Counting Down

Tis the season for counting down. We've got a count down until Christmas, a count down until the new year, and a count down until the season premier of LOST (34 days).

Though I am excited about LOST, season 5, I am most excited to end this year. To explain why I am so excited, I would like to being my story at the beginning....meeting Ryan. Even though we lived across the parking lot from one another in 1997; we never met. Even though I had been to his apartment that year, and met his roommates; we never met.

When Ryan and I did meet we were undoubtedly different people than we are now. When we met Ryan as attending BYU-Idaho and studying accounting. When we meet I was dreading graduating from college because I didn't know if I should pursue law school, grad school or an internship in Washington D.C. A couple months before we met I had a visa to Taiwan to teach English. I didn't really want to go by myself and begged my sister go with me. Then she started dating Trent. When I met Trent, I knew Taiwan was a bad idea. I knew Valerie would marry him. So, we let the opportunity go. I had NO idea, however, I would get married in the time between Valerie meeting Trent and Valerie marrying Trent.

See, I was in love with a man who was steadily dating someone else. Though this individual and I were best friends (which he would have readily confessed), I dated others too. One of those others was Ryan's cousin, Brian. When Brian asked me to go with him to his cousin's missionary homecoming, we had already broke up a couple of times. I woke up that morning thinking of EVERY excuse possible not to go.

Brian and I had spent a lot of time together. We had traveled together. We talked about marriage. Yet, something didn't jive and my heart was occupied with another man anyway. All these reasons "not to go" ran through my mind. Why in the world was I continuing this relationship anyway? Then I decided I needed to stop "running" from men and try being consistent with my word for once. So, I was ready for the drive to Salt Lake with Brain's parents, Brain, and Kami, Ryan's younger sister, arrived at my apartment.

Brian's parents quizzed me a lot on our way to Riverton (wherever that was). My memories of their questions are about my spending and savings practices. When we arrived in Riverton (which I learned was at the south end of the Salt Lake City), something seemed familiar, a little too familiar. I was an arrogant young woman. I knew I was new among this group of people and chose to "play to the crowd." I love strangers. It was a great opportunity for a show of charisma and intellect.

Brian was introducing me to Trisa and Jared Harris, the sister of the cousin who had come home from his mission. Then I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. He was down the hall and in a black suit. I saw the smile, the eyes, but it was the way he carried himself that struck me.

Then I had a flash back to a year earlier. I was sitting in my car near a camping site on top of Cedar Mountain called Deer Haven. It was spring and raining. It was a peaceful day. Peace was something I desperately needed. I was distraught. I was being pursued by a young man who was handsome, intelligent, and fun. No matter how hard I tried, I was not attracted to him. So, I sat on top of the mountain trying to convince my heart and my head to align. I was 23 and feeling old (oh how funny I think that is now) with a deep desire to get married.

After a half hour or so, the rain had stopped. My mind was feeling much more clear as I contemplated my future and my personal standing with the Lord. In this unique moment of quiet my eyes were opened, and I saw a young man standing before me. I could see his face shape, the color of his hair, but it was the way he stood that was the most distinctive. A quiet voice pierced my soul saying, "This is who you will marry."

That moment deterred me from many men...including my love and best friend at the time. But, I was getting impatient after a year and began seriously dating again.

Then I found myself, standing in the basement of "Brain's cousin's house" and I see "him!" The young man with the same distinct stance, the same hair color, the same face shape I had seen before. Forgetting the introductions of the moment, I gravitated to him. I knew this young man; I knew I would marry him; I knew the Lord had remembered me and the promises He made me in that quiet moment on the mountain.

Ryan and I met on March 10, 2002. We were married on June 20, 2002 despite our 500 mile distance. I am grateful we were married quickly, because I did not know my sister and her soon-to-be finance were hoping for "their own day" of celebration patiently waiting for ours to pass. They were engaged shortly after our wedding and married 6 weeks later.

Then things began to slip for me. The self-confident, intelligent, fun person I was began to slide into chaos, darkness and confusion as we added one stress onto another our first year of marriage. We experienced 5 of the like 10 ten most stressful things in one year.

• marriage
• a major move (twice, Tucson, AZ and Rexburg-ish, Idaho)
  
• pregnancy
• full-time work and education
• the first time I was away from parent's family

The choices took a toll on us individually and our enchanted meeting was silly compared to the reality we would face over the next year. I spiraled down and down and down--months of hell and loneliness I do not which to recount because the memories will always be tender to me. As a result, I will always loathe Rexburg.

We were married fast. Our meeting is a romantic story. We've paid the price for every moment a quick relationship demands. I will never forget the moment when Ryan and I agreed if we had not married so fast, we would not have married at all. It was at that moment we realized our meeting was divine, but our marriage and our love for each other was a daily choice. It would remain a choice every day following that moment despite our opposite personalities, our conflicting communication styles and our divergent opinions.

The emotional and mental toll of my stress was obvious when Luke was born 10 months later. He was low birth weight; he'd stop breathing--he was in the NICU for 3 days. I remember Ryan giving him a blessing. I could feel his spirit respond to the priesthood. It was at that point things began to change for Luke and his body and spirit rested. I yearned for rest from a mental illness I did not understand was haunting me.

Ryan was doing his best to provide for me in Idaho at a full-time job and go to school full-time. He did okay in school, but he wanted to do better. Even more, he wanted to join the military. We researched and analyzed and decided to go to Utah State for the Air Force ROTC. Ryan EXCELLED in the military. He was given a scholarship for a non-technical career, something almost unheard of. I was getting help for my anxiety and depression--realizing mental illness was real and would need to be maintained through medication and therapy. I was slowly becoming myself again. Things were looking up! WAY UP! Our first 18 months together had been agonizingly hard, but the rest of our lives were now happily ever after! Or so we thought.

Ryan went to field training in July of 2004. Field training is officers training for ROTC. I was learning to love the formality of the military. I loved the friendship among the "officers wives" and the associated duty to serve. Though we had struggled with the decision between ourselves, we were finally on the "same page" and ready for a military career.

I will never forget the moment I received the phone call from the Cornell Coe. I was in Page, Arizona heading back to Cedar City, Utah from Farmington, New Mexico. I had spent a week at my grandmother's home with my parents, sister and our boys. We were at McDonald's in Page when I received the voice mail message that my husband was on a flight home--he was leaving field training. Our plans shattered; we were broken. Logan quickly became a jail instead a location of liberation.

I left my journal open on the couch in our apartment after he came home, Ryan read an entry I had just written. The entry expressed my fear for Ryan and the alteration 2 weeks of the military had done to him. I was angry at everything; I debated leaving him. I needed help. I need a stronger support group. Without me knowing, he called my parents and asked if we could live in their basement. He knew I was falling apart. He moved me to Cedar City hoping to save our marriage, and to save me.

Ryan was eventually hospitalized. It is a sacred experience for him. So, I will not dwell here. After 4 months, he was physically returned, off needed medication and doing fantastic physcially. However, it would take 4 years (and counting) for us to heal and rebuild what we lost that summer. This experience would change our personalities and perceptions forever after. In some ways, it felt we buried the carnage of evil in Logan when we left, hoping to never return.

Three years past with relatively anti-climatic events. We had our challenges--mostly pregnancies because my hormones turn me into a horribly anxious and depressed individual, and the bed rest, and yada, yada, yada. Suzanne was born. Then, just after I gave birth to Eric, we learned Ryan's company would be downsizing and his job would go. Again, we researched and analyzed and decided to pursue more education--so in the future I could remain a stay-at-home mom.

I wanted to move to Utah county. Ryan wanted to moved to Logan. I wanted to avoid the evil we buried. Ryan wanted redemption. Notwithstanding my stubbornness, everything "feel into place" and we returned to Logan for the second time in January 2008.

Moving back to Logan was like living our first year of marriage all over again, though the specifics are different. Hence, my countdown! I cannot wait to say, "Yes, it is no longer 2008."

Since moving to Logan, we have literally faced EVERY fear and EVERY weakness we didn't even know we possessed. Our hearts have been torn in peices again and again. I require a "tension releasing" cry weekly. And yet, we have experienced glorious moments of healing and personal revelation. We have had moments of absolute joy as a couple and with our children. I cannot remember a time that I have laughed as hard. What extremes!

A couple weeks ago, our entire little family was waiting in a doctor's office. Eric was having problems with his ears again and we were finding out if we needed to have his tubes replaced. Ryan found an article in "O" magazine titled, How Your Worst Fight as A Couple can be the Best Thing for Your Marriage. For us, the statement was stinging reality.

Four weeks earlier, we had the worst fight of our marriage-LITERALLY. Every stress in our life stacked against us, and a mole hill became Everest. To make it a thousand times worse, we had an adult audience to which we had to explain everything in embarrassment.

The redemption since then has been sweet. Our marriage is 1000x stronger than it has been before; our parenting is 100x better; my sense of self is 100x more clear. As horrible as the experience has been, I am grateful it happened. Humbly, I must say that about the entire year of 2008.

This year from Hell has been wrapped in moments of Heaven. Despite all I have learned and my deep sense of gratitude for what I have learned, I am ready to say good by to this time frame and move into a new.