Living Happily Ever After
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Blog Articles

On Stage

Date: May 18, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“You are never so alone as when you are ill on stage. The most nightmarish feeling in the world is suddenly to feel like throwing up in front of four thousand people.”  (Judy Garland)

The next adventure of my business trip occurred shortly after my impressive vocal solo performed backstage for Donny Osmond. It actually took place while he was onstage. When I joined him in the spotlight! (Unfortunately, it wasn’t because of what you might think.)

In the middle of his performance, a few women from the audience joined him onstage. When the first few made it to him, I watched light dawn in the minds of many women in the auditorium. The room began to look like one of those gopher arcade games—where creatures pop up at various intervals, at various locations, and you have to bop them on the head to score. Each woman appeared to be heading to the stage to get close to Donny! I looked around me and started feeling sick to my stomach. I’d been to an autograph signing with Donny and I’d seen firsthand not only how much women love him but how out-of-hand things can get without the proper control (and security.) I knew somebody had to do something. I sat there for a few seconds more, observing women here and there, leaving their seats and heading for the stage and not really sure of what to do, but frantic to prevent a situation that could become out of control. So…I joined them!

As I climbed the steps to the stage and walked out into the spotlight, I felt sick. “I am NOT doing this. I cannot believe I have to do this. What am I doing? Why in the world am I going onstage in the middle of a Donny Osmond performance?” But I did it anyway (someone had to) and began directing the adoring female fans back to their seats. Donny was attempting to do the same and must have seen me out of the corner of his eye and thought I was one of the fans because as I directed the last one back toward her seat and prepared to follow her back to mine, he grabbed my arm, looked like he was ready to tell me to take my seat, but instead realized who I was and said, “Oh, it’s YOU!” and with relief, continued the show.

I returned to my seat and cringed at the unexpected adventure I’d just had. Disaster averted. The story of the time I joined Donny Osmond onstage—in the middle of a performance—and lived to tell about it. (I’m sure if I’d had to sing, the outcome would have been drastically different. I’ll leave the performing to Donny…and Marie.)

“If you take my performance or my understanding of the role and my appreciation for story…I guess becomes an action film.” (Vin Diesel)

I Want A Man

Date: January 23, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I want a man who’s kind and understanding.  Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?” (Zsa Zsa Gabor)

As a teenager, I compiled a list of everything I wanted in a man. I found that list after my divorce…and laughed. In many ways, it was a bit, as #5 would call it, “Twilight-esque.” (In other words, unrealistic and total, imaginary romanticism that exists in the fictional world of vampires and werewolves, Edward and Bella. Ah, the emotional depth of teenage girls!) Here are a few important qualities from the early 1980s: tall, brown hair, tan skin, hard working, handsome, good at sports, funny, nice, good dancer, smart, good singer, polite, straight white teeth, opens doors for me, rich, writes romantic things to me, fun, spiritual, honest, hairless chest, sends me flowers, loves me more than anything, romantic, wears good cologne, stylish…let’s see, did I leave ANYTHING out?

When I grew up, I was self-aware enough to know looks and athletics alone might be fine for some women, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough to keep me “in love” for the rest of my life and into eternity so I decided long term (what I would most appreciate as a married woman in my 40s) was a smart man who treated me well. I married the first guy I felt was smarter than me. And boy, did he turn out to be smart! A lot smarter, more clever and cunning, than I’d ever imagined, in fact! I was happy and in love, until I found out our 20-year marriage had been built on 14+years of deception and lies. (Ironic, isn’t it, that I based my choice on what I’d want 40-something, and that’s when it all ended and I was alone and single anyway?)

It was the personal loss that caused me the most pain. My childrens’ loss of their dad, their childhood, their innocence, their life, their family, everything as they knew it, was the worst; followed closely by my loss. I had lost the man I had loved, relied on and built a life with; the man who should have been loyal to me and my biggest protector. I just knew I was destined to be alone the rest of my life. I felt those losses powerfully.

I remember standing in my Colorado kitchen one day, my heart literally breaking over those losses. And mother that I am, this is why I cried that time: “Even if someday when I’m 80 years old and some man takes pity on me and marries me because his wife died and he needs a housekeeper, I’ll never have a whole and complete family. Even if a one-in-a-billion miracle happens and a man ever loves me again, no one will love my children. My kids will never again run into my room, jump on my bed, and wrestle with a dad.” (It may sound crazy, but out of everything I had lost that was a big one for me.)

I began dating less than 3 months after my divorce, and I realize now, I entered into it without a lot of thought. I was reeling from the shock of what had transpired in a matter of months; I didn’t know what I was doing because everything related to singles and socializing had changed so drastically since the 1980s (it was sort of like entering the playing field without a game plan.) I was lonely. However, after meeting my first single man, it didn’t take long to list the things I couldn’t live without: spiritual depth, integrity, emotional stability, family-oriented focus, employed, a good father to my kids, a man who loves ME. Oh, and good credit. (The crimes of my husband and his incarceration destroyed MY credit. I didn’t need a man with money because I’ve never needed money to be happy, but I had to have a man who could at least qualify for a rental lease, a home loan, or a car loan because I can’t–and I can’t ask friends and family to do that for me for the rest of my life! The Catch-22 is that what man with good credit would want me and my financial disaster? But that’s a blog for another day…)

Cut to the other night.

Mr. Awesome (aka. #5/Agent M) and I were sitting on my bed talking. The door was locked. (With a small house and many children around, it’s what we’ve occasionally had to resort to when we need to discuss something important.) In the middle of it, my youngest knocked on the door. I didn’t open it, but told him I’d be with him as soon as my discussion was over. He went away for awhile and then knocked again. I repeated my instruction, he went away for awhile and then knocked on the door again. The third time he knocked, #5 looked at me and asked, “Do you think we should open the door and let him in now? I like it when he runs in and jumps on the bed. I love his hugs. And it’s fun to wrestle him.”

He opened the door and their wrestling match began. Pillows were flying, tickles were traded (along with a few karate chops) and all I could do was remember that moment I stood in my Colorado kitchen, sure that my youngest would never know what it was to have a dad, much less wrestle with a dad.

Can you believe it? Dreams really can come true.

Every single one of them.

“I tell people I’m too stupid to know what’s impossible. I have ridiculously large dreams, and half the time they come true.” (Debi Thomas)

Understanding Simple Pleasures

Date: September 18, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls off a string.”

It has been 18 months, to the day, since my unexpected life began. Back then, there were some dark, difficult days!

What are my days like now?

Very different from the previous two decades I lived as a married, stay at home mother who spent her days caring for her family and volunteering service in my church and community. These days I’m up early, get myself ready for work, my children ready for school and daycare, I try to get dishes unloaded from the dishwasher, dinner in the crock pot, and a load of laundry done before I drive a carpool to the elementary school, drop my youngest at daycare and commute to work–arriving at work between 7:30 a.m. and 9 a.m., depending on the day and the traffic.

What do I think about it all?

Mostly I think how carefree I feel. When my unexpected life began, and my entire world changed so quickly, completely and unexpectedly, I doubted I’d ever feel carefree and light-hearted again. But thank goodness I was wrong.

We’ve healed. We have sweet days again. And although not every day is splendid, wonderful and exciting, we’ve been blessed with time together (now that I work outside the home, our family time is even more precious and we know it, appreciate it and try to make the most of it), an increased appreciation for one another (a result of the additional service we’ve each had to render to one another to help our little family function) and an abundance of love for one another within our family circle (our shared experiences have strengthened the bonds of our unity even more.)

An additional opportunity has been the chance we’ve had, as a family, to appreciate the simple pleasures of nature. We live five minutes from the mountains. Access to them is just right up the street from our home.

One such simple pleasure was the night Bachelor #5 took my boys up the canyon to “throw rocks.”

He came by after work and picked us up. There was a river he wanted to show the boys. When we arrived, Bachelor #5 taught the boys the simple pleasure of throwing rocks into the river. My sons were thrilled!

Bachelor #5 climbed all around the river bank, searching for the biggest rocks he could find, and then threw every giant rock he prospected into the river with a BIG SPLASH. My boys “oohed” and “ahhed” on the shore, thrilled with the splashes. It was like The Bellagio in Las Vegas, only without the beautiful opera music, instead, accompanied by the music of nature. It sounds unbelievable–because doesn’t every adult have the childhood memory of throwing rocks into water and making splashes? But I don’t think my sons had ever done anything like that before. (My former spouse excelled at showing our children the world and providing many material opportunities, but getting him to share the simple pleasures of life with us was not something he made time for very often, if at all.)

Bachelor #5 also demonstrated the simple pleasure of floating things downstream. He walked upriver from us, threw a big stick into the water, and encouraged my four-year-old to look for it floating by as the current carried it past him. It was so exciting for him to see the item traveling down the river! I don’t think the boys had ever done anything like that before, either.

Then Bachelor #5 said, “Ok! Now lets skip rocks!” He picked up a rock, threw it into the river and we all watched as it hopped and skipped on the surface of the water.

“Your turn!” he encouraged. My boys stood there, looking at him with puzzled expressions. I whispered, “I don’t think my boys have ever skipped a rock before, I don’t think they know how.”

Bachelor #5, so kind, patient and calm, looked at me with a flash of disbelief, probably wondering how my boys had missed these simple pleasures of life, but just as quickly, he turned and taught my sons to skip rocks on the water.
Then they all went back to throwing boulders into the water.

As I watched Bachelor #5 patiently carry rocks and help the boys throw them, and my boys dancing in excitement on the shore, I had to look away. So no one would see my unexpected reaction. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I watched my sons, traumatized way too early in their young lives, happily playing, learning new things and having an adventure enjoying a simple pleasure on a river bank–with a man. (I don’t know if all single mothers are like me, but I am almost desperate for my children, especially my sons, to be able to spend time with men so they will have male influence in their lives.)

I am so thankful for the simple pleasures that are ours to enjoy. We lost a lot entering our unexpected life, but we never lost each other OR the simple things that are free, all around us, in nature. And we ended up moving right to them.

Despite the challenging circumstances of our unexpected life and all we’d had to pass through to get to it, I realized that my children finally have everything I always wanted for them. I have something I always wanted to have too, something REAL.

I may not have found a diamond ring yet, but we were stringing the strand of our life with the pearls of simple pleasures, every day.

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” (Leonardo da Vinci)

We owe a lot to our unexpected life. We have sweet days, simple pleasures and the noblest pleasure of all: understanding. Perspective. Appreciation. And a depth I doubt we could have acquired any other way.

The Unexpected Life.