Living Happily Ever After
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Blog Articles

No Sissy

Date: March 31, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

I would like to make an announcement. To the fans packed in the stands of the BYU versus University of Utah hockey game February 2012. To all of the yahoos who stood there cheering and jeering, taunting my son as he lay injured on the ice and who led me to demonstrate my finest moment. (Not!)

Here it is: My son is no sissy.

He skated off the ice (with help from his teammates) that night…and three days later had surgery requiring the permanent installation of two metal plates and 13 screws to repair his BROKEN LEG…in addition to two pins to repair his BROKEN ANKLE!

“I didn’t want to be the sissy figure skater, you know.” (Scott Hamilton)

Trust me, he’s not.

“Usually when I wielded a hockey stick, it meant somebody was going to get hurt…” (Stan Mikita)

No kidding.

Happiness Again

Date: January 6, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist’s office would be full of luminous ideas.” (Mason Cooley)

My dad was a dentist when I was born.

One of my earliest memories is getting my teeth checked at his office when I couldn’t have been more than three years old: an all-inclusive service he was happy to provide me, complete with the old-fashioned flouride treatment—giant metal trays filled with the most vile tasting goo he insisted would make my teeth better, but the whole time I stared, big eyed, at an alarm clock and watched the seconds S-L-O-W-L-Y tick by as I tried not to throw up yet breathe.

Oh, I love the dentist.

I love the dentist so much I’d rather have a C-section than my teeth cleaned.

Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with good teeth (probably a result of the great dental care I received from birth!) so I haven’t had the opportunity to develop too much wisdom courtesy of my teeth.  I’ve never even had a toothache, that I can recall. I know, I’m lucky.

My middle son, however, is not.

He was struck by terrible tooth pain tonight and is miserable. We called our dentist who is meeting us at his office first thing in the morning to see what he can do to help. And of course, in the morning the rest of the 5th grade will be departing on a special, talked about, hyped-for-months, overnight camping trip. My son, of all my children, gets so excited about things like that. He has been looking forward to participating, and has been writing in his journal about it, for months. He is packed and ready to go have fun with friends, but instead may be sidelined by a toothache and dental work.

Very unexpected.

But life is like that.

I’ve learned, and I’m trying to teach my son, that you’ve got to roll with the unexpected adventures life throws your way, grit your teeth if necessary, endure the pain until it lessens (or you get accustomed to it—your new unexpected  life), and seek the relief that comes as you eventually overcome your challenge. Even if it’s “just” a toothache. And if you do all of that, in time, you’ll find happiness again.

“Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.”  (Johnny Carson)

Bachelors #22-26: The International Set

Date: July 28, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

My dad loved Hawaii.

And he did his best to instill the same passion for Polynesia in me. I absolutely loved the time I spent in the South Pacific growing up. I loved it so much, my heart literally hurt every time we had to leave and return to our home in Colorado.

Eventually, I was offered a piano scholarship to BYU-Hawaii and my dad’s only hesitation about letting me accept it was his fear that I would fall in love with an islander and my family would never see or hear from me again! He knew me well. I may well have done that, given the chance.

So it was kind of ironic that I married a man who hated the sun, Hawaii, the beach, the feeling of sand between his toes, and every other “island” thing that I loved. After I divorced it hit me. Although I would never have chosen divorce and never thought it would happen to me, what if I actually found a Polynesian man to love the second time around? (And then I realized the following, too: it may take someone from that far away to have not heard about me or the drama-filled ending of my marriage and previous life thanks to the criminal actions of my former spouse!)

Hmm. It was something to consider. So I had to laugh when I actually got asked out by what I’ll call “The International Set” of bachelors. Bachelors #22-26. Each hailed from some place far removed from Colorado and the fall out of the Ponzi scheme my former spouse perpetrated. I had a chance at the anonymity I had hoped for!

Unfortunately, Bachelor #22 was very nice, but not my type at all. Nothing serious ever developed. He was just a fun friend, from a foreign country, kind, who enjoyed hearing about my kids and dancing. I’ll remember him most for his constant smile. Adios, Bachelor #22!

Bachelor #23 was nice, but too short for me. (And I’m not talking he was less than my dream height of 6’2″. He was literally quite a bit shorter than me!) He was a widower with one arm and several children. He spoke Samoan fluently, but English…not so much! That was NEVER going anywhere. Tofa, Bachelor #23!

Bachelor #24 was a nice, older Samoan gentleman who loved young people and helping them achieve their dreams. He ran a foundation for troubled youth, and had a heart that was big enough to love the entire world, it seemed. (A very good quality.) Every time he asked me out on a date, he invited me to bring my children, too, even though he had never met them. (I didn’t bring my children, though. I wasn’t comfortable letting my children meet many of the men I dated.) A very nice man. However, in my eyes he was more like a father or a grandfather, not a man I had romantic interest in. That frustrated him and he quit asking me out as soon as he realized that. Tofa, Bachelor #24!

Bachlor #25 was another “senior” citizen…from Greece. He was nice, but it was clear to me from the moment I met him that there was never going to be a Big Fat Greek Wedding in my future. Ta leme, Bachelor #25!

Bachelor #26 was a genuine Kiwi–VERY handsome, tan, VERY cool, laid back, outdoorsy, loved to hike and walk (the muddier the better!) and had an accent to die for! Too bad we had very different goals and values. He was a fun and nice man but it finally came down to hei kona ra, Bachelor #26!

So the international set didn’t work out for me. But I haven’t given up.

“I’m a hopeless romantic. It’s disgusting. It really is. I’ve seen ‘While You Were Sleeping’, like, twenty times, and I still believe in the whole Prince Charming thing.” (Jennifer Love Hewitt)

I’m with her.

I Never Knew

Date: April 7, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had.” (From the television show, The Wonder Years)

In 2009, I lived that line for real.  I felt like the life I thought I had, the life I had lived, had never really been real. I didn’t even trust my memories of my “former life” for a long time; everything seemed so tainted by the crime, the lies, and the betrayal. The pain of losing something I’d never really had hurt more than I imagined.

The spring of 2009 can best be described as the season my heart hurt.  It literally hurt ALL of the time.  It ached all day, every day, every moment, and I didn’t know if it hurt because it was broken or if I was actually physically in trouble due to the stress I lived under! Can healthy women have heart attacks at 41?  I wondered…

Here’s how “optimistic” and hopeful I felt sometimes.  Last April, one year ago, I wrote, “I’m looking at an eternity alone, people hating me the rest of my life, latch-key kids, if you name it and it’s miserable it’s my lot in life! I wonder how will I make it three months, much less the rest of my life? How can one man destroy so much? I deserved better. I deserved more, and so did my children.  His lies stole my life from age 26-41.  The consequences of his lies will steal the rest of my life. Everything looks so black. I never imagined pain like this existed, especially for someone so innocent.”

I spent depressing days packing stuff to move, preparing to leave the home I had brought each of my babies home to, had lived in for 16 years and had always thought it would be the home I’d live in when I was 80 years old.  I cried a lot. I reminisced. I mourned. I felt as if my heart had broken and would never heal.  And when I thought about my kids…I felt grief like I’d never felt before.

But I always pulled it together by the time my kids got home from school.

I had to carry on and keep it together (or at least look like I was keeping it together!) for my kids.  I had to show them what we do when our world falls apart:  we keep living.

My mom taught me that.

When I was 19 and my dad died unexpectedly in an airplane crash, I came home from college for the funeral to a house full of well-meaning neighbors and friends who told me I would not be returning to school because I was needed at home to help my mom and family.  So many told me that I thought my mom had decided that in my absence.  When I asked her if it was true that I wouldn’t be returning to college because my dad died, she was stunned.  And she corrected that mistaken assumption.  ”Absolutely you will be returning to school!  Andrea, you don’t stop living just because something terrible has happened to you!  You keep doing what you need to do, you keep living, you keep smiling even though you don’t feel like it, and some day your smiles will feel real again.”

So I smiled in 1986-1987 when I didn’t feel like it.  And I smiled in 2009 when I REALLY didn’t feel like it too.  They were forced.  They were ‘fake’ in that I didn’t feel them on the inside but I showed them on the outside anyway.  I smiled for the sake of my children.

I remember I was still forcing myself to smile in August 2009.  By then, it killed me that I didn’t mean them. I’d always been a pretty cheerful and positive person and it was hard for me to not feel like myself any more.  I had moments that I wondered if, in addition to losing everything I had known as my life, I had lost myself too.  I remember wondering if I’d ever smile, for real, again.

However, my mom turned out to be right.  As usual.

By October 2009, the smiles were real and the tears were less and less.  Sometime that month I realized I had gone an entire week without crying!  Baby steps forward, but steps forward all the same.  I think that’s one thing 2009 reinforced to me:  it doesn’t matter how fast you move along the path of your unexpected life.  Just as long as you keep moving.  Forward. Pressing on.

Oh, and smiling!