Living Happily Ever After
test123

Blog Articles

Danger

Date: September 28, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“You can’t talk of the dangers of snake poisoning and not mention snakes.” (C. Everett Koop)

I learned something else from the MSNBC episode of “American Greed” that featured the crimes of Shawn Merriman: there is danger associated with crime. Real danger. I see that now, thanks to the show that aired June 20, 2012. But back then, living the nightmare, I scoffed at the very thought of it.

From the moment my former husband revealed his crimes to me and to his victims (those who thought they were “investing” with him) authorities checked with me often regarding my safety and the safety of my children. They encouraged me to find some place else to go, to exist in (I can’t use the word “live” because we really weren’t “living” in those terrible months we were simply trying to survive them) in the months it took to investigate my former husband’s crimes, to build a federal case against him, to seize our assets and worldly possessions deemed of value and to accomplish every other task associated with the revelation of a Ponzi scheme. Besides, I didn’t have anywhere to go anyway. My parents were dead, I had children in school and I had no money. Where was I going to go?

So the authorities looked out for me. They called me frequently to ask, “How are you doing? Do you feel safe? Has anyone threatened you?” and other similar questions.

I always answered their questions by insisting that I was safe, that while my neighbors weren’t treating me or my children kindly (or even civilly) and were angry (rightfully so) about their losses, they were had always been good people and would never harm us physically…Yes, they broke into our house when they thought no one was home and inadvertently terrorized my teenage daughter who actually was there and heard them walking around, talking, looking in cupboards, trying to get any information about us they could including opening boxes I had packed to move and doing who knows what else—as my daughter hid in a dark corner of the room and prayed they would leave before they found her during their invasion of our property and privacy. And yes, three years later my youngest child is STILL afraid— of the dark, to brush his teeth alone, to be alone in a room without the light and white noise on or  to go anywhere without a light on because he’s terrified “bad people might be in our house.” But I never believed I needed to fear for our safety.

I was wrong.

Almost, but thankfully not, dead wrong. Which I only recently discovered while watching ”American Greed” and learned of at least one close call we avoided because a hostile victim came to his senses in time to prevent an additional tragedy. Lets just stay a loaded gun was apparently involved and leave it at that, shall we?

Moral of the story: I guess there are lots of them, but certainly one of them now includes the lesson that not only does crime NOT pay, but it brings with it danger, too. Dangers you can’t see. I now know I should have been less stubborn and more trusting of the authorities and their concerns (experts who were fearful for a very good reason.)

And thankfully, we’re safe—despite a very bad idea one angry man was able to repress and my prideful, stubborn streak that refused to run when I had nowhere to go.

 

Boys—And The Occasional Lapse In Common Sense

Date: February 13, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” (Gertrude Stein)

And if raising sons has taught me anything at all that the rowdy twin brothers I was raised with failed to do, it’s this: boys not only think very differently than girls (in my experience), they occasionally have a lapse in common sense!

My oldest child was an energetic child. His antics led me to many unexpected experiences—like the time I took him to a McDonald’s play land and while he was in a tunnel, I watched children stream from every colorful plastic opening, running and screaming in terror in the race back to the safety of their mothers’s arms. I watched mothers attempt to comfort their crying children as they complained of a “beast” in the tunnel, and before I knew what was happening, out came my son: growling, hissing, clawing the air with his hands, roaring for all he was worth and looking as fierce as a 3 or four-year-old possibly can. Followed shortly afterward by all mothers’ eyes upon me in condemnation for raising such a child who would behave in such a way. I was mortified! It was a long time before I dared let him venture back to a play land. (Probably a healthier choice for him anyway.)

But I realized a few months ago, when confronting the behavior of my second son, that for all my oldest son’s energy, creativity and questionable boyhood antics that led to a few broken bones and several surgeries over the course of his life, he still made it through high school graduation without a single visit to the principal’s office.

Wish I could say the same about his younger brothers!

Shortly around the time my youngest ditched kindergarten a few months ago (which resulted into a trip to the principal’s office) I got a call from my middle son. He called from school, crying so hard he could hardly speak, and all I could understand was, “I’ve made a terrible mistake, I’m so sorry!” over and over again.

You know, it’s interesting. Having lived through some of the lovely adventures that have been mine in the course of my life, particularly since my first husband dropped the Ponzi scheme bomb that destroyed my world and others in 2009 and revealed the double life he had been leading and the crimes he had committed, I have some crazy “automatic” responses. When I got the call I was mentally thrust into a different time, and instead of reacting like a normal mother (I assume normal mothers worry about…what? Missing the bus, or a missing homework assignment?) my mind immediately races to thoughts of big lies, cheating, stealing, serious betrayal and behavior worthy of prison time. I think, “Oh no! It has finally happened! I knew this was coming, that THIS is how the trauma my children lived through is going to manifest itself.” It’s a crazy split second or two until I calm my psyche and ask, “What happened?” never letting on that my mind has already imagined the worst.

Turns out, my middle son had gotten in a fight at school on the playground! I guess the bright side of it was that he had chosen to confront a boy well-known for bullying students and who had been in several fights at school already (if school yard gossip can be relied upon at all), and after my son had turned to adults at the school for help and the situation didn’t change, my son took matters into his own hands and decided to take a stand. I was shocked at how intentional the decision was: the boys had scheduled their “fight” via Facebook! And both showed up at the appointed place and time, the next day, to follow through.

Needless to say, my middle son sent his last Facebook message that day. When I got home from work, I told him to write his last internet communication—a Facebook message apology to the boy—to send it and then suspend his account, and to prepare to go to the boys’ home and also apologize in person. I ended the conversation with something about how disappointed I was by his choices and how poorly his actions reflected not just upon himself, but upon our family and the type of mother people will assume he has because of his behavior! (My husband let me handle it, but had his own questions: like, did my son get any good punches in before school officials broke up the fight? Men! Boys!)

Both boys apologized, shook hands and agreed to go to school the next day and let everyone know they had worked things out. Make that TWO visits to the principal’s office for this son (he called 9-1-1 from an old cell phone of his dad’s that “didn’t work” while out on the school playground with his friends in Colorado, trip #1, followed by a visit from the sheriff who responded to the call; and enjoyed excursion #2 six years later because he got into a boxing match with a bully in Utah) but all’s well that ends well, right? As long as a good lesson was learned!

“To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.” (Jack Handy)

Snakes, snails, puppy dog tails, Facebook fights, boxing matches, visits to the principal’s office and occasional lapses in common sense aside, I love my boys and the opportunity that is mine to be their mother. My greatest effort and work will be, I hope, in raising my boys to become amazing men—upstanding citizens, good husbands and wonderful fathers.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the unexpected life…and their occasional lapses in common sense!

I Am SO NOT AFRAID…of Driving!

Date: March 13, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I’ve had a few fears in my life, but driving isn’t one of them.

Even as a kid, riding a tricycle on the sidewalk in my dress (remember the 1960s and early 1970s?  LOTS of dresses!  Every day!  Those were the good old days, when people truly dressed for success.  In fact, I have pictures of family picnics in the mountains where the women are all in dresses and the men are in shirts and ties!  But I digress…)

Riding my tricycle, I liked to pretend the sidewalk was the road and that my trike was really a car.  My shiny, sexy (aren’t vehicles always described with that word?) purple trike with the metallic streamers coming out the end of the handle bars…I loved it!  And of course, I LOVED every amusement park ride that offered a mini car to drive.  I sacrificed riding roller coasters for those!  So while some people have a fear of driving, I’m not one of them.

Thank goodness for that, I thought, as I drove from Colorado to Utah to begin my new life post-divorce and post the rest of the trauma I had survived the almost four months previously.  But I couldn’t help myself.  While I drove, with lots of time to think, I thought of things I have been afraid of.

Spiders and Bugs; Snakes and Mice. I didn’t think Denver even had mosquitoes.  And then I moved to a home in the “country.”  Back in 1993, people used to joke I’d moved to Kansas; it was THAT far out there.  I missed the sidewalks and community parks and swimming pools of a planned neighborhood. And then I discovered my new home was also replete with everything I feared.  Giant spiders I thought only grew in rainforests were crawling on my porch.  I found bugs I’d never even seen in museums crawling INSIDE my house!  There were snakes of many varieties outside the house–and one VERY HOT SUMMER, I found two GIANT snakes actually INSIDE the house.  Not to mention the little black things I found that I eventually learned were mouse droppings…when I found mice.  I HATED all of that.

I hired exterminators and pest controllers.  I threatened to move to a hotel until they were completely eradicated from my life.  (You should have seen the exterminators’ reactions (yes, I went through countless different exterminators and pest control companies in an effort to have someone remove this fear from my life) to my hatred of pests, “Lady, you live IN THE COUNTRY!”  They must have thought I was a lunatic, an idiot, or both.

I did everything I could to remove these unpleasant things from my life, but none of them ever completely went away.  It seemed like I faced one of those above-mentioned fears every day, in one form or another, and after 16 years, I realized that although I didn’t like them, I wasn’t afraid of them anymore.  It’s true:  ”Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage and confidence in the doing.”  It was a good lesson for me to learn.  I was going to need it.

The dark. Even as a little girl, I was afraid of the dark.  Afraid to be alone in the basement even, especially if it was dark.  I was afraid of thunder and lightening in the dark (so afraid that my thoughtful dad got so he’d come and check on me, in the middle of the night, during every storm–even when I was a teenager!) As a woman, I didn’t sleep a wink when my spouse traveled and I was home alone.  And as a mother, the bedtime routine on nights alone was quite a production:  I’d haul all of my children into my bedroom, push a big piece of furniture in front of the door, and STILL lay awake afraid all night while my babies and kids slumbered peacefully!  The confession of a coward, I know.  But, somehow, over time, the fear went away.  I realized a year or two before I got divorced I wasn’t afraid at night anymore.  I don’t know if it was because my spouse traveled so much I got used to being alone at night or if it’s because I simply gave in to the exhaustion and finally slept; or if it’s because my oldest son got old enough I felt I had some protection; or if I just finally “grew up,” but whatever the case, I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.  And that’s good.  Because I’ve had some darkness.  And I’m all alone in it.

Which brings me to my next fear:  Being alone. LOVE this one.  (NOT!)  I was always a social person. Had lots of friends.  Had lots of dates.  Never thought I’d end up alone, much less at just 41 years old.  But I’ve learned to deal with it.  And in many ways, it isn’t as scary or as bad as I’d always imagined it would be. Either that, or I’m getting used to it. (I didn’t want to get used to it, darn it!  I liked being married and wanted to get married again!  Oh well.  At least I’m open-minded about a possibility that includes me being alone for the rest of my life now.)  Good for me for conquering this fear.

Being responsible for a child. Ironic, I know, that a mother of four children would be afraid of this.  But in college, as I saw new parents strapping a baby on their back and going to class, it FREAKED ME OUT.  The thought of having to feed a child when I was a poor college student kept me single until I was ready to graduate!  I was always so afraid of the thought of being financially responsible for keeping someone else alive–I worried I wasn’t up to that.  I was fine when it was just me, but the thought of anyone else relying on me for support terrified me.  Lucky for me, I eventually matured and was married to a good provider before I had children.  I wasn’t so afraid of this anymore because the providing was on his shoulders AND I had a partner in the parenting endeavor.  I wasn’t doing it alone.

Enter March 18, 2009.  I found out not only was I going to be alone, I was going to be SOLELY responsible for FOUR CHILDREN.  Responsible financially, emotionally, physically, in every way responsible.  I WAS TERRIFIED! But I didn’t have the luxury or time to sit around and think about how afraid I was.  (THAT part came as I drove to Utah.)  I thought I had just six weeks to get everything resolved as it related to being alone and being solely responsible for four children.  I had a SERIOUS deadline.

Like the children’s “bear hunt” rhyme, I was going on the hunt of my life and I couldn’t go over it, under it, or around it.  I had to go straight through it.  I had to, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do what you are afraid to do.”  (No offense to anyone named Ralph or Waldo, but I’ve always found it ironic that someone named Ralph AND Waldo had such great things to say and in such a brilliant way! lol)

And as I did that, I stretched and grew. Again.  Every day.  Just a little bit more.  Until now I can say I agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson on another thing:  ”He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

But as I drove to Utah from Colorado on July 13, 2009, I hadn’t learned this yet. I had eight hours to think and I thought about how afraid I was of my life.  And how afraid I was of what was ahead of me…for the rest of my life.