griffiths)

Comebacks are real.

And while you’re making a comeback, don’t forget to note what you’ve learned because, “If you’re going to go through hell…I suggest you come back learning something.” (Drew Barrymore)

In other words, don’t waste your experiences. We’ll all get our feet knocked out from under us (multiple times throughout our lives, probably.) And when we think we’re down for the count, we have two choices: stay down or get up. (It can be a bummer that there are only two options. I remember in the midst of my unexpected life experiences in 2009 that neither of those options were my ideal and I SO wished there were more to choose from! But there aren’t.) The additional options come AFTER we pull ourselves up, after we work through the hardship, misery and pain, AFTER we don’t quit and decide to try again.

That’s what makes a comeback what it is.

Glorious glory. Courtesy of our unexpected life and resulting from things we possibly brought upon ourselves (aka. things that can be considered our failures) through choices we made and occasionally, from nothing we did. It really doesn’t matter how they come to us, it’s what we choose to do with them that counts. Our comeback.

“Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.” (Oliver Goldsmith)

In My Dreams

Date: October 2, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“In my dreams, I could be a Princess, and that’s what I was. Like most little girls, I believed nothing less than a Prince could make my dreams come true.” (Loretta Young)

A marriage proposal is a moment. In time. In life. In dreams. And that marriage proposal moment with Bachelor #5 was no different–it was one of THOSE moments. Surreal, yet very real. When the past and the present come together. Where time seems to stands still.

The man I had fallen in love with was kneeling before me, proposing marriage, and this is what I was thinking:

“Is this REALLY happening?”

“Oh my gosh! THIS is a moment.”

“Focus, Andrea. You have to hear and remember everything he says!”

“My memory is terrible–how am I going to do that?”

“I have to remember this, I have to try to remember this moment, and this feeling, for the rest of my life.”

“Wait a second…what did he just say? That was really good, I HAVE to remember that!”

“Oh no! I can’t remember what he first said. I have to remember everything!”

My thoughts were racing. And then they turned to these:

“In one moment everything I loved, treasured, had known and held on to had been ripped out of my grasp; my entire existence devastated and destroyed. Words cannot express (although I’ve tried!) the depth of pain, grief, shock, sadness and betrayal that were mine in a single moment. Yet just 13 months later, although I’ve been absolutely convinced no one would ever want an ‘old bag’ like me again, that I was destined to remain alone for the rest of my existence, that my children would remain ‘fatherless’ and without male influence during the formative years of their childhood, my entire world is on the brink of near complete and total restoration. Words also cannot express the joy, exhilaration, depth of healing, happiness, and trust in something new–new hopes, new dreams, this new man, a new life, a new future and new possibilities–that are mine again. How can this be?”

In that moment I was overwhelmed by all that I had lost, by all that I had gone through, by all that I had learned, and also by gratitude for all that was now mine. I was so overwhelmed by all of that, tears rolled down my cheeks.

I think that’s one essential part of fairy tales that The Brothers Grimm and The Disney Corporation leave out of their stories. I bet those princesses cry when they realize that despite everything they’ve lost and have gone through–despite the dark forests they’re thrust into, the poison apples they’re handed, the cinders they sweep and the floors they scrub–they are on the brink of their happily ever. How can they be anything but overwhelmed by the emotions that surface when they see there really is a chance, after all, that all of their dreams can come true? And that maybe their lives are going to, as all fairy tales do, end with the promise of happily ever after.

Yes, I bet they cry. I know I did. Because, “Being a princess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” (Princess Diana) You’re just going to have to trust me on that one. I don’t recommend anyone find out the way I did!

So, “If you see me as just the princess then you misunderstand who I am and what I have been through. (Mariah Carey) Because all princesses are more than the sum of their miseries and the towers they’re locked in.

“I love that whole princess mentality, but I also like throwing my hair in a ponytail and just wearing jeans, going on a hike and then eating a big chili-cheeseburger.” (Jennifer Love Hewitt)

I Guess I Was The Enemy

Date: October 1, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
(Nelson Mandela)

Bachelor #5 arrived to pick me up, looking his usual handsome, but more dressed up than was typical for our dates.

He took me to his favorite restaurant at Sundance Resort. We had a table by the fireplace. The service was excellent; the food was delicious. Everything was perfect.

The only odd aspect of the evening was that Bachelor #5 asked our server to take a picture of us at dinner. He’d never done that before, but I figured we’d known each other six months and he’d decided it was time for us to take a picture. I’ve never been a fan of photos taken at a table and tried to get out of it but Bachelor #5 insisted. I said, “But wait. What if I don’t like the picture?” to which he replied, “Oh well, I will!” and the server snapped the picture and documented the moment. An ordinary moment, I thought.

There are no ordinary moments, by the way. I was soon going to remember that.

We finished our meal and went for a walk on the wooded paths that are Sundance. It was a beautiful evening. Mountain flowers were blooming, birds were singing, you could hear the breeze gently blowing through the pine trees; fish were swimming in a little pond. We walked around a corner to a very private spot at the bottom of the mountain, facing beautiful pine trees, and Bachelor #5 stopped. He turned to face me and said, “I’ve actually brought you here for a reason.”

“I brought you here so I could propose to you.”

I was shocked. I argued, “You have not!”

He smiled at me and patiently said, “Yes, I have. Now, don’t move and don’t say anything.”

He got down on one knee, held both of my hands in his, said the most beautiful things he could ever have said to me…and then he asked me to marry him.

A perfect proposal of marriage. Right out of a fairy tale. (Minus the pumpkin coach, of course; we had traveled there in a Honda.)

I hadn’t been expecting anything of the sort that evening. I think it was Thomas Jackson who said, “Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy if possible,” and that night, I guess I was the enemy. I was so surprised, I can’t even remember the exact words Bachelor #5 spoke, I just remember how overwhelmed I was by the reality of the moment, and that in it he covered every hope, fear, concern and dream I’d ever had–especially since beginning my unexpected life.

“A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes.” (Mark Twain)

Is that wedding bells I hear?

Maybe.

I’ll tell you tomorrow.