For some reason today I was not looking forward to going to church, and I was out of excuses to skip, or skip out after sacrament meeting. (Mostly I was not looking forward to Sunday School, I enjoy Sacrament meeting and Relief Society, but Sunday School...? Yuck.)
We arrived a few minutes early and I got the kids settled and ready for Sacrament meeting. As I looked around I noticed two new families that had recently moved into the ward. Both families have children my age, so it will be imperative at some point I introduce myself. (I don't live in one of those wards with a zillion children, so any new children in the ward are a BIG deal.) I watched these families, a mother,a father, and their children, with both parents working together to take care of the kids. I was jealous. I sat alone, with my kids, struggling to control the five and two year old as they demanded my attention, new toys and fruit snacks.
Those families had what I wanted, a marriage, an in tacked family, a supportive partner. In a church where the focus is a nuclear family, I am the odd man out. I don't have what is idealized. I don't have what I was told to strive for in Young Womens. I don't have what everyone expects you to have, and questions when you don't. I felt like a failure.....
At the conclusion of Sacrament meeting I went to chat with one of my good friends. She is one of the few people in my ward that has full disclosure of my situation. She was emotionally struggling through Sacrament meeting, but for much different reasons. Her husband had been in Texas since Wednesday supposedly for business, but it was really to see the BYU game. He had taken his business partner, and had not communicated with her the entire time he was gone. She too was feeling alone, and much like a failure in her marriage, because he had elected to take his business partner over her, when the original plan was to take her. We cried together for a moment, and it left me realizing that we have to live in the moment, because the grass is not greener on the other side, its just different grass.
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Different grass, so true. You, however are NOT a failure. You are there doing what you should be doing, doing your best. Some day, those sweet little ones will honor you for your service on their behalf.
I was just reminded today that you never know what is going on behind closed doors. A marriage that I thought was great, I found out this morning, is ending in divorce--totally out of the blue for me, but obviously stuff has been going on that I was unaware of for a really long time. There could be a lot of baggage in these new families' lives that you're not aware of, so it really does no good to envy them...I guess you can envy the appearance of an intact family, but you never know if that's truly the case. Though in my experience, envying other people only makes me more depressed, so I try to count and remember all the really great things I have in life. That, I think, is a more healthy way to live.
When we are in the moment, it can be so hard. It is also difficult to remember that these tough times can open the door for us to eventually have something better, or to realize we already do.
For example, all of our drama with the Bishop this week has made me more aware of how many friends we have, how deep the friendships really are, and the good that we really have done. I honestly cannot trade any of that for a ticket to attend the temple. I hope I am able to renew my recommend with the Stake President, but at the moment I am at peace with the fact that I can find peace and follow God's plan for me without temple attendance.
But in that moment last Sunday, I thought life was over.
Hang in there.
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