Part Two: dating advice

Hear me out, people in the dating world: put your hormones, butterflies in your stomach, and happy feelings aside for a moment. If I could impart one thing and one thing only onto you, I would say this: don't settle. You have a beautiful opportunity, right now, to choose the spouse and person you will live with until you die. Do not settle for ANYTHING less that what you absolutely want. Trust me, he or she is out there, and they are worth the wait.

• Are you proud of how this person acts in public? Are you proud of how this person acts in private?
• Will you become part of his family, and he yours?
• Is she the mother you want for your children? Remember, you get to choose exactly what mother you want for your kids. That's a pretty amazing thing.
• Will you still be able to talk to this person for hours even after you've been living with him for 12 years?
• Is this the person that you are bonded to more than any other?
• If you could design how you think a spouse should treat you, would this person fit that description?
• Are you completely comfortable with this person physically?
• Do you want to share everything with this person? Your bank account, money, passwords, conversations, vacations, time, adventures, failures, bathroom, bed, car, children?

There are also some things that I am telling you right now that you should not think you can "put up" with. These things will destroy your marriage and you will have just wasted your time, money, and heart on a relationship. A relationship with these things is not sustainable and you are foolish if you get into a relationship with someone knowing this. Do whatever you have to do to not become attached to this person until these problems are completely and utterly resolved.

1. Into a "swinger" lifestyle. The only reason I put this down is because statistically, couples who take part in swapping partners ultimately have a 100% divorce rate. May sound fun, but trust me, don't do it.
2. Tries in any way to control you. Physically, or in subtle ways like manipulating your actions or emotions. 
3. Misuses you in any way.
4. Does not respect you...warning signs? Doesn't accept "no," makes fun of you, mistreats your possessions, doesn't listen, doesn't find your opinions/thoughts/feelings to be valid, goes against your wishes, doesn't find value in your dreams/career/past.
5. Is jealous. You may think it's attractive right now to have someone who won't allow you to talk to other people of the opposite sex, but trust me, it's going to become annoying as all hell two years down the road when you can't even text a friend. There is a good jealousy over things that are rightfully yours, like wanting to keep a monogamous relationship. There is also a bad jealousy, like regulating a person's actions that are not rightfully yours to regulate. Run for the hills if they have a bad jealousy, because this means they also have control issues. Do not make the mistake of thinking they won't control you.
6. If you aren't thrilled to tell this person everything about everything in your life. This should be the person who you want to tell everything to because he will be interested, care, help, and be happy or sad for you. You should be able to know without a doubt that whatever you are going through or struggling with, he is there to uphold you and not judge you or be angry about it.

Do not settle, my friends, for anything except the best. You do deserve it, and so does the person you want to date.

Part One: the new list

Maybe this is a bad idea, but it's one that I've had for a few months, so I think I should just write it down and suffer any consequences later. Since going through all of this yucky stuff the last bunch of months, I have wondered if my list of desirable characteristics for a spouse has changed since actually being married. We always hear about making sure you "match" the person you marry--that you can communicate, that you agree on politics and religion, that finances are figured out, and that you at least discuss child rearing philosophies before the wedding day...but we don't often talk about the things that go beyond the "good marriage" rules. So please, those who are young and eager to marry, consider the following list. And Brad Sorenson, if you are reading this, please take notes and mold yourself now just in case I am ever in a state of un-marriage.

1. Knows how to love me. If you don't know how to love, you can't love. You will be surprised at how many people don't actually have a clue how to love someone else. It's often confused with lust or selfishness. I always used 1 Corinthians 13 as a model of how I am supposed to love others, but I never used it as the standard of which to hold other people to when considering if they loved me. Why this never occurred to me, I do not know.
1. is patient with me and my children
   
2. is kind to me and my children
   
3. does not envy me or others
   
4. does not boast about things to just make himself look better to me or others
5. is not proud (does not judge others based on statuses, and is willing to do what he needs to do regardless of whether or not it boosts his image among men)
   
6. does not dishonor others
7. does not make selfish decisions
   
8. is not easily angered by me or my children
   
9. keeps no record of wrongs
10. does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 
11. always protects me and my children! Physically and emotionally.
    
12. always trusts me
13. always hopes for the best for me and us and our future
14. always perseveres in his relationship and love for me
2. Has a great, dry sense of humor, and can laugh at situations and himself to help get through tough times.
3. Passionate for God. Knows his personal cost of following Christ and has made the decision to do so.
4. Enjoys the same things I do.
5. Understand the things that make me feel loved, and cares enough to do so.
6. Likes to hold me...because, of course, I like to be held.
7. Is helpful to me.
8. And basically, if he can get through all of the very large concrete walls that surround my heart and soul...get me to trust him...well, my heart will always be his. Forever. No matter what.

The Heart-Head Dichotomy

I wish I could feel. I wish I could make a decision, no matter how irrational, just based on what my heart says.

All that I can do, though, is make decisions based on logic...and when logic isn't flowing along the same path as my heart, it creates a lot of stress.

Add my subjugation into the mix, and disaster strikes. I'm destined for a stroke or heart attack by the time I will hit my thirtieth birthday for sure.

I hate myself. I want my heart to follow my head. I want to feel. I want to know if I'm happy. I want to have that connection and not suppress half of me just to be able to move towards what I know is the best option. It's not fair to him (yup, out comes my subjugation again). And by golly, I love him, so I want to be fair. I want to be so fair that he has a wife that's in love with him and chose him because she is in love with him and not because it's the logical option.

Who does this to someone else? I am such a freakin' jerk.

How I Got Here

Why I stayed. It's a question that's difficult to answer, though I think the question misses the point, because I didn't stay. I left. The more accurate question would be why did I come back? It's not a decision that would gather much respect from the world if they knew our story. In fact, I would even think a woman in my shoes would be a little crazy to go back. But here I am.

The difference is that I'm not back where I started. We are in an entirely different place now. I see things in him that never were; peace, joy, empathy. He now has the ability to love--something he never knew how to do before. I see things in me that never were: the ability to stand and protect myself while facing things head on instead of ignoring the offense as a way to cope.

I describe the place that I was in during our time separated as me being in a boat. The boat is sitting in the middle of a huge lake and you can see mountains in the distance. You're all alone, and you have a paddle, but it's lying still in the bottom of the boat. You aren't sure of which direction you want to go, so you just sit and feel the rocking back and forth as the wind moves the water, allowing the boat to take you and eventually place you on whichever shore it happens to. I didn't need to make a decision at that time about whether or not to file for a divorce. I just needed a safe place to heal at that point, and to know I had the control to pick up that paddle if I chose to do so.

The reason I came back has two elements and is very simple when broken down:

My decision was first and primarily based upon his change. Without fully knowing that change happened and without the wisdom from outside professionals that yes, this was a true change, there was no going back. Simple.

The secondary factor is one of these two things (and which one it currently is just depends on the day for me):

a. I have two beautiful children. For their sake, I need to exhaust every possibility to have a healthy, good marriage between their mother and father. Until I have done everything within my power to give that to them, I will have not done enough.

b. We are good for each other. Problems aside, when it comes right down to the framework, I married the right man. If we can have a good and healthy marriage, we will be able to accomplish more in life, for God, and be more self fulfilled by being together. When unified in a healthy manner, we are stronger together than we are separate.

I was never looking to or trying to go back after I left. I just was still, focusing on getting my own healing, and allowing God and life to move me to the next place. That's all. It's not complicated. This is just where I landed.

Fear List

I thought I was doing remarkably well emotionally. Then today happened and the bottom fell out again. I didn't realize until then that I have a whole list of fears that have been happily ignored under the surface. Maybe I'm not ready for this? And if not, what do I do with that thought? Ugh. I am so ready to leave Egypt. I just can't figure out how to lose the baggage that came with me through the Nile...and it wasn't the gold jewelry I looted from my oppressors!

So in an attempt to make myself admit these things (I'm learning that a lot of freedom comes from admitting and allowing yourself to feel), here is my Fear List:

1. I am afraid that this isn't going to work. Either you will go back to who you were, or my heart will never fully come around.
2. If things were to fall apart, I'm afraid I will have NO ONE to pick me up. No one to understand, no one to care enough about me that they would do whatever they needed to to make sure I am safe and going to survive.
3. I'm afraid that I hurt you by all of the things I can't do right now.
4. I'm afraid that I will never be able to do the things I can't do right now. If that's the case, then why am I tying you up in this relationship anyway? You say you caused this and so are reaping the harvest, but I believe that you deserve to be treated for who you are NOW and I can't seem to fully do that...
5. I'm afraid that you will eventually become tired and give up. 
6. Abandonment. Not being self actualized. That my emotions won't change...These are things I fear.
7. I fear that I am already alone in this journey, and I really didn't want to be.

But on the bright side, there is so much that I don't fear any more:

1. I don't fear being hurt.
2. I don't fear being disrespected.
3. I don't fear ever going back to where I was, because I KNOW I could never do that.
4. I don't fear that my children will grow up to have wrong thinking about how they should be treated or how they should treat other people.
5. I don't fear awkward conversations and a stressful home environment.
6. I don't fear guilt or fear itself.
7. I don't fear you. And this is my favorite one to be released from.

I've come a long way, and I need to remind myself that I can keep walking. I learned how to swim and I can choose to keep moving instead of just hanging on and hope that someone will throw me a life vest. I will never be left or forsaken, and I can trust those promises because they come from The Giver whom I can rest in. 

It's time now to guide my heart, and that's a beautiful place in this journey. It means I have covered a lot of ground and much sooner than I would have thought. So one step at a time, terrifying as it may be, I will keep moving and will not allow myself to fall.

Jonathan & David

This must be how it felt...

He knew she wasn't his, not really. She had been drifting away for a while and he knew there was no claim to her anymore. Knowing this, though, couldn't stop him from being crazy about her, and didn't stop his heart from bleeding when she left. Really, she had left before That Day and inside he knew it, but his soul was still seared at the moment she told him and reality began to sink in.

You'd think that after the initial kick in the gut feeling, one would adjust and react in a way that made it hurt less. No matter what he tried though, his chest still ached to where it hurt to breathe and he thought he would still throw up hours later.

On the other side of his emotions, he was happy. She had hope and a future now, something he wasn't able to give her. So even if he really wanted to be the one to have put that smile on her face, just the fact that it was there now was enough to make him want to let go of the small threads that had burrowed their way into his body and become part of him over time. These small parts of her that were also part of him, though, are a lot less easily shed than one would think.

Would she remember? The deep burning love he had for her? How much they complete one another? That moment in time when nothing else had mattered but each other? How quickly one forgets when the present becomes so different from the past...

Letting go is something he could do, and with joy because now she was free to have the things she deserved. But releasing your friend is something entirely different. To not have her want to tell him everything for whatever reason, not being sure if she would want to listen to him...it's a lonely place to be.

And what was his role now? Would she understood if he wanted to hold her just as a dear friend, or would she take that to mean something more? If he told her both sides of how he felt, would he be manipulating her into saying and acting in untrue ways just because she felt bad for him? Could he still have that "friend" part, or did leaving mean that was gone, too?

Moving on might have happened...if he was the sort of person who got angry or bitter about these things. And maybe there was a time when he would have, but not today. Today was for forgiving and truly being so very happy for her. Loving her because he would never stop. He was her friend first, and that Jonathan and David relationship would far outlast anything else that ever was or would be again. Today was for hoping. Hoping that the friendship would be there, growing stronger so they could uphold, advise, laugh with, and be there for each other.

And maybe, someday when the moment is right, picking up the hope again for something more.

Summer Nights

Summer nights were magical. The taste of fire in the air. The sound of crickets late into the night. We would lay in the field, grass, or on the trampoline and watch for shooting stars. Trying to pick out constellations, we would always fall back on the Big and Little Dippers, thinking about the Underground Railroad and how exciting it would have been to be runaway slaves.

I remember leaning out the second story windows of our white farmhouse--looking out and around while our knees anchored us onto our beds that we were sure would keep us safe from falling to our deaths (dramatic as that would have been). Sometimes, we would sneak out one of my windows and onto the porch roof with hearts pounding as we thought of what would happen if we got caught. We were, of course, presumed to be sleeping during these midnight adventures.

We whispered to each other while leaning out our windows, my older sister and I. It was glorious, somehow, to be young and have the most rebellious thing you do be to lean as far as you can out your window and turn on and off a flashlight in an attempt to attract fireflies. I would watch the moon for hours back then, always keeping my bed located near that window so I could think about who else was looking at the same sky and same moon and same stars that I was right at that exact moment.

Hide And Go Seek in the dark. Sardines as the pitch black night enrobed us like a big cozy blanket. Racing barefoot through seemingly miles of untouched grass. It was everything childhood should be.

And here I am today, still enchanted by fireflies, dancing flames against a pitch black sky, and listening to an orchestra of peepers...because everything in life looks better when viewed under the moonlight.