Micki's Musings

I like my face. I like my skin. I like my body. Strange, I know, to see a 33-year-old female write those words and mean them, but I do. (I am also unashamed about my age. ;) ) While working from the inside out is important, it's undeniable that what greets me in the mirror is a reflection of both, and I find myself reflecting on my reflection as I uncover my layers of me. I've never been a very vain person. As a teenager, I was preoccupied with my image about the same as any average teen would be, and I like to make good impressions and take care of myself now, but I've never relied on my outward appearance to get me anywhere or blamed it for holding me back from something. I appreciate my body for the miracle it is and feel gratitude for how well it functions. This earthly vessel for my spirit has rarely let me down, and I am aware of its potential for glory in the hereafter. The idea that I am a combination of all the strength and beauty of my ancestors is pretty ne...

Yes. In all my years of studying the English language, this word is one I never truly considered and analyzed, until now. Before, it was simply an affirmation. I suppose it has always implied positivity, moving forward, and acceptance. I've also recognized it sometimes as a term of victory, a shout of exultation. It's always had many meanings, but is such a simple, common word, I never really examined it before. Now, that simple word means much in terms of beginnings, and also of endings, for me. It is the word that represents the alpha and omega of my marriage. A little over 13 years ago, it was the word I spoke as I knelt across an altar, holding hands with a man I adored and was prepared to be with for eternity. Yesterday, I stood alone, held up my right hand in front of a judge, and he asked me if I affirmed that I had agreed to and signed the document before him detailing the terms for the termination of my marriage. Once again, with finality, I said yes. Seems...

I just finished singing my babies to sleep. This is a fairly common thing for us, but tonight there was a big, huge difference. Tonight, I sang them to sleep over facetime, because they are at their dad's. They are with him and I couldn't stop it, I couldn't fix it, and I couldn't protect them from the situation, or from him. A judge ordered that they be with him tonight and tomorrow and the next night. A judge. What is my life? I got the permanent protective order. I "won" after EIGHT HOURS at court. The longest, most tedious, most terrible day of my life thus far, but I got the protective order. It's such a sterile place, court. No emotion or humanity plays a part there. In court, I do not feel like a human being, but a subject to be studied, to be placed next to the lines in a big fat book of laws and decided about whether or not I fit the criteria for one deserving of protection based on the section and subsection and number of whichever law. It do...

My therapist keeps telling me to stop analyzing so much. Well, she told me once, and I repeatedly hear her voice inside of my head every time I catch myself overthinking things. I can't help it, though. I think about things. I write about the things I think about. It's how I work things out. I know what she means, though. She encourages me to just be in the space I am in. It's a powerful method, being present, allowing myself to accept what I am feeling and where I am, right now in this moment. I started practicing this skill with my anxiety. Instead of fighting so hard against those feelings, instead of pulling my sword from its scabbard each time I feel those muscles clench in my stomach and between my shoulder blades, I've been practicing opening my arms. Instead of squaring off against my fear and saying "Bring it, fear, I conquered you before, I can do it again!" I put my arm around it and say, "Hello, fear, what are you trying to protect me f...

We can learn many lessons from observing the ways of mankind.  We will learn many truths from observing the ways of nature. -Micki's Musings, March 19, 2016 While renting a home and having most of my belongings still out of my possession isn't ideal, it has allowed me much more spare time than I have had in a long while. I don't have those piles of paper to file, those boxes of pictures to scrapbook, that massive yard to maintain. It's just basic cleaning up and daily routine kinds of things. Thus, I have been allowed thinking and pondering time without other tasks nagging at the back of my brain. (I never actually filed those papers or scrapbooked those pages, it's just not nagging at me, now.) At first, this was not such a good thing, as I was desperate for distractions and driving myself mad with all that was going on in my brain. (Well, more mad than usual, I should say.) Lately, however, I've been taking advantage of my quiet time. My favorite thin...

He is just a man. Absence made the heart more fearful for a while. I turned him into an overpowering monster in my head. I gave him strength he did not have and power he did not actually possess. He is not a monster; he is very sick and very afraid, and reacting to his stress the only way he knows how. He has caused his greatest fears to come true, just as I did. He feared losing the kids and me above all else, and the fear has overcome him to such a degree that he has actually lost his mind. Now he sees things that are not real and blames me for all of it to provide justification for what he does as he is controlled by his fear. I pray for him. I weep for him. I must protect myself and our children from him, for though he is not a monster, he is also not safe. I experienced a small respite after I filed the protective order against him last week, but then for a few days I started losing my own mind not knowing what he was doing or how he was feeling. Even with all the harassment...

I'm on a quest, of late. I've been delving into the depths of doctrine and discovering myself inside of it. (Nice alliteration there, eh? Just didn't want you to miss it.) That is my quest, to find me. I want to know as much as I can about who I was before and what I am to become. This quest is filling up many of those pieces of me that sat empty for so long from mere spiritual and emotional exhaustion. Now that I am awakening, I am studying the doctrines of the gospel, searching the scriptures, reading the words of the modern day prophets with a hunger that I haven't felt before. It's like feasting in a banquet hall. Everyone else is there, too. We all have this delectable feast before us, and it fascinates me how so many of us still just nibble at the edges when there is so much there to fill us. So many others scrounge around on the floor, licking up crumbs that others have dropped when all we need to do is look up and make the effort to feed ourselves. I under...

A couple of days ago, I couldn't lift a TV by myself. This infuriated me. Notice, I use the word infuriated. Not irritated or annoyed or amused, but infuriated, like I nearly punched the blasted thing through its screen. There were multiple forces at play besides the mere weight of it. It's one of those old-school box TVs with the bulbous screen and rectangular rear end, so its awkwardness alone is an obstacle to moving it, but it's also fairly large, and my arms are simply not designed for gripping around a mass of those proportions. My one-car garage is also not conducive to allowing much maneuvering of small objects, let alone monstrosities of that sort, and I doubt I could have gotten it out the car door anyway as the door was impeded from opening all the way by, you know, a wall. Plus, the dang thing was just plain heavy. If it had not been such a long day, and if it had not been fairly late in said day, and if I had not just experienced one of the most exhausting an...

I'm sitting here, watching my kids play in the sandbox in the backyard. They have the hose on and are making rivers and mountains and valleys and streams. Plus a "bakery." Can't have mud without a bakery. I watch them a lot lately, closely. They've been through much more than I had by that age, and I watch them to see how they are coping. I try to see if there is any way I can help them through this any more than what I'm doing thus far. They don't need me as often as I would expect, because they have each other. My kids have a beautiful, unique connection. They fight like maniacs all the time, of course. But each and every time they have to deal with something bigger than themselves, they bond together so closely. Yesterday, they spent the afternoon and evening in a storage closet in our basement, bundled up together in blankets, watching movies and eating snacks while I answered phone calls, reassured neighbors, and filled out a protective order agains...