Author: lilydarais

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.

On Sunday morning Abe and my mom took the kids to stake conference and I went to a meditation at the local yoga studio. I had the most beautiful experience and left feeling peaceful and deeply centered.

In the evening we went to the park we discovered Saturday and ate dinner there. Right when we were about to start, Clarissa fell off the bench face first onto the hard concrete. I screamed, “SHIT!” in horror, and as soon as we figured out Clarissa was fine (not even a scratch, it seemed), both Lydia and Mary wanted to know what “shit” meant. I had to explain, then Abe tried to explain, and then I tried to explain again. Finally I just concluded by telling them never to say this at school otherwise they would get in trouble. Can we all say ” Mom-fail” now???? And also the effects of morning meditation were obviously no longer in play by the evening. Eep.

Then I spent the rest of the time there chasing Clarissa and Ammon all around while Abe attempted to do Come Follow Me with the girls, both of whom wanted to play too. Finally it started to rain and we packed up and went home. It wasn’t quite the same level of magic as Saturday morning, but it was still great to be outside in such a nice setting.

Abe and I both felt sad that we were apart today during church, and so we ended up talking for hours in the evening after the kids went to bed. Talking always helps us get to a point where we can understand why we each feel pain, and it gives us a chance to love and affirm each other in our weakness.

 

On Saturday Lynn Eyestone stopped by to chat with me while we got the kids ready for the day. It was really delightful talking with her.

Then Abe went on a long run with the three younger kids to the park several miles away.

I took Lydia to her harp competition at BYU. She did great and got a silver star. Ok, the tiger mom in me was a little disappointed because I knew if I had been more focused on practice recently, she could have done better and earned a gold star. But the new Nothing-Matters-Besides-God-Is-Love mom in me knows that honestly, what we are going for here is a focused way to nurture my child, and achievement is basically beside the point. So we celebrated by getting Lydia a little harp pin which she proudly wore for the rest of the day, picked up smoothies, and joined everyone else in the park.

We had the most beautiful time at the park. Abe had already been there for an hour with the kids. We have been to this park before, but we never really explored it fully until Saturday. We found a whole other area with this amazing four person swing that was just delightful, not to mention picnic tables under wisteria-laden gazebos. I told Abe that we need to start packing up dinner and eating it in this park. It was so gorgeous.

Clarissa did not want to get off of this swing. It is a four person swing, and if one person swings everyone moves. So Abe would swing and the other three kids would automatically start swinging too. Abe said that after an hour Clarissa was getting really sleepy. Every time he tried to take her off she would scream, but then she would sit there in a daze, start snoozing and fall off. It was close to the ground so not a dangerous fall at all, and Abe, who enjoys slapstick, thought this was hilarious.

Then we came home for naps, after which we all went to pick up Mary from a birthday party and did a bunch of errands. In the evening Abe and my mom went to stake conference while I stayed home and read my book on yoga spirituality. I felt electrified by my book, my open window, and the peace of the evening. Abe and my mom also really enjoyed the conference. Abe recorded my neighbor Emily’s talk so I could listen to it. It was AMAZING. She shared her thoughts on how the sacrament starts off as a whole loaf of bread which is broken in pieces for each of us. So we all have a piece of the body of Christ, and in order to be Zion we need to be unified with each other and make the loaf whole again through our unity. She said the atonement has a vertical effect (connecting us to God) and a horizontal effect (connecting us to each other). Emily is such a deep soul and I loved this insight about connection a lot.

Then Abe and I spent the rest of the evening reading until midnight, at which point we could not keep our eyes open any longer.

On Friday Abe and I went to cross fit again, and at the end we did a two minute sprint on this type of bike where you use both your arms and your legs. I forget what it’s called, but oh my gosh, both of us were DYING by the end. I honestly wondered if I was going to have a heart attack, and both of us spent the rest of the evening coughing because the passage between our heart and our mouths (the esophagus?) felt burnt up by two minutes of non- stop, super intense gasping.

Then we came home, got the kids ready for bed, and called the babysitter to come back because they were so hyper that bedtime clearly was not going to work. Robert came back and took care of the kids while we went to go see the last Avengers movie. It was AMAZING. But I spent most of my time with my eyes closed, plugging my ears, and trying to climb into Abe’s lap to hide from the screen. So even though I caught the gist of the movie, I think at some point I will have to, er, rewatch it.

Then we came home, I gave my mom a foot massage and told her about the movie. I couldn’t believe how late it was. That movie is long!

One thing that has been really hard for Abe is the idea that my decision about church means that we are going to grow apart. We have talked a LOT this week about practical steps we can take to make sure this does not happen. Up until now, we both feel that our marriage has felt honestly magical. Of course we have hard moments, but for the most part our flow has been really easy and joyful, and we have felt extremely unified. Abe is scared that because I am leaving the church, this unity will disappear.

So some practical steps we are taking to make sure that our marriage is always our top priority are: We are going to start couple’s counseling from therapists that specialize in faith transition and interfaith marriage. I am going to read along daily with Abe’s scripture study schedule, and he is going to read my spiritual books and devotionals too. We are going to make sure we spend a lot of time just focusing on each other and also having fun together. And most importantly, we are going to talk, talk, talk with each other whenever one of us is feeling sad or scared or like our needs aren’t being met. This is our current plan, and right now it feels like it is working. Even though we are both still dealing with all sorts of our own personal fears, we feel extremely in love and connected right now.

For me right now, God Is Love. And the greatest love in my life is Abe, so Abe and God are all jumbled up together. No faith journey is worth damage to my marriage, but I also think that I need to be spiritually and emotionally healthy to be my best self in the marriage. So we’re trying to figure all of this out right now.