Wake up to the Reality

Things are difficult. I cry at times when I don't expect tears to come. Making potato soup yesterday, I was overwhelmed with worry about what Travis was eating, and in the next moment felt pathetic and small to care so much for someone who cared so little for me. He threatened divorce the other day with an ultimatum that I apologize for something that was irrational. He is free to make whatever choices he feels are necessary. But it hurts, and driving in the rain to get my kids from a birthday party I just let it all out. Between the tears and the rain, I am not sure how I made it to my destination.
It is a lonely road that I am on. People encourage you and love you and tell you you're brave, and what a great job that you're doing, but in the end you are the one that must wake up every morning to the reality of your situation. In general, the kids and I are very happy. There is a peace that has settled - this feeling that we're going to be alright and I am so thankful for that. But in the meantime there is still a lot of hurt, a lot of unresolved issues, and memories of terrible things that happened that I had long since buried deep inside myself that keep coming up like vomit. I have to deal with them, but to tell you the truth I really don't know how. These are ugly, awful things - and even though I was the victim and not the perpetrator, I feel hideous inside for the remembering. I can't really explain this fully - but yesterday morning when Porky (the pastor of our old church The Chapel) said "The One who knows you best, loves you the most" just overwhelmed me with emotion.
I am still trying to reconcile all of it. Abuse makes you feel filthy, dirty, worthless, small, powerless.... The touching - all the touching, and the anger, the things flying around in your head, and the names you're dodging, trying to hold your breath until you're allowed up for air, and hope it isn't too late. You try to rationalize that you aren't the things you are called but you were taught so long ago not to trust yourself because you are nothing. You become convinced that even God regrets having created you.
I am having a particularly hard day. There seems to be nobody in particular to share it with. For the most part, though I have some amazing friends, I feel like I have to keep a lid on all this intensity for their sake. I need them, and I don't want to scare them away. If I start to really allow myself to cry this out, I fear I may never stop. This song that I heard the other day keeps running through my brain...

....please don't fight these hands that are holding you.....
What isn't making things any easier right now is that I injured my back. I am hoping it is muscular strain from all the moving and unpacking, but I am literally waking up every couple of hours and finding that it hurts so badly I can barely roll over. Once I do get rolled over, I can't get comfortable, and then I'm awake very early. Just what I needed.

Who Would Choose This?

There has been this feeling over the last couple of days that the bottom had dropped out. Everything that was familiar has become foreign, strange. The world looks different as I figure out how to make just Julie out of "Julie and Travis". But now it seems a strange and eerie peace has settled that is a huge relief, and terrifying.
It all hurts, and confuses and muddles. At work I see elderly couples shop together, moving seamlessly as if they were one. Communicating without words. I wanted that for us, the golden years. Then there are the young couples, and I remember us, a newborn between us in that early morning light when all the edges are blurred and all the sounds are softened.
I don't know how to separate it. When my parents got divorced, all the memories of us as a family seemed to have to die with their new relationships. The ones that managed to survive were the bad ones. How do I preserve the dignity of our lives for the last 21 years and not let anyone else define it based on their limited knowledge? Yes, the bad has overwhelmed the good - but there is still good there to find. I want those memories - they are mine.
Yesterday a friend eloquently explained marriage to me in a way she heard it when going through her own painful divorce - and it was so very helpful. (Thank you Becky) A marriage is like a child. It needs physical and emotional care. If you had a child that was sick, you would do everything you could to take care of it and nourish it back to health. On the other hand, if the child were to die, you would not hold onto it and keep it with you. You would bury it and mourn the loss and day by day learn to live without it again.
This is so hard. It is so painful. It isn't what I ever wanted. Who would ever choose this?

Trying to Remember

When I look back on the best memories of my life, they were all without him. Outings with friends. Trips. Vacations. Walks on the beach. Laughing with my children uninhibited by someone's criticism. I've waited for the better life together, the time when he calms enough to enjoy life with me, laugh with me, love with me. I moved across the country in the hopes that he would be happy, but the cold hard fact is that he never will be. We'll never have the jacuzzi on the rooftop, romantic vacations, frolicking together with our grandchildren. All the dreams are dying. But I'm trying to remember that every moment together was one in which I had to manage him, make sure he wasn't uncomfortable, unhappy, unsettled. It was always too much work. I made my life without him. I am trying to remember why this needs to happen. I've been married alone. Not much is changing for me except the tremendous relief of not having to always make sure he is okay. I need to concentrate for a change on making sure I'm okay. What I want more than anything right now is to have a mom - someone to show up and help make sure my kids have food, the floors are swept and life is manageable for me. I want someone who I can put my ugliest crying face on in front of, who will wrap me in their arms with no pretense and let me cry my eyes out.
It is all frightening - like being on the edge of a cliff and having others tell you that they know there are arms that will catch you. But YOU know that the free fall you do on your way down, starting with that first step off the edge must be done alone. I keep hearing the words of Elisabeth Eliot, who used to start her radio show with “…..you are loved with an everlasting love, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
I can go on. I will step off this cliff. I have been on my own for so long anyway. I just need to continue to remember.

Real LOL

In case you don't know what Flair is - it is a little button with quotes, pictures, icons from your favorite movie or band, kind of like the ones I used to wear covering my denim jacket in high school and they are part of an application on Facebook. Today I saw one that said "Fact: 90% of people who type LOL are not in fact, laughing out loud." How true is that?
I told my friend Tina not long ago that I wanted to hear and share real laughter - not just read LOL referring to the predominance of my cyber-life. This week I have spent quite a bit of time laughing with my family. We have told jokes, kicked back, laughed about old times and made some terrifically awesome new memories. I wish I had more time in West Virginia to stay with my friends - but I am so unbelievably grateful that I have had this chance to get to know my family and be crazy about them all over again! We played Apples to Apples tonight - and in the middle of all the laughing we are creating inside jokes that we'll tell for years to come, pick on each other, and roll on the floor laughing together. I don't think about the "c" word, biopsies, financial strains or anything else. All my burdens are lifted in the fun and companionship of their love.

Holiday Ebook Project

I am working on another project! I am working on another ebook and I need your help. I am making a "Family Holiday Favorites" ebook with favorite recipes, craft ideas, memory makers, thrifty tips, etc. I am going to give away the finished product to five of you who contribute to this book. Please send me recipes for your favorite holiday meals, cookies, candy, pies, etc., fun things to do to celebrate the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or Hanukkah and New Years), thrifty ways to make your holiday dollars stretch without skimping on the fun and festivities, etc.
Please send these ideas to me via email at julientexasATsbcglobalDOTnet. Be sure to include your name, city & state and country if you're outside the US.
Please help me get the word out!
Email me if you would like the button or banner that will link back to my blog. It is the first one I've ever made - I did it myself! Woo hoo!

Scrap Happy - My Thoughts of You

I made this scrapbook page in memory of my father-in-law who went to be with Jesus in July of last year. I woke up this morning thinking of him, and had these exact thoughts on my mind. The hutch is because he loved woodworking and in the last year of his life he refinished a hutch just like this one that was his mother's, the cross because he was a Christian - and the son of a Congregational Methodist minister, and the quote because he was an avid gardener and loved to nurture and grow plants and trees of all kinds. BTW - just in case you didn't know - you can click on the image to make it larger so you can actually read the journaling.

The Forsythe Family Moves to Texas

It hasn't been that long ago that we let our family and friends know that our family was about to begin writing a new chapter in our lives. This new chapter would be one of goodbyes, at least for now, and a move from everything familiar to a violent shaking out of all comfort zones, safety nets, and security blankets.

There has been much excitement involved, as even the kids can see as we explain the wonderful advantages available to us as a family by moving to Texas. The greatest advantage will be no doubt that we will have family. My children have a great-grandmother, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins they barely know. It is important in a culture that no longer values family to show our children that family is a priority.

It is awesome to think on it and know that the Lord knew how this adventure in our lives would unfold when He set us here in this, our "little house in the big woods" seven years ago, and what a financial advantage having this house would be to our family. It is difficult to put a price on something that has so much value to you personally. This has not just been a house, it has been our home. We have been sick here, cried for one another, prayed together, worshipped, snuggled together on wintry nights eating popcorn and watching a movie, sat around the kitchen table and listened as Kullen read for the first time - Kendra learned the value of X in Algebra and Kaitlyn learned cursive. Kullen took his first steps here, Kaitlyn sat in the living room as I taught her to knit, and Kendra cried over Terri Schiavo and was inspired to write a poem in her memory. We've had more children here than you would think these walls could ever hold - and have learned through it that beautiful memories can be made in small houses as well as large ones. Our bedroom is a place where children have cuddled up for a bedtime story, come crying in the night when they were sick, or came just to snuggle with mommy and daddy because it seemed like the safest place in the world. It all seems so strange now to see it painted plain, with pictures off the walls, and things packed somewhat away, and have strangers now stand judging the place where you have lived and loved.

I wanted to share this chronicle with those of you who are interested. I know when we bought this house, there was a story to be told, but sadly because I didn't write it down, much was forgotten. I wanted to preserve some of the experiences we are having as we go, and I hope that you will be able to keep up with what's going on with us as well.

I am a very open person, and I find writing very therapeutic. It has been a coping mechanism most of my life. I hope that nothing I write will be too personal for any of you. I will write only what I care to share. It will help me work through this time in my life, as well as let our friends know how to pray for us, and be a record of happenings.

Much love and thanks for reading -
Julie