Why Your Life Matters

Let's open Pandora.  The box, not the music channel (though I do love using that music channel.)  The box is something that has been wrapped so deep inside my heart for so long, I simply cannot hold it in anymore.  The reason I cannot hold it in anymore?  People.  Friends.  Strangers.  Loved ones.
The box is depression; it is not a cliche.
As many may know, I suffered through depression from the end of junior high to the end of my junior year of college.  Now, as many know I am also LDS.  I wear that mantle proudly.  Recently, during General Conference, a leader of the LDS faith gave a very emotional, and very welcome, talk.  You can read it, or listen to it, here.

My only wish with that talk?  I only wish that the timing of such widespread recognition had come sooner.  A lot has happened in 10 years.  A lot has changed when it comes to the stigma of mental illness.  Physical ailments have side effects, and even the treatments of such illnesses have side effects.  Mental illnesses are no different.  One such side effect?  Suicide.
There it is.  There's Pandora.  Suicide; the way out.  The escape from the hell that no one else can contemplate.  The darkness that no one else can see.  The all consuming sadness that so many simply do not understand.
Few people truly understand how it feels to put the barrel of a gun in their mouth, then not pull the trigger.  Few people know how those thoughts of "if I just let the car stray a bit it will hit the barrier..." or "if I just take one too many pills..." come.  Or how "I won't be missed." and "It will probably be better off for everyone" never really leave the mind.  The anger.  The sadness.  Sometimes it hits suddenly, and sometimes the onset is gradual.  Sometimes the moment of "no way out" is fleeting, and other times it refuses to recede from the forefront of the mind.
Without divulging identities, I will simply say that many, and by many I mean MANY, close friends are suffering through this darkness.  One such friend called me Monday night.  All that needed to be said was, "I am not in a good place right now."  This friend is amazing, though said friend does not truly believe such.  This friend is beginning to re-learn who s/he is.  This friend is trying very hard to clear out the mud of life, and focus on the heart.  This friend is my friend, and I love this friend more than s/he could ever truly know.

With that said, I will point out that just as physical illnesses come in many forms, so do mental.  I do not pretend to understand them all, nor do I claim that what helped me will help everyone.  But for me, I do know how I finally stepped out of the darkness and into the light.  I accepted myself.  I stopped listening to all the voices both inside, and outside, my heart and mind.  As I explained this to my friend on Monday night, the following was then said, "So I guess I need to accept my life, and be at peace with where I am."  No.  You need to be at peace with who you are.  If you are at peace with who you are, when life turns sour, then you will find the strength to fight your way through hard times.
You will find reasons to be grateful for what you have, and where you are when you discover yourself.
You need to grab the gifts, the weaknesses, the strengths, the heartaches, the trials, and triumphs, and accept them all.  Do not fight against them, and do not let anyone tell you you need to be one way, or another.  Accept your feelings, and accept yourself.  Then?  Look up.

My mother taught me a very important lesson, and though it took me a while to truly grasp the concept of that lesson, I do think I have come to understanding with it.  "You listen to God, and your heart, and nothing else.  Don't you dare let the world try to tell you who you need, or needn't, be.  God, and you.  You and God.  That's all that matters."  Darkness will always find a way to beset us all differently.  For some, it comes and goes.  For others'?  It stays indefinitely.
I have since "googled" this saying, and someone else has indeed said something similar.  However, I will forever remember the night this thought was given.  A small gift in a moment of absolute weakness; a gift forever recorded in my journal so that I may never forget.
In thy darkest hour the soul is replenished and given the strength to continue and endure.  That thought embedded itself deep within my heart.  It didn't say "the darkest" or "a darkest", it said "thy darkest."  My darkest.  Not dark, or slightly dim, or kind of hard to see through.  Darkest.  The darkest.  Thy darkest.  In thy darkest hour the soul is replenished; the soul is filled.  And then?  You endure.  You move forward.  However slow that forward motion may be, you move.

Why do you matter?  If my four year old asked me that question, I would answer "Because you do."  There doesn't need to be a reason.  There doesn't need to be an explanation.  You simply do.  You simply matter.  Never forget that.
You and God.  God and You.        

I Do; Yes

I love weddings.  I love them.  Love, love them.  Some people hate weddings.  I do not.  I do, do love them.  Why do I love them, you ask?  Because it is pure happiness.  Pure happiness, pure joy, and pure love.  Now, the most recent wedding we attended was a very special wedding.  Why was it special?  Because the gal who got married is pretty special.  She is, to say, a best friend.  She is the thick and thin type; and I thank God for that.

There are moments in life where you happen to stop.  You stop for just a tick of the clock and breathe.  You might think, "Man.  I have been missing all of this because of {insert whatever is making you miss awesome things here.}  Wedding day was one such moment.  I didn't have the boys (Any of them.  Cole was at work, and J squared were with grandma.)  As such, my day was actually quite quiet.  And?  If you are a busy person to any extent, especially a mother, you can attest to what it feels like when you suddenly do not have your hands full.

Well, wedding day was wonderful, and I will never forget it.  Especially when I had to crawl under Maddie's dress and tie a bunch of random bows....but?  That's another story.  The story I want to tell today has to do with love.  Love and people.  Life brings many things, and among those things are relationships.  Friendships.  Loved ones.  Some people that we meet are quickly, and all too easily, forgotten.  Others' tend to stay on our minds, and in our hearts, for the better part of eternity.  Personally?  I know I want to be the kind that sticks around.

As Maddie could attest to, I have made my fair share of mistakes in life.  Sometimes we hurt the people we love the most; other times we are hurt by the people we love the most.  Regardless of which side of the fence we happen to be on, time is not on our side.  How does the quote go?  "Why put off til tomorrow what you can do today?"  Wedding Day helped me remember something.  One?  Love is a beautiful thing, and without it the world would cease to go round and round.  And two?  As crazy as my little minions make me, when I am not around them I feel lost.  The life I live truly does complete me, and it is so because I decided to allow it.  So wherever you happen to be, remember to let life fill you.  Breathe it in; live off of it.  Stop looking around and saying "If only."  Instead say "It is."  It is wonderful.  It is beautiful.  When God says, here is what I want to give you, will you accept it?  Say I do; yes.  Because whatever it is, it is grand.
It is.  
        

You Need to Believe

Jack and James couldn't be more different.  Jack is a "goer," while James is a "watcher."  James will sit and do little to nothing, and be perfectly happy with it.  Jack, on the other hand, moves; all the time.  Sitting for him includes a waste of precious seconds that he could be utilizing to build another block fort, eat more food, or destroy something else within the house.  I see myself in each little man, and I see Cole in them as well.  It is in these wonderful gifts of parenthood that I have moments of weakness.  Such weakness includes my own vices of impatience and frustration, as well as weak knees and watery eyes when Jack kisses James, or James grabs my hand and squeezes it.  I find myself to be a tough, mushy mama.
I am a walking contradiction, it is true.

Children are capable of the same contradictions.  They are adorable.  They are annoying.  They go from being the cute lovable Gizmo in Gremlins, to the Gremlins themselves.  Walking contradictions.
Adorably annoying, lovable gremlins.
Enter the lesson from this week...
This past week Jack has decided to not sleep.  By not sleep I mean fight bedtime, and wake up intermittently throughout the night.  By waking up at 3, and 4, and 5 he then wakes up James.  Jack will go back to sleep, then James will wake up.  Then James falls to sleep and Jack wakes up.  And?  So the cycle continues.  The cycle continues, and mom needs an insane asylum for the sole purpose of passing out surrounded by nothing but white walls and absolute silence.  To say that this mom is exhausted, both mentally and physically, would be a gross understatement.
Enter this morning.

This morning I decided to take matters into my own hands, and make Jack sleep.  (I can hear you laughing already, "Yeah, make him sleep.  How'd that work out for you?)  Hmm.  Answer.  Not well.  I crawled into bed with Jack so he wouldn't wake up James.  He is a wiggler, and proceeded to wiggle.  And wiggle.  And wiggle.  "Jack, please hold still."  Wiggle.  "Jack, please don't kick my legs."  Wiggle.  "Jack..." I then took both his arms and folded them with mine, then wrapped his legs up in my legs, thus entirely immobilizing him.
He yelled at me, and began with the "I needs" to get me to let go.  "I need to go,"  "I need bear," "I need to go potty."  Anything to get me to release him.  Anything at all.  I finally said, "Buddy?  I will let go if you will hold still.  He said "Yes."  So I let him go.
After a few moments of wonderful quiet, he turned around in his bed and faced me.  I opened my eyes and looked at him.  He just stared at me for a minute, something he doesn't ever do.  What came out of his mouth next would have knocked me off of my feet had I been standing.  He said, "Mom, you need to believe."  I wasn't sure if I had heard what I thought I heard.  I said, "What?"
Jack repeated, "You need to believe.  You need to believe in me."

Enter all wisdom I thought I had compiled over the course my life, and adulthood.  Everything I thought I had learned, and mastered.  Everything I believe in, and try to hold true to.  How often did life teach me to seek the best in others, and thus the best in myself, then to trust that belief?  To trust in myself as much as I believe in God, and to take the goodness He gives and give it to others?  Even if that other happens to be a 3 year old little boy who has been the cause of my insomnia.  Every day I wake up wondering how I am going to teach my children.  I wonder how I can help them grow, and learn to be ready to face an ever changing world of uncertainty.  Can I arm them with what they will need to fight?  Can I give them what they will need?  Can I teach them?
I have obviously been asking the wrong questions, and Jack reminded me of that this morning.

As parents, and simply as beings on earth, we constantly wonder what we need to do to bring about the best end.  This is a good thing.  But sometimes we get so caught up in the control of where our lives need to lead that we forget where we are going.  In our quest to teach, we often forget to learn.  This morning reminded me that though I now hold the honorary title of mother, I do not know everything.  I never will.  It is in this humbling reality that I thank God for sleepless nights, and endless weeks of routine.
Lessons surround us every day.  It is a consistent reality check from heaven on high that in a quest to become our best self, we need to believe.  We need to believe as much in ourselves as we do in those around us, and thus believe in life itself.
As much as we think we know, God will always find a way to teach.  To teach and humble even those who think themselves learned.
And in this case?  It literally came from the mouths of babes.