"the pursuit of happiness,,," We were all promised that we would at least be allowed the chance at finding happiness yet that chance seems to be the easy part, it is actually knowing it when we find it that can be tricky. Is happiness a condition, a frame of reference or only a destination that seems to always be just around the corner? I think I am a happy person, I have definitely lived a happy life yet I am also not a very content person. I am always thinking about what is next, when we would go on vacation my thoughts would always focus on, "We have already been here a day, we only have 6 left, 5 left, 4 etc..." I was always thinking about the next step and forget to live in my moment now. My happiness was often static and even fleeting because I knew the weekend would end and I would face another Monday morning. Divorce can often feel like one big unhappy moment, the happiness always seems tainted as if it is never as whole as it could be, like sunshine peeking through a dirty window. I know it's there, but sometimes I think I will never be able to fully experience it again. I've been told it will get better, and I truly believe that. Someone said there will come a day when you just realize you are actually ok. Or even a day where you just don't think about it, and you realize this horrible time won't affect everything forever. For now I am happy with the moments when they come, because I am blessed with so many good ones each day, I just have to see them. The sun was always shining, but I am finally able to see it again. I read that oftentimes the Lord is just waiting to bless us with something wonderful and more than we could ever hope for we just have to ask Him. Joseph Smith sat down to a simple meal and prayed, "Lord, we thank thee for this Johnny cake, and ask Thee to send us something better. Amen." Before the meal was over a man had come to the door with flour and a ham! The prophet Jospeh knew he could have more, and he had the faith to ask for it. Something better, that is a comforting thought to me as I realize that it is there, it will come. For now it is enough to just know that total happiness is a possibilty. It was like I was walking on a beautiful trail, but I had my head down focused on the dirt that lay just under my feet. When I asked for more the Lord simply reminded me to look up. He wasn't able to move me from the path I was on, for there are always consequences that he can't remove and sometimes He simply needs more time to change our direction, but He did show me all that He has already blessed me with, showed me that the sun is shining on me, the view is great, and I am blessed with the ability to keep walking towards all that He has yet in store. My happiness is not a destination, it is a journey, given to me piece by piece and earned along every step of the way. I am grateful for each little bit that I have, for I have experienced life with out it. I know even though I am not in the situation I would picked for myself or my family these experiences will not be wasted, they are for our good, and compensation has been promised, even if that is only a reminder to look around and see all that we have already been given. My happiness is there for me, I just have to be willing to take it. Wash the window, and let His sunshine pour in!

This is life now. This is my reality, this is what it is. In many ways it is different, in many ways it is the same and in even more ways it has gotten so much better. I'm figuring out the new role, I'm getting comfortable in this new skin. But there are still the moments. The moments that pierce through the defenses I have built. Memories that I can't keep out in the haunting shadows of the lonely nights. Frustration with no one to dump them on, except for the undeserving soldiers who have stood by me through it all. Questions that even God won't answer when I want to demand it. Sometimes it feels like too much, the negativity, the arguing, splitting up a life, trying to show the worst in a person who you were supposed to love through everything. This is it, this is really happening. The moment became real when I sat in a lawyers office and spelled out the names of each of my children and their ages: 5, 3 and 3 mos. The heartbreak that came from saying that out loud was insurmountable and I felt a near panic level as the walls seemed to close in. I had spent so many years shielding them from him and these fights and now rattling it off like it was nothing became more that I could handle and I got out of that office as quickly as I could. The rain smashing the windshield only matched the tears that poured out me. I cried the entire drive home and when I stepped in the house I saw my girls, playing and smiling and happy as could be, for they were where they were supposed to be and they were happy and I realized we are tough and even if life gets tough we have each other and that's what matters. We will survive this, life may be tough but us girls are tougher.

Why am I so tired, yet he seems to be thriving on this? I come out of these mediation sessions feeling like I fell off the roof and he seems to feed off of the fighting. He loves the back and forth, the power over the fact that I am desperate for some relief. I spent months carefully weighing what issues I thought were important, deciding whether or not certain stipulations were worth it, talking and researching and discussing all the details that others have found to be problems in their divorces and custody arrangements and worried endlessly that I would not do the right thing. I carefully drafted a lengthy document to my lawyer, knowing there would have to be some compromise but feeling like he and I were coming from the same place so most things were just to keep intact the way we had previously agreed to raise children. He didn't have any money to give me, what little the state deemed it takes to raise kids was already settled. He had moved our possessions back so he kept everything he wanted and anything of worth, I got my clothes and the girls toys, I thought he would be fair in divvying up the rest. But like a bully on the playground he cinched his fists around anything I asked for. He and the girls had given me a tent for Mothers Day, I thought it was too expensive of a gift so I had tried to return it but they wouldn't take it back so we kept it, I had taken the girls camping by myself before so I figured we would use it again. I told the girls we would set it up and have a backyard campout. Braleyn had seen the tent at his house and was excited for our adventure. When I asked to have it returned I was told he had left it in Kentucky. I asked for my recipe books, it was a few binders full of things I liked to make and a recipe box my mother had given me. I guess those didn't make it on the moving truck either. My tool box I had taken to college, filled it with old tools my dad had given me and an adorable little hammer that was a perfect fit for my hands. I guess it will collect dust in someone elses garage. I had fixed our garbage disposal in my first apartment in college with that box. It was the best feeling, thinking if I could fix that I could handle anything. It's a little pathetic to admit but a lot of that confident feeling seems to have been lost along with my hammer that I can't get back. But some people just like the fight. In whatever form they can get it. That carefully drafted paper, that caused me such heartache and agony to actually see on paper was argued and torn apart at every point. He wanted to have the freedom to listen to vulgar music, hit, spank, or lock the kids in the garage, and have male roommates in the same house our little girls would sleep in. Was there an alternative presented? No, the fun is in the fight, not in the solution. Tear it up, spit it out and wait for the next offering. The legal system seems to be a terrible place. There is only fear for me, no one comes out a winner, I am only praying that I come out alive. I am so tired but the fight can't be lost. I can't give in just because he is not willing to give at all. Our entire marriage was just him trying to wear me down. Most of the time it worked, because I am not a natural fighter. It wears me out, it shreds at my soul and it makes me think that this can't be what it is all about. But I am the lucky one because I do know better. I only have to carry this as far as I can, when that is not enough He will carry it the rest of the way. Now is where I find my faith to take the last step, to reach into the darkness because I know He has promised to be there. I will not be left alone, He will never be too tired. His fight will be there when I need it but I must show that I will follow Him. I hope I have some fight left.

"What? Are you mad at me or something?" I sat dumbfounded as I watched the streetlights blur through my tears. We had driven this road about a hundred times the past few days yet I couldn't have told you where we were at that moment. I sat numb in the passenger seat and listened to him smirk after he asked me that question. I couldn't even think through an answer. I had climbed into the van after leaving the NICU, where I had to leave my sick little girl for another lonely night without her. I was tired and had asked that he drive up to get me, I didn't feel up to walking through the parking garage that time. When I got in he greeted me happily and said, "Hey. I know you." I responded, "I am glad. The van right in front of you is the same kind and I almost climbed in with him." The all too familiar storm clouds crossed his face and I knew the mood had changed. He growled at me, "Well, maybe you should. It doesn't matter anyways, I know how to take care of you." I asked him what he was even talking about and he proceeded into something that still chills me today. "I know how to kill you, without anyone ever finding out." He then went on to describe how he would fill a bathtub with cyanide and told me in detail how it would start to burn, but by that time my skin would have melted to the tub so I would know what was happening and would not be able to do anything about it. He told me how it would feel as it burned through my skin and ate through my muscle. He said by that time I would probably be unconcious so he would just have to wait for it to entirely dissolve my body and then all he would have to do is pull up the drain and wash me away.
So the answer to his question was no, I was not mad. Mad was nowhere near the emotion that I was feeling. I cried because my body could do nothing else. And his response was, "It was just a joke." I'm still not laughing...