On Thursday Mary had another appointment with her new eye doctor. We love him. Abe feels very committed to Mary’s eyes and took time off of work to come to the appointment. I think he was happy to see us after being gone all week, so he took a bunch of pictures of each person, including himself:
On Wednesday I spent a lot of time outside with the kids. We got out the bubbles and all of the neighborhoods came to play. Clarissa was ADORABLE:
Robert, the next door neighbor who we sometimes have babysit for us, came over to show me his new iWatch. I asked him how he paid for it…and he told me that he paid for it with the money we gave him for babysitting!!! I about died. There is no way we have been that financially irresponsible!!! Then he followed up with that he also used a year’s worth of allowance. Phew.
But, ironically, we did have a babysitter come because Abe didn’t get in from his flight until 10 at night and I wanted to go to my friend, Kathryn Sonntag’s, poetry reading. She just published a book of poems on ecology, feminism, and Heavenly Mother. It is gorgeous. My friends Emily and Jill came too and we had a fun time at the reading. My phone was out of memory and didn’t get pictures.
Abe came home late at night and we had a little ceremony to represent stepping into the second half of his spiritual life. All of the changes in my faith have disrupted Abe’s as well, and so this was his idea so we could stay unified. It was beautiful.
On Tuesday Abe was gone and the little kids were still sick, so I didn’t go swimming in the morning. I got a babysitter and had a lovely evening swimming and enjoying the sunshine streaming into the pool. I also meditated in the sauna. I wish I remembered more about this day but am back blogging and just can’t.
But Abe took a photo of the water damage in our Chicago condo. This work trip was in Chicago, so he could go check on the condo and meet with our loveliest of renters, Shirlene. We love her and are going to miss her so much. This was probably the highlight of Abe’s day because he spent the majority of the day powering through a giant backlog of work since one of his meetings cancelled. It was really stressful, but Abe made a rule for his team that everyone not on the right of a certain quadrant would get fired, and without this day of work…Abe would have had to fire himself. So it’s a good thing he got this work in.
For lack of other visuals, here is the water damage in our Chicago condo:
On Monday I took Clarissa and Ammon to the Orem hospital so we could get Clarissa ex-rayed and tested for allergies. She has never drawn a clear breath in her life and we thought it was probably time to start figuring this out.
Amazingly, I ran into my neighbor Molly Spencer at the hospital. She and I chatted, and I told her that I had left the church and that Abe was really struggling (and had in fact had a legitimate nervous breakdown over the weekend). She was so helpful not only listening, but helping me understand how to support Abe better. She also took Ammon and fed him while I dealt with Clarissa–who was a perfect rock star for everything! When they drew her blood (lots of it, it seemed) she didn’t even flinch. She just stared at the needle in her arm and didn’t move a muscle. Then she was great for the ex-rays too.
Molly and I chatted a lot after all of the tests and I just felt so helped. Then Abe called me and told me that his session with his therapist was AMAZING and brought him out of the breakdown. I was so, so grateful to hear this. I felt that our family was blessed and supported all day long in all sorts of ways, but Molly and Abe’s therapist were the chief angels of the day.
Sunday was Mother’s Day. Honestly, we are thinking of abolishing this day in the Darais family. It is just not a great day for us. Last Mother’s Day was wonderful but honestly, there were really hard aspects to it too. I can’t remember how I blogged about it, but I probably didn’t mention the painful parts because they felt too personal. But there was pain last Mother’s Day for Abe and me, and this Mother’s Day was probably the worst one yet.
It started great though! I went to my meditation and came out feeling very peaceful and happy. Also, my FAVORITE part of the day was waking up to all the cards the girls made me. They were all so sweet and I felt so loved and full of love for my beautiful kids. I am so grateful to be their mom.
But it basically went downhill from there. Abe had a nervous breakdown because of my decision to leave the church. We spent the whole day talking through feelings. At one point I took this picture after Clarissa woke up from the nap. It’s sad but also sweet to see them together:
After I fell asleep for the night, Abe woke me up because he was feeling upset again. At that point, I was not very nice and stopped trying to be understanding. It was, um, not a great end to this Mother’s Day. I am pretty much over this holiday and don’t want to celebrate it again. Growing up I never liked Thanksgiving because my dad would always have some sort of a blow up (looking back I realize he was stressed), and now I really feel allergic to Mother’s Day. Can we just abolish it already?
On Lydia’s baptism day we slept in and were very harried right before. We forgot to bring a change of underwear for Lydia and Abe, so I hurried home to get those things and by the time I was back her baptism was supposed to be starting. We hadn’t done pictures, and it was just really stressful taking those while everyone was reverently sitting waiting for the program to start. This was my least favorite part of the day:
Here is Lydia’s Baptismal Program.
The actual baptism was very beautiful, and we all felt the Spirit strongly. I have a lot of concerns, but those went away as I felt the peaceful feeling of the Spirit as my mom and Suzanne gave talks, our neighbor sang, and friends showed up to support Lydia.
Lydia was very happy all day and felt very good about this choice. She is such a beautiful soul and it is a joy to celebrate her spiritual growth. I can see her thinking a lot these days, especially with all that has happened in our family recently. I feel confident that she made as active a choice as any 8 year old can make, and I admire her desire to follow Jesus in the best way she can tell how.
Afterward Morgan, Jessi, Henry, Vika, Tom, Suzanne, Andrea, and our family all went to Maria Bonita for molcajetes. I had not planned ahead and made the decision on the spot. Our house was a mess, I hadn’t cooked a thing, and molcajetes saved the day. (And we ate them for the rest of the week, because we ordered…five.)
On Friday we went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Lehi with Karin and Jay. We asked them to share with us their stories of leaving the church. I was so impressed with Jay’s courage and integrity. I feel like I have every kind of support imaginable and it is still so hard. I feel like I am crazy or damned pretty regularly. But I at least am exiting with 50% of my age group, and there are a LOT of people in my exact same situation. Jay went through this at a time in Utah when there was basically no support, so he just had to trust his own intuition, believe in himself and have the courage to follow his inner convictions. We have never discussed this before and I was just blown away.
It was also really interesting to hear Karin’s perspective and story. She mentioned a commercial the Church put out showing a family that was getting warm inside while a storm crashed outside their home, and the analogy was supposed to be how the church keeps families safe from a wicked outside world. She noted that she didn’t feel scared of the outside world and in fact thinks it’s a great place. She wanted to think for herself and do her own thing and didn’t feel like she needed protection from herself or from the world.
I am grateful that both she and Jay were so willing to share and offer so much support, sympathy and love. I think it was also important for Abe to hear his mother’s story and Jay’s story at this time in life. I think our own situation has given him a whole new perspective on it all.
I also shared my journey and how I’ve come to this impossible place where I want to be with my family and support my family–and also engage my community, which I adore–but seriously can no longer take the truth claims of the Church any longer. It seems like everyone who starts seriously researching church history either becomes nuanced in their testimony or just leaves the church.
I wish we had pictures but we were so busy talking that we literally talked until half an hour after the restaurant closed! We didn’t realize it was past 10pm until someone noted that everything was mopped and that there was no one there but employees. Oops! I guess we had a lot on our minds.
But Abe took this picture on his noon walk:
I don’t remember much from Thursday, but Abe got this picture:
I love Mary. Recently she was having a hard time so I tucked her in bed and told her she should read her love books that we gave her for Christmas. We got her a lot of books about love to help remind her that she is loved. The next morning she came into my room in the most affectionate, loving mood. When she gets full of happiness and love, she jumps up and down like a pogo stick and squeals. She did that in the morning. It was really sweet.
On Tuesday Mary woke up with a scratchy throat and did not feel well at all, so we let them have another TV marathon sick day. Again. But I did get a cute picture of Mary and Clarissa cuddling. Those two are so sweet together. Mary is the first name Clarissa said after “Mommy,” “Daddy,” and “Nana.” They are two peas in a pod.
On Monday I took the Ammon to get a haircut before taking the kids to the park.
