Refining

I hesitate to come back to this blogging world, knowing I need to face the reality of my life.

If you don't think about it, don't write about it, don't say it out loud,

it seems to make the pain of life seem a little more dull.

Ignorance and denial take the sting out and don't pierce as deeply.

Survival, for me, came from feeling numb and avoiding reality.

I completely understand how people become addicted to drugs and alcohol -

the stress and pain is overwhelming and unbearable when you're sober.

And that's all I've ever been is sober, so it has been raw.

...raw is such a great word that not only described the state of my soul a few months ago, but also the state of that delicate skin around my eyes that became raw from all the hours of wiping tears away.

Rhett's job had already been declining in the summer after we bought our house and I held my breath, hoping things would work out and that we had made the right decision to increase our monthly bills with this beautiful new home.

We went on a vacation to Hawaii that Rhett had won through his job and before we even got home, I had already decided to go back to work, back to public school.

I needed a better job to pay for this brand new house that we had just invested in.

...back to teaching again and a new house - those were two major life changes and there was another one or two unknowingly on their way.

They say one major life change within a year is stress that you can handle

but two would be a bit of a struggle.

....three?

...FOUR??

Try to stay sober.

Sales is a tough business and through my first months of teaching in August, September and October, I held my breath everyday, held my breath every two weeks when his check came in, praying that we would have enough to pay the bills and especially the new mortgage.

I held my breath as we used the last of our savings and started putting groceries on my credit card.

I held my breath as we were able to pay the mortgage but fell short on so many other bills. I had hope that things had to get better as soon as the holidays hit, as soon as people started buying more. We had always made it through the winter months because of the increase in sales.

If I could just hold off the nervous breakdown until the holidays,

I could probably avoid it all together and breath again.

...I took a deep breath and held on.

But a call that I received

in the middle of an inside recess during lunch at the end of October

changed all of that.

It was Rhett and he first texted that I should call him if I had a second.

I guess I did have a second to call, although the bell ending lunch and my students' inside playtime was about to ring.

So I called him, thinking it would be quick...

Pulling myself together after that phone call

was one of the hardest things I've had to do in a long time.

Rhett justified that he figured I would want to know immediately that he had

lost his job

but I barely had enough oxygen

to pretend that I was ok to continue being the

happy, functioning, breathing Mrs. Moschetti to those 4th graders.

If I had a time machine, I would make him go back to that day and not call me until after school.

It was unbearable.

The instant the final bell rang and the last painfully lingering student left my classroom,

I exhaled the most painful breath I had been holding and burst into audible, uncontrollable sobs.

I feel that hopelessness again as I write this now

and can't even begin to describe how heavy and broken my heart was.

They always say that in times of trouble, you should at least hold on to hope

but mine had been stretched so thin for so long that it had snapped as I exhaled.

I didn't stop crying until I could barely hear my own voice and my eyes felt like open sores.

It was Wednesday October 28th.

Just a few days earlier, my uncle Reese had died and I was planning my sub for Friday, which was our school Halloween Parade and class Halloween party.

I would miss it all because of the funeral and before that phone call, I was sad and wondering if I really should go.

Now, thinking about the funeral made me

secretly relieved that I wouldn't have to deal with all the holiday crap.

I was also relieved that I could be raw and disheveled and emotional

without anyone thinking it odd.

My uncle had just died.

No one had to know the other trauma.

But I still had Thursday to play happy teacher and pretend that I wasn't screaming inside.

I went home that day and hugged Rhett and held him tightly

hoping to absorb some of his strength,

but he was broken, too.

None of this was his fault, and I tried not to blame him openly

but I didn't know how else to feel inside.

For the next month and a half, our relationship was strained tight and volatile.

I somehow found ways to blame him and direct my stress and anger and despair toward him.

In my mind, I couldn't help screaming that this was his mistake that was adversely and negatively affecting our family.

Why did we have to suffer so much because of him?

The stress of going back to work and trying to be the teacher I was before I took two years off to be home with my babies was already getting to me before Rhett even lost his job.

I was now working with a team of teachers who I had never worked with before

and they did things very differently from my last team.

It was extra work, chaotic, frustrating and more stress than I knew how to handle.

Then, I was called to be the Primary chorister in the early fall and that was no problem because I had had the calling before. I loved music and teaching and it wasn’t a problem to do it.

And then, they asked if I could be a visiting teaching supervisor and that seemed to be an easy one so I agreed to doing that as well.

But the overwhelming weight of the world after he lost his job kept building and building and I suddenly was juggling anxiety and multiple emotional breakdowns trying to carry all of it on my shoulders, including being a supportive wife who helped fix resumes and looked out for new job opportunities.

I picked up a second job to help out and was barely home to be a wife and a mother and that was causing tension all around. I didn't want to leave the house, to talk to anyone, to answer the phone or the door, to hang out with friends, to socialize with anyone or do anything that would require looking someone in the face and pretending that I could function normally. I spent my time texting and hiding and not knowing how to deal with it all.

Every move I made was stress-filled and I was realizing that I took on too much, as I always do, with the stress of a lost income double and tripling the feeling of being overwhelmed.

None of what I was doing was hard work, it was just the fact that it was all at the same time, all coming at me from every direction and all requiring me to give something…give to my children, give to my husband, give to my students, give to my 4th grade team, give to my school, give to my extended family, give to the Primary, give to the new house…you get the idea.

The thing that was slowly ripping me apart was that there was NOTHING that was filling me, nothing to replace everything that was being taken from me emotionally, physically and spiritually every single day. I tried to take it day by day and survive a little at a time, leaning on my close friends and family when I needed the weight lifted. My visiting teacher would come and offer me support and understanding and give me an opportunity to talk about it. I didn’t tell her anything at first because I was embarrassed and mostly didn’t want to drag out all the pain of the situation but it was nice to have someone to talk to who understood and just listened.

By December, I was under the grand hope that Rhett would already have found another job, that creditors would stop calling us 12 times a day, that I would find a way to keep my electricity from being shut off and that I would have enough change to buy some milk.

I was hanging by a thread, but Rhett not having a job was too much.

I was emotionally and spiritually drowning.

I couldn't even doggie paddle anymore.

At one point, I was irrationally ready to give in and just give up on our relationship. Being at the absolute bottom made the thought of any growth on my own seem possible. Rhett didn't want to talk about it anymore because it seemed there was nothing we could do about any of it anyway. I just felt utter hopelessness and could not see the end. He didn't want to broadcast our need or the truth of our situation, but seeing how Christmas was right around the corner, I couldn't take it one second longer. The pain of the situation was beyond unbearable.

My visiting teacher came during that month and I started telling her everything, apologizing for not being able to stop the emotional vomit. That talking, as short as it was, actually helped to lift some of it off my shoulders. Just saying it out loud made things a little lighter. Everyone else I had chosen to talk to already knew about what was going on and was living it with me, but my visiting teacher was a life preserver for me that was helping me to keep holding on a little more at a time.

A week or so later, I called a member of the bishopric and apologized for being a horrible visiting teaching supervisor and asked him if he had any suggestions of how I could be better at it or if they possibly could find someone else who could do it better. I mean, all you did was call or email and ask people if they did their visiting teaching and I was failing at doing that! It was yet another failure and I just couldn’t take anymore.

He didn’t respond to my request but asked me if I felt that I needed Relief Society in my life. The tears welled up in my eyes, my throat choked up and I didn't dare open my mouth. I heard him call my name to see if I was still there or if the call had dropped. In a quiet squeak, I told him that I was there, and then it all spilled out. I was bawling on the phone, telling him that my cup was empty, that nothing was filling me and that my silent prayer, that I wasn’t going to say to anyone, was to be able to go to Relief Society and have the support of the women around me to save me from drowning. He then told me that they would like to release me from Primary so that I could go to Relief Society and have that opportunity to strengthen myself for my family. I didn't even think about being released from my Primary calling, but it was an absolute relief to be able to agree to it.

I hung up the phone so relieved and grateful and in awe of their inspiration. Later, I found out that they were inspired by the report that my visiting teacher had given to the RS President and that she had mentioned to them about what was going on in my life. Most of them didn’t even know that Rhett had lost his job because how do you go around telling people that? They also hadn’t realized what I needed until they had heard from the RS pres. (I am overwhelmingly thankful to my visiting teacher for being able to see what my needs were and to be inspired to offer me the help that I didn’t know how to ask for).

Christmas came and went and then came January... Oh, January. You think that life can't get any worse than a pitiful Christmas full of people giving to YOU and you being the family that people want to help and feeling so low and humble, but then comes January. Being on the other end of Christmas was a tough pill to swallow. But it was also an amazing lesson that Rhett and I learned together - to accept people's help. We grew together during that time, reluctantly accepting people's money and presents and food and charity but there was still a lot to come, because then came January.

I think it's true that January is one of the worst months of the year. You come off of this festive time and have to face life full on without a holiday in sight and with only a cold, frigid, dreary world to welcome you. You've gotten fatter, spent all your money on Christmas, basked in the magical glow of the season and then you have to go back to the real world.

January was an extremely difficult month for me and the emotional breakdowns came like contractions - they were inevitable, they came in waves over and over and they were unbearable.

I learned a lot of lessons from these black deaths of January that lasted (with less intensity) through the spring of April. It really was like my own rebirth in April. We had been receiving counsel from the financial/employment specialist/Elder's Quorum President in our ward and his words were like living waters. They didn't solve the problems, but they absolutely restored my hope. And all I needed was to have hope that one day we would rest from all these afflictions. That's all, just hope. And I was slowly starting to see the snow melt and the buds of hope start to grow.

Rhett still didn't have a job, but we were working together to strengthen our marriage and our finances, to build a better relationship with God and His word, to trust in our ward family, who were all still new to us, and to trust in our bishop's love and guidance. We remembered how important prayer was for our relationship and for our peace of mind and got back down to the basics that we had forgotten in the chaos of daily life and especially in the trauma that we were going through.

And I'm not exaggerating when I talk about trauma. Until you have lived it and had the same types of pieces stacked up against you, you can't begin to understand how truly traumatizing this is for someone. But by May, I had finally found peace. Rhett was hired in May, after all the resumes we had placed and all the interviews that he had gone to and all the time that had gone by, full of anxiety and frustration.

And then we found out in May, the exact same day that Rhett was hired, that we were expecting a baby the next January. Oh, January. It was not my idea to bring joy to January but after the initial shock wore off, it seemed perfect. I could have all my morning sickness throughout the summer, I could go on Christmas vacation and just stay home until I had the baby, it would be cold when I was huge and hopefully I wouldn't retain as much water. There were so many things that seemed to make it meant to be, perfect.

Perfect, that is, until we found out that the developing baby did not develop a beating heart and I had to have another D&C in June. That painful experience was born with patience and humility and I thank the Lord that I had already started to fill my empty cup, that it was filled enough to make it through this fourth major life change with more strength and hope than I would have had a few months before (especially if it had happened in January)...

...So if we talk about the idea of refining, of removing impurities or unwanted elements by making small changes, making things more subtle and accurate, I definitely have felt the heat of the refining process these last eight months. It was about seeing the impurities and making changes but I didn't realize how intense and strong the fire would be.

It was a cleansing of fire.

Some say the world will end in fire.

Some say in ice.

And from what I've tasted of desire, I hope I don't have to go through another fire.

I hope I have learned from all of these many experiences, which is why I tell the story. I hope I have learned about prayer and charity and forgiveness and repentance and trust and faith and family and friends and finances and communication and preparation and love and hope. I'm holding strong to Hope and taking it day by day.

And I hope there will come a day when I can give back to someone else what I have been given.

Even if it is merely Hope.

It will be enough.