Twas Brillig

Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom far away (okay… Utah) there lived a fat housewife beautiful queen named Brillig, whose life was turned up-side-down when she learned that her perfect kingdom wasn’t as perfect as she thought it was.

See, Queen Brillig had four beautiful children. All were smart, delightful, and so darling you could just eat them (though she didn’t— don’t you admire her restraint?). One day, though, she learned that her youngest prince wasn’t quite right. She learned that he wasn’t well, in body or mind. Many tests were taken, many negative results returned, but everything kept pointing to that one scary word: autism.

Now, Queen Brillig was well aware that “autism” was NOT the end of the world. Her young prince was still delightful and gorgeous and among the most precious of her acquaintances. As far as Queen Brillig was concerned, he was perfect in every way.  But it did shatter her perfect world a bit to know that his life would be much harder than the lives of her other family members. He would be subjected to medical evaluations, blood draws and needles, prejudices. He would be a bully’s target, a community’s “burden”, and misunderstood by the world in general.

Queen Brillig began associating with the medical community— doctors, therapists, and insurance companies. What she originally thought was going to be a friendly relationship suddenly turned into all-out war. Queen Brillig had not anticipated that this would be so difficult, frustrating, and even hateful. Somehow she’d thought that those people were supposed to be there to help her and her family in their time of need, never realizing that actually they were the hardest part of the whole process.

Queen Brillig soon learned that in her magical kingdom there was nothing but closed doors.

Which is why, when presented with a beautiful new palace in the kingdom, Queen Brillig and her husband, King Brian the Handsome, rejected the new palace. Queen Brillig was tempted— oh how she was tempted by the beauty and luxury of the new palace!!! But King Brian the Handsome was very wise and reminded her that luxury and beauty do not matter right now. They both agreed that what matters is the well-being of the whole family, most specifically their youngest prince.

And while this palace might satisfy some of their wants, it would not meet their needs. And Queen Brillig is beginning to learn the difference.

There are other kingdoms throughout the land DO give a crap about autism. Other kingdoms require insurance companies to cover autism-related therapies. Other kingdoms allow a child under the age of three to see a mental health professional. Other kingdoms maybe even care enough to actually figure out what’s wrong with the young prince— what is his actual diagnosis? Other kingdoms have programs in place to answer that question. Other kingdoms… other kingdoms.

Queen Brillig and King Brian the Handsome were in an interesting situation. They’d sold their former palace before the palace-selling market completely tanked, and then put all of the money (their palace, in a stroke of great luck, had doubled in value in the three years that had passed from when they built it to when they sold it) into a high-interest savings account. Every month they deposited what would have been that month’s mortgage payment into the bank account too. And in the meantime, they lived for free off the kindness and mercy of Queen Brilligsmom and King Brilligsdad, who were passing the time in the Canary Islands and needed someone to take care of their palace. This put the happy Brillig family in a truly fantastic position. They had the means to buy a house today, or to buy months from now. They could buy a new palace the moment their “gut” said, “this is it, this is the one, this is the place.”

And so far, their guts have said no such thing. Their guts have said, “no. This isn’t it. Wait.”

And you know what? Queen Brillig and King Brian the Handsome have learned to trust those promptings and believe that they come from a much Higher Source— a Source who loves them, a Source who is looking to bless them. A Source who loves their little children even more than they do. A Source who will not lead them astray.

And so they wait… and make plans to leave their current kingdom, as it no longer meets their needs. In which direction? Who knows? But they are researching, planning, praying, even daydreaming a bit… And by the time they NEED to know, they have full confidence that they WILL know.

And Queen Brillig is beginning to realize that she would happily live in a shack with a rocky dirt floor and a corrugated cardboard roof if it meant that her family was where they were supposed to be.

Because following those promptings, whatever they may turn out to be, is surely the ONLY way that we will truly be able to live happily ever after.

Imagine knowing that you were going to have to buy a house sometime between today and seven months from now.

Imagine knowing a home builder who’s built an amazing spec home that you should never be able to afford because of the size, luxury, details, and gorgeousness of this house.

Imagine that that house sat on a perfect plot of land and it sat right along a beautiful lake, with unobstructed views of the lake and the Rocky Mountains looming behind it.

Then imagine that the house was built to perfection— the colors are just what you would have chosen had you been asked.  The light fixtures seem unreal in their beauty.  The custom tile, the expensive carpet, the fireplace, the granite counter tops, the his-and hers-closets, the gigantic jacuzzi tub, the cabinets… all if it, better than you’d dare hope for in a home.

Then imagine that the home-builder couldn’t sell the house in this collapsed housing market.  He faces bankruptcy and total devastation, so he drops the price, and drops the price again, and finally drops it to the point where he is LOSING $200,000 on it—which, he decides, is still better than losing EVERYTHING.
Imagine that it’s now squarely in your price range.

Imagine that he calls you and offers you first dibs on it, knowing that when he puts the new low price up on the internet, it will be snatched up instantly by investors.

Imagine walking through it for the first time, unable to believe that you, you, could live in this house!!!

Then imagine telling him thanks, but no thanks.

Yup, that’s how I spent the weekend.  You?

(Apparently I have a knack for walking away from the perfect home…) 

Soap Opera Sunday is being hosted by Abish today. Head on over to her site for her post and for links to the rest of the soapiness. (For more info about Soap Opera Sunday, read this.)

(This story began here and continued to here and then here…)

Suddenly I was single— oh how I’d always LOVED being single. The DABU (Day After Break-Up) had always been the happiest. I would go and get my hair done (seriously— strange ritual, I know, but I always did it. People who were close to me always knew when I’d broken up with someone because my hair was suddenly completely different) and then go find at least one cute boy to kiss meaninglessly. (Sometimes, um, more than one…) Ahhhhhhh, so great.

But this, as I said before, was different. No relief, no joy, no haircut, no wasted kisses. Just misery, sorrow, loneliness, and… well… tears. Lots of ‘em.

The feeling of having just made the biggest mistake of my life.

I went to work, I went through all the motions, I continued on with my life. But I felt so hollow, so empty. I couldn’t get Blake out of my mind.

I knew that if I called him, he would take me right back. I was completely confident in his love for me. But I also knew that if I were to call him, I would have to be ready to answer that Big Question. Calling him would be the equivalent of signing my name to a marriage license.

WHY couldn’t I do that? How many women were wandering around DYING to fall in love, DYING to be loved back, DYING to be married and start popping out babies? What was wrong with me? The perfect man, the perfect life, the perfect love, and it scared me to death.

Surely I was meant for something bigger. Surely I was meant for something more exciting and noteworthy and celebratory than marriage. I had dreams, plans, goals. Granted, I wasn’t making any progress towards those dreams and goals. In fact, the more steps I took towards them, the more they sounded like someone else’s desires rather than my own.

And suddenly I found myself in the middle of an identity crisis.

All my life, it had always been the same problem. As a child, when asked in school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never had an answer. I never had any idea what I really wanted to do or who I wanted to be. As I was finishing up high school and was courted by various universities, I didn’t know where I wanted to go or why. Once I found myself in college, I changed my major not once but FOUR times in the 3 semesters I attended college— and nothing I “tried on” ever seemed to “fit”.

Others had picked up on my aimlessness. I still have parent/teacher conference reports dating back to third grade filled with comments such as, “Brillig has so much potential, but she doesn’t seem to have any goals or direction.” Potential, potential, potential. That’s all I ever heard. Potential that I was never living up to, because I could never find a reason to dedicate myself to anything. Potential… so much potential. There came a point where it made me furious. Potential for what????

Who was I, and what exactly did I want?

I dropped to my knees, as I had so many times before, and begged to know what it was that I was supposed to be doing.

And then, slowly but surely, what started as a little thought grew into a conviction and then to an urgent, all-consuming knowledge.

The things that had seemed so important before were now clearly nothing but silliness. The “dreams, goals, and plans” were no longer who I was— I wasn’t even sure they ever had been. They were so trivial and absolutely not worth trading true love for.

I still didn’t quite know who I was or what I wanted out of life, but I knew one thing for sure: I was in love with Blake. He was my future. He was the one dream, goal, and plan that now held any place in my heart.

And so I picked up the phone and nervously dialed his number…

(to be continued…)

Workin’ on my soap opera sunday post…  Got a lot going on tonight.  Thought I should announce that Abish is hosting SOS this week.  (What is SOS?)  I’ll publish my post sometime tonight… sometime….  yeah….

I have a meme law. The law is that I just don’t do them. I appreciate tags because I appreciate that my fellow bloggers are thinking of me. But I think that people get very tired of reading memes, memes, and only memes. Also, meme’s kinda suck the creativity from the process. Oh, don’t get me wrong— I LOVE to talk about myself. But… well… I think you know what I’m trying to say here.
That said, I’m desperate today. I’ve had a blogroll crash. As in, all of my bookmarks vanished. This is not the end of the world— I’m not quite that pathetic. But it does mean that through my week of re-post-a-palooza, I didn’t actually catch up on my blog-reading. Instead, I… uh… fell way behind. So instead of subjecting you to more reposts, I will instead subject you to a meme.

This meme comes courtesy of Anne at Not Entirely British. As I read through Anne’s version of the meme, I was struck by the bizarre things we have in common. Seriously… Except that she’s a thousand times cooler and more accomplished than I.

Okay, so. I’m supposed to tell you seven random facts about me. The problem is, I think I’ve already told you everything, random or otherwise, that there IS to know about me. Luckily for me, though, most of you haven’t read my ridiculously long and boring (and buried behind tabs) “about me”. So… consider this the “cliff’s notes” version of Basically Brillig.

1. I’m a vegetarian… who owns and wears a lot of leather. Iit’s just one of the many things that makes me a walking contradiction. You’ll get used to it…)

2. In six and a half years of marriage, I’d been pregnant 7 times. No wonder I feel so frickin’ worn out.

3. I’m resistant to pain medication. For instance, when I had my wisdom teeth removed, the dentist gave me the maximum legal dose of anaesthesia. I could still feel it. That was fun…

4. In part because of #3, but also because I wanted the “full experience” I chose to have all four of my babies naturally. Three of them were 9-pounders. One was posterior. With one I was pre-eclamptic and had the highest possible dose of pitocin flowing through my veins. Basically, I know a thing or two about pain. But I wouldn’t trade any one of those experiences for the world. They were the most powerful, painful, exhilarating, exciting, empowering, and love-filled moments of my mortal existence.

5. I dropped out of high school 3/4 of the way through my Senior year. I was then thrown out of not one, but TWO universities.

6. I spent 18 months as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Buenos Aires, Argentina. That totally rocked.

7. At this time of year, I turn into a vampire.  My skin is so pale— if you walk down the make-up aisle of the grocery store, you’ll see the foundation organized from lightest skin to darkest.  I wear the very lightest shade possible.  Then move to the hair dye aisle and find the darkest shade— that’s my hair color.    See?  Vampire.  No wonder I prefer Edward to Jacob.  (Dude, seriously?  How do I know so many people who preferred Jacob?  Ummmm…. no.  Edward all the way.)

(I’m now going to spend the next couple of days trying to piece my blogroll back together. Sigh.)

Are you playing SOS too? If so, enter the link to your post.  (Find out about Soap Opera Sunday here.)  Everyone is invited to play!

(Part three of the Blake series. Part one, part two.)

Blake wanted to marry me.

We were having so much fun. He was so cute, so easy to be with. While we were incredibly different on the surface, we actually had a lot in common. For one thing, we shared a religion and religious goals. That was huge, because my religion was (still is!) everything to me. We were passionate about similar social issues— civil rights, tolerance, love, and just basic kindness. In fact, Blake was the kindest person I’d ever known. But he was also funny, obnoxious, and a big fat stinker—in all the right ways. He made me laugh, and better yet, he laughed at my jokes! He thought I was smart and hilarious! WOW! How could I not fall madly in love with him?

And, indeed, I HAD fallen madly in love with him.  I had said, “I love you” to other boys, I might have even thought that I’d meant it before.  But this?  This was so different.  This was life-altering, soul-consuming, tear-shedding, toe-tingling, floating-on-air LOVE.

And then he had to go and ruin it by trying to get me to marry him.

See, I was only 21. I was so young and I had so much left to do. I wanted to be someone before I got married— I had places to go, books to write, languages to learn, motion pictures to star in, and boys… there were so many more boys that I’d never dated. Age 21 is that age, you know? I was at my mental and physical peak and I couldn’t waste that by getting married! Ick!

Blake tried to be patient, but he was ready to get this show on the road. He loved me, I loved him, why weren’t we getting married?

I couldn’t really explain it, but I just wasn’t ready.  I did love him, I really did.  But I felt like I was being given an ultimatum:  marry Blake, or break up with him.

So I broke up with him.

Now, by this point in my life, I’d broken up with a lot of boys.  Always me— I was always the one doing the dumping and the leaving.  And every time I’d broken up with someone, I felt as though a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

I was waiting for that feeling— that relief— but instead, as I walked out of his living room that night, leaving him with tears pouring down his cheeks, I felt bleak.  Miserable.  Like someone had permanently turned out the lights.  And then… the tears came.  Tears!  I bawled and bawled for days!  This was NOT like the other times.  This was the worst feeling I could imagine.

I had made a huge mistake.

(to be continued…)

(Day three of re-post-a-palooza)

Animated Admissions

(originally posted on May 29, 2007)

I just bought the movie Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses for my Fluffy, and fortunately her brothers don’t yet know that it’s not cool for them to like Barbie movies, so they’re all happily watching it. We’ve all probably seen it about 57 times now.

And I have the most random thing to admit.

I think “Prince” Derek is HOT.

I would have included a picture with that last statement, but I couldn’t find any, even through lengthy google image searches–which leads me to believe that I’m the only “grown up” who thinks that Derek is hot. Or, perhaps, that any animated character is hot.

Alas, it’s not the first time. I always kinda had a thing for Eric from The Little Mermaid and Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty.

And really, I can’t believe I’m writing any of this.

Still, I know I’m not entirely alone. I specifically remember a moment in college when I was hanging out with some guy friends who had just seen Disney’s “Hercules” (it had just come out) and they were talking about how Meg was by far the hottest Disney character ever! When I saw the movie myself, I thought that she was definitely the skankiest of all of Disney’s princesses (which is, of course, what these guys found so appealing). Still, the fact that ALL of them were saying this about an animated character makes me think that perhaps this is not totally unheard of.

So, fess up. Did you ever have a thing for an animated character?

(And is anyone gonna agree with me about Derek? Come on…)

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(Yes, even Wordless Wednesday is subject to re-post-a-palooza.)

Wordless Wednesday

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I’ve decided that it’s time to catch up on my blogging— reconnect with all the people I’ve been ignoring or with whom I’ve lost touch completely. So to catch up, but to keep this site alive in the process, I’m going to be reposting some of my faves every day this week. These will be brand new to most of you. The following story is by far my MOST requested repost. (And if there’s something you’d like to see reposted, let me know. I’m taking requests. hahaha.)
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NOT VERY LUCKY AND NOT AT ALL CHARMING(originally posted July 2, 2007)

The scene: My littlest two boys are in bed for midday naps. Fuzzles, the ten month old, is secure in his crib while Scooby, the two year old, is in his room, which doesn’t have a lock, but the door is very tricky and in three weeks here he hasn’t yet been able to open it. The other two kids (Bubba, 4, and Princess Fluffy, 5) are outside playing on the park with some friends.

And I, well, I need a break. I see this moment of solitude as the perfect time to fill a hot bath and indulge for a few minutes–recharge the ol’ batteries, doncha know. A rare pleasure indeed.

And so, I immerse myself into the delicious water and close my eyes. Ahhhhh. After a minute, I hear some strange noises. I open my eyes to find Scooby (who not only got out of his bedroom but also apparently climbed up the pantry shelf) lording an open box of Lucky Charms over my bathtub. Before I scream, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” he turns the box over and the bathtub is suddenly full of Lucky Charms.

(Scooby and his Charms)

“Oh my gosh, how am I going to clean this up?” I say out loud. Scooby has an idea. He begins scooping the cereal out of the water and ravenously eats it. “Ewww! Ick! No, no!” I squeal.

I busy myself with trying to get the cereal out and keeping Scooby from snarfing it all down when I hear yet more noises. I turn to see Princess Fluffy and all of the neighbor children STARING at me. Me. Naked. In the bathtub. With all of my bits exposed. And let’s not forget the Lucky Charms floaties. (And now I’m just certain that their parents are going to sue me for the therapy that will now be necessary.) At this point I begin shrieking, “GET OUT!!! GET OUT!!!! GET OUT!!!!” And eventually, they catch on, and leave. Clever little things.

That’ll show me for trying to take a break. Mommy never EVER gets a break. I should know that by now….

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(Are you playing Soap Opera Sunday too? If so, enter your link here! To find out more about Soap Opera Sunday, check here.)

After that first date with Blake, I went back home to Cedar City, but I didn’t stay there for long. I was in the middle of an absurd relationship (remember Ben?) and had already been tossed out of SUU (apparently I was really good at getting thrown out of school…) and when I broke the “yet-another-school-just-threw-me-out” news to my parents (you can only imagine how… um… proud they were…) I also announced that I was cutting myself off: Daddy was no longer allowed to pay for my living expenses or schooling (assuming I’d ever go back to school). I knew that if I did it on my own, I’d finally take things a little more seriously. Plus, I wouldn’t feel so completely guilty every time I screwed up if I was now only reporting to myself. Plus, I wanted to cut myself off before Daddy cut me off. Surely he was about to. Ahhhh, I felt like such a grown-up. A very poor, very aimless grown-up.

So I got a job.

It was while I was at work one morning in Cedar City at my important $6/hour telemarketing job (SO glamorous) that my head began to throb. This wasn’t just a headache, this was a “holy-crap-I- think-I-might- be-dying-because-my-head- hurts-so- frickin’-brackin’-bad- and-I-have-to-go-lie- down-right-this-second” headache.

So I went back to my apartment and lay down. As suddenly as the headache came on, it went away. And in a moment of absolute clarity, I knew what I had to do.

I had to move back to Provo.

Provo was only about three hours away from Cedar City, but it seemed like a whole different universe. I packed up all of my stuff and told my roommates that I was moving out. They were really broken up about it… because the TV was mine, the stereo was mine, the microwave was mine, and all the cute clothes were mine (and, um, all the cute boys were mine too…). They were going to miss me so much.

My parents were in Chile at this point (and would be for a couple of years) and had rented out their home here to my brother J and a few of his friends… including Blake. That meant, among other things, that there was no where for me to stay as a free-loader. (Which was fine, because I was a grown-up, remember?)

Now I needed a place to live— and it needed to be cheap. And I needed a job— ANY job— in order to pay for said cheap place.

As unbelievable as it sounds, within a day of arriving in Provo I had a place to live (which was an absolute HOLE, and could be the subject of its own soap opera saga. But hey, it was home), I had a job which was way better than I deserved (thanks to my sister who had climbed the corporate ladder and heard of an immediate opening and got me right in— I totally didn’t deserve that job and within two hours of my working there EVERYONE knew it. But it was too late. I was there and I was earning money, and slowly but surely I was learning the ropes)…

AND… I had reestablished a connection with Blake, who had, of course, been in the back of my mind throughout this whole move, though I would have sworn up and down that I didn’t move to Provo for him. I was NOT that kind of girl— the kind who picked up her whole life just to see how things would work out with some boy I’d only been on one date with. Still, he was on my mind. A lot.

Blake and I were still… well… a bit too different. And while that made for a lot of lively conversation, it also made any kind of long-term relationship seem impossible.

But I just couldn’t seem to stay away from him.

(…to be continued…)