my life {part two}

In honor of my thirtieth birthday, which is in five short days, 

I am writing the (somewhat) condensed version of my life story, broken into decades.  

{Part One: birth-ten years; Part Two: ten-twenty years; Part Three: twenty-thirty years}

While writing this portion of my life, I found myself wishing I had broken it up more.  The amount of life changes you go through from ten years of age to twenty years of age is insane.  You go from elementary school to junior high to high school to college.  You go from living with your parents to living on your own.  You go from making almost none of your own life decisions to being expected to make all your own life decisions.  When I was ten I shared a room with my sister, and didn't even grocery shop on my own.  By twenty I was in college and engaged to be married!

But this is how I chose to tell the story, so hang in there. This is gonna be a long one!

Writing has always been a passion of mine, and I have been journaling for years. I attribute my love of journaling to my need to remember EVERYTHING.  When we moved out of my childhood home after living there for ten years, I was completely heartbroken.  I remember walking through the house before the move, attempting to make sure my feet had touched literally every square inch of the house.  Once we moved, I would lay in bed in my new bedroom trying desperately to remember what we kept in the hall closet; the medicine chest to the left of the sink; and the dresser in the hallway outside my old bedroom.

My first official journal is from when I was twelve years old.  It is all about my first boyfriend, Chuck  Baker. I thought I would marry Chuck Baker, whose initials graced my 64 pack of Crayola crayons with the sharpener in the back.  Despite his bowl cut, Pog Slammer champion status and apparent love for me (he was big on note writing, much to my delight) we were not meant to be.  We broke up after “going out” for most of sixth grade because he “cheated” on me with some girl named Jenny Ackerman who went to his church. I was devastated. Until Josh Bielas came along, gave me my first kiss and renewed my enthusiasm for boys.  But more on that later.

In addition to avid journal writing, I also wrote short stories, and when I was 14 completed my first novel, The Sun Will Shine is about an actress whose life held nothing but tragedy .  It is 430 pages, handwritten on notebook paper and kept in a black, three inch 3-ring binder.  This novel was followed years later by Green Eyes & Long Blonde Hair, which is still a work in progress. The main character in that novel, based roughly on myself, gave birth, ironically, to identical twin boys with blue eyes and blond hair.  I began that novel, of course, before these events had occurred in my actual life, and I find it interesting that what I wrote came true.

The twins in that book are based on a set of identical twin boy campers I met as a camp counselor my sophomore year.  Their names were Atom and Andy, and I adored them.  They were maybe nine years old to my sixteen, and were so hilarious! I loved quizzing them about their twinship and spending time with them. When our week at camp was over, I grieved our unlikely friendship, and prayed that God would bless me with nothing but boys when the time came for me to be a mother. 

Aside from writing in junior high school, I was a cheerleader, a member of the choir, and in honor society.  I was what you would call preppy, and had a wonderful group of friends I adored.  Jayme, Maggie, Sara, Chelsea, Allie, Julie, Cara and Sarah.  Those girls saw me through some big changes especially once we all hit high school.

My best friend in junior high was, hands down, Sarah Peterson.  We were the kind of friends who shared makeup, played with each others’ hair and had more inside jokes than we could count.  We spent our summers together, camping with her parents on the Snake River and attending church camp together.  Sarah was the kind of friend you always want on your side.  Sarah was also really cool, something I have never been, and always admired in her.       

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Naturally junior high held its share of heartbreak, which for me mostly consisted of unrequited love.  I would watch My Best Friends’ Wedding, imagining I was Julia Roberts, chasing my love as he ran toward another girl.  Two noteworthy crushes? Wade Nelson, whom I adored for most of eighth grade and another boy who prefers he not be named, whom I loved off and on for years.  I was sure we were meant to be together forever. (A recurring theme for me and any boy I was interested in.)  Neither the Nameless Wonder nor Wade was interested, which served to shatter my heart into a million tiny pieces, and give credence to the many love poems I wrote during this time of my life. 
sigh.

This was a time of learning. About boys. About friendship.  And about life.

Motherhood, I knew at a young age was both a blessing, and also the hardest job that existed.  I was in the seventh grade when I learned that bearing a child was not always a given.  My homeroom teacher, Mrs. Niess, could not get pregnant despite desperate attempts to do so.  I understood then that no matter how you become a mother, your heart grows a new space, just the size of the baby you are given.  I remember how I felt when I found out that Mrs. Niess was finally getting a baby; a beautifully exotic baby girl affectionately called Poo from India.  I baby-sat for her a handful of times, and when I entered that baby’s nursery, I could feel down to my toes how badly she had been wanted.  Not a single detail had escaped them.  Soft ivory carpet, matching quilt and curtains, more stuffed animals than an entire house full of children could need…  Mrs. Niess had everything, but the baby.

Once I discovered you could want a baby, but not have one, my number one fear became infertility.  I spent a majority of my teenage years believing that I, too, would be plagued with it.  Particularly because of the hernia surgery I had had as a six year old.           

Around this same time, I joined our church’s youth group, getting more involved.   I spent one Spring Break on a mission trip to a reservation in New Mexico, which, interestingly, very closely resembled the life I live here in Alaska.  I was part of Vacation Bible School every summer; worked hard on outreach at school, inviting friends to join me at church; spent Sundays listening to sermons on how I could better myself for the glory of God and spent my summers away at church camp, both as a camper and as a counselor, repenting of my sins and singing, “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”.  I was your stereotypical “Good Girl”. Never drinking, trying weed or even touching a cigarette to my lips.

I grew very close to my core youth group friends as well as our youth group leader.  I was also involved in a bible study group with three other girls my age.  We met once a week with our leader, Nancy, studying the bible, praying together, and crunching Life Savers mints in the bathroom in the dark to see the sparks reflected in the mirror.  My quest in life was to learn more about God and the bible, and to find a suitable husband, for whom I would save myself until our wedding night.  They were big goals, but I was certain I would be successful on all counts.

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I had my first French kiss on my way to the bus in ninth grade one autumn afternoon.  I felt I botched the whole thing and mumbled, “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” under my breath the entire way to bus #82, my heart pounding in my throat, wishing it had been more like the movies, and less like it was.  That boy also ended up being the first boyfriend to break up with me because of my abstinence vow.  It had come up during a late night telephone conversation where I had casually mentioned my plan to save myself for my future husband.  The next day he broke up with me.  I felt duped. 

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I began babysitting in earnest during this time, taking as many jobs as I could land to save money up to pay for camps in the summer and my office supply obsession. Paper, pens, journals… 
ahhh. 
Some things never change!

The summer I was fifteen, I had a tonsillectomy.  Let me tell you, it was painful and horrible, but a fantastic way to drop fifteen pounds quick!  I was the thinnest I may have ever been when I started my sophomore year at Mountain View. And I was excited to add another real surgery to my list.

When I was sixteen I became an aunt.  My nephew, Isaiah Jay, was born to my brother Dalton, 19 and his girlfriend Tiffany, 18, three years after a prior pregnancy ended devastatingly in a miscarriage on Easter Sunday.  This time around, Dalton & Tiffany were a bit older, and Isaiah was viewed as a blessing, despite the circumstances.  He was the most beautiful baby. I used to tell Tiffany I wanted her to have my babies for me so they would come out with her creamy cocoa colored skin and brown almond eyes.  We all fell instantly in love with this little baby, my first (of many) nephews.

It was around that time I went to my first high school dance.  Tommy, a boy I had grown up riding the school bus with, invited me as his date.  We ended up dating beyond the dance, and oh, how I fell for Tom.  I’m not sure what it was.  He was funny, but mostly I think I was attracted to him because he seemed so grown up.  He was a year older, and so much wiser about the world.  He drove me home most afternoons after school, and the last time he drove me home, his best friend, a girl (much to my dismay) came with. As if that weren't bad enough, he gave her shotgun. So there I was, sitting in the backseat, feeling like a third wheel with my own boyfriend, thinking at least that once he dropped her off, we would be able to be together, only to find that he was dropping me off first.  He walked me to the door, and said it was over.  I literally closed the front door with him standing there, and went to cry my eyes out in my sister and I’s Pepto-Bismal-Pink bedroom.

There were, unfortunately, more crushes, more jerk boyfriends, and one foreign exchange student before I finally found the one.  The foreign exchange student is perhaps the most noteworthy, as my feelings for him most closely resemble what I know now is love. Masaya Asano. Masaya Dillon Asano. (I made up a middle name for him when we were dating.)  He was a Japanese exchange student of a friend from church.  We met at a youth group pool party, and he asked why we sang to our God.  He intrigued me, and his belief that I was exotic and beautiful melted me.  We wrote letters back and forth for a year, and when he came for his second summer, we began dating.  I drove him around on dates in my red 1970 Volvo Station Wagon.  I imagined our sweet Japanese babies, Bay and Akiko (aside from envisioning a future in which I was married to whoever I was dating, I also had lists of baby names that would fit the offspring that said marriage would create)  and the future we had spread before us.  But before the summer ended, I knew we couldn't stay together.  He would go home in August, and even if he was able to come again the following summer, nine months apart was just too much to bear.  Breaking up broke our hearts, and we both cried. 

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My best friend in high school was Brittany Taylor.  I honestly don’t even remember how we really became friends, but once we did, we were inseparable.  We would have sleepovers, call each other crying, go out driving in her big purple Bronco.  We were the best of friends, sharing lotion, jewelry and secrets.  I adored her.  Unfortunately, I wasn't always the best friend to her.  I was callous when her long time boyfriend left for his mission just as I had begun getting serious about Josh; and when my church called Mormon beliefs into question, informing us that they were headed for hell, I called her to tell her as much.  Those are two things I really, really regret.  I hope I was a good friend aside from those two acts of selfishness because she deserved a good friend.

I can’t write about high school without mentioning Charbonneau Dylan Gourde.  He was my favorite teacher, hands down, and not just because he was a super buff hottie.  We had a substitute in his class once, and we decided, as a class, to trick her.  There were random bells that would ring for other grades, signaling the beginning and end of their lunches.  We all decided that when that first bell rang, we would get up and leave.  And we did just that, buying ourselves an extra long lunch.  I regretted that decision very much the following day when Mr. Gourde was back.  I wrote him an apology, leaving the note on his desk. I hated most of all that I had let him down.  He wrote me a sticky note back, surprising me, and it said this, “Thanks for the apology. Don’t be a sheep.” –CDG  I felt so humbled.  He let me off so easy, and yet, his message resonated within me.  It was exactly the message I needed to hear.  These same sentiments were echoed again when he signed my yearbook at graduation.  I think about him and his message often.  I would love to tell him thank you. 

Doesn't it feel like everyone in this time of your life is important. Worth mentioning. Worth remembering? How can I write about junior high and not mention Dylan Rainey whom I worshiped in junior high concert choir? Or Shaina Paige who was such a sparkly ray of sunshine? How can I write about science class without mentioning the pages-long, handwritten notes Ryan Lowe and I exchanged in friendship? Oh how I loved his beautiful penmanship, the secrets he revealed and the way he smiled.  How can I mention this time in my life and forget how Johnny Nichols sang “I’ll Be” to me while strumming his guitar outside the seminary building on my sixteenth birthday? 

The memories are too much. Too numerous to possibly, in one blog post, all be captured, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try, haven’t tried.  I am considering, because of the enormity of recapturing my past and sharing it here, choosing one day a week to relay a story or anecdote from my history.  In this way, I will be able to eventually encompass everyone in the telling of my life’s journey.

There are some details that, luckily, won’t be relegated to future posts…

It was a warm day in March and I had dressed up for school. It was my junior year and I had turned seventeen the November prior.  I was just leaving American Sign Language (ASL) class when the teacher’s aide, a cute blond boy, whom I was fairly sure was Mormon, signed, “You look pretty today.” Only I, being a novice at the language, didn't know what he had said.  He repeated himself again, and finally a third time before an interpreter, who happened to be standing in the distance between us relayed to me with her voice, “He said you look pretty.” I blushed immensely, as did Josh, and set off for my next class. 

The rest, as they say, is history.

We went on our first official date over spring break, seeing a movie.  During said movie Josh held my hand, and never let go.  We were in the parking lot after the movie and I teased that he hadn't let go. He said, “I still can’t believe you let me hold it. I’m not letting go now!”  And let go, he did not. We ended up going to prom together and by the end of May we had said our first “I love you’s”. 

Throughout all of this, our meeting, our dating, our falling in love, my church was against it. It was preached that we (“Christians”) were not supposed to even be close friends with Mormons, let alone date them.  And so I received quite a bit of flack for dating Josh.  After our first few dates, before we became an official couple, I spent a day at the beach with my family.  The timing was perfect as I was trying to figure out just what I was going to do about the predicament I found myself in.  So I spent that sunny spring day sitting on a piece of drift wood at my favorite beach, watching the tide come in and out, contemplating what future I wanted.  (Very cliche, I know, but true nonetheless.)  I prayed, with an open and honest heart for God to reveal his plan to me.  The answer was clear.  I was meant to be with Josh.  He was the one.  Once I had the all clear from Him, I had to deal with everyone else.  My parents were easy, they liked Josh and completely trusted my judgment. My grandparents were also easy.  Grandpa told me that he didn't like the religious animosity that was being preached to me, and Grandma felt that if I had prayed and God had answered, that was good enough.

The church, however… Well, the church was a different story.  Recounting this part of my journey is difficult. Perhaps this is why I kept walking away from the computer yesterday and today. I knew that in writing each piece from my past, I was doing nothing but stepping closer to the most painful event of my young life.  The church and I tried, I will give us that.  I kept attending, being involved, but slowly, things changed.  I was turned away when I volunteered for some things.  Things I had done for years.  I was no longer called to baby-sit for families I had grown up watching.  It was a slow kind of heartbreak.  I didn't want to leave, but I knew I couldn't stay.  Josh had become a very important part of my life.  I managed to continue attending until fall 2001, just after my senior year had ended.  At that point we had been together a year and half, and I knew he wasn't going anywhere.  I had tried, on several occasions, to bring him to the church, to involve him there, where I had grown, and loved, and learned about the Lord.  But somehow it always ended disastrously.  He didn't feel welcome there.  Honestly, by that point, neither did I.

My mom decided to take things into her own hands.  She couldn't believe some of the things they had been teaching us, and decided to confirm with the pastor that this was our church’s stance on Mormons, whom my mom had always admired as moral, upstanding, family-oriented people.  I begged her not to go.  
She talked to the pastor and said, “But Shelly prayed. And God told her yes.”  
His response? “Well, that may be.  But we told her no.” 

I had some serious soul searching to do.  Were they right? Was it wrong for me to date Josh? Was I only hearing what I wanted to hear? But no. I knew that couldn't be. 

My church was not the only resistance we faced.  His family didn't want us together either.  His mother grounded him for a sum total of three months when we first started dating, and she would call occasionally, attempting to break us up.  She would ask if I had a problem with Josh being Mormon.  I assured her that was not the case.  And that I had, in fact, left my church (my heart, my family) for him.  My devotion was nothing if not pure. I knew instantly, the first time he held my hand, that this was something else. Something different. Something bigger.  Something worth fighting for.  (Not to jump ahead, but the song we danced to at our wedding was, appropriately, (Everything I do) I Do It For You by Bryan Adams.)

Somehow, despite the drama around our decision to be together, we have good memories of high school and that sweet beginning time together.  We attended two proms, one homecoming, and multiple other, less notable dances.  We volunteered together through our ASL class at the Washington State School for the Deaf, enjoying the opportunity to go off campus twice a week, riding together in his mom’s navy blue Suburban, holding hands and trying to impress each other. (Me by memorizing the names and birthdays of his siblings (there are seven!); him by showing me how the windshield wiper fluid sprayed the car in front of us instead of the Suburban’s own windshield. A trick, he confided, that he did not share with just anyone.)

I loved talking to him on the phone. I loved hugging him.  I loved holding his hand.  I loved everything about him. And who I could be with him. 

I can’t write about Josh and I meeting in high school without writing about the time my mom completely mortified me in front of Josh after my school choir concert.  Josh had ridden his bike to the school to hear us perform.  Josh was alternative, as opposed to preppy.  He rode a BMX bike, hated roughly 90% of our high school population, and going to school for an after school activity was not in his repertoire.  I was elated that he came.  So, I excitedly met my parents and Josh after our performance. Josh, who loved Beastie Boys and similar bands, was wearing a Rage Against the Machine shirt, and my mom asked him, “Rage against what machine, Josh? Like the lawnmower?”  She was trying to be funny, but it fell flat, and I was, for perhaps the first and only time in my life, completely embarrassed of her.  Now it’s a family joke, and we all get a good giggle remembering it. 

By the time I reached adulthood many ideals, morals and values had been placed in my head by various sources.  I eventually had to rethink a lot of those, but two things I got from my mom and one thing I got from my dad have never been put into question.  I grew up watching my mom read.  I remember trying to read her books when I was young, and I felt so confused. I couldn't follow the alternating story lines and needed pictures of the characters to keep track of who was who.  I credit her example with my insatiable love of good books.  I also grew up with parents who voted and a mother who said, “If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch.”  As soon as I turned 18, I registered to vote and have since taken my responsibility as a citizen very seriously.   I grew up watching my dad (who also read and voted) enjoy nature.  Dad was always trying to find a way to enjoy the outdoors, be it hiking, biking, walks, or camping, he is most at ease when enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. (Or, as is usually the case in the Northwest, the liquid sunshine!)  I credit him with my love of sunsets, landscapes and hiking.

But the biggest life lesson from this decade relates back to what Mr. Gourde so wisely said.  I should not have been a sheep.  Oh what a sheep I was.  Blindly following, even after my heart began to whisper that it felt wrong. Religion, I decided ultimately, should not define you.  Rules someone else made about life and how it should be lived, should not control you.  You can exercise free will & independent thought and still believe in God.  You can be a believer without being a member.  
As painful as leaving the church was, I wouldn't take it back.  I can only say this after months of therapy discussing what happened and how it changed me.  And in the end, after revisiting that time in my life and seeing how I grew, I determined that I would do it all again. I can honestly say that if given the chance, I would join the church again, I would fall in love with Josh again and I would again endure the heartbreak of every person I knew turning their back on me as I struggled to understand how a church I had grown up loving was preaching hate.  
For him, for us, for this, the life we lead together, I would endure it.
I did endure it.

After graduating from high school, I began the next chapter of my life: college. I chose to attend our local community college, Clark, and get my associates degree in general studies while taking advantage of living at home with my parents.  At nineteen, during summer break, Josh proposed to me while we were on a road trip to Canada.  His words to me, from on bended knee, were, “There will be good times and there will be bad times, but the good will always outweigh the bad.”  Once we were engaged, a lot of people my age asked me “ Wasn't I scared?” and the truth is, I wasn't   I knew he was my soul mate.  Despite the rocky road and the heartbreak of leaving my church, I was certain Josh was the one.  
Of that I never had any doubt.