This Side of Invisible

In the memorable words of Dr. Ian Malcolm played by the incomprable Jeff Goldblum, "Life finds a way." Even when we don't want it to, when we can't keep up, when we're exhausted... it just keeps coming. Life simply happens. But we must remember that we are created to be agents of action, not simply objects to be acted upon. Life comes at us unbidden, but we too can create the life we want. We can be the life unbidden. Life isn't merely something that happens around us, it's not just a force happening to us. Life happens within us. And with each exhale, we can speak life into existence all around us. We just have to be intentional, choosing moment to moment how to expend our energy. You are a child of God, the Great Creator; the DNA of creation makes up your every molecule. Don't wait to be bidden. Don't wait for approval. Listen to the beating of your own lifeforce. What life will you release into the world today? Now available: Life...

He heaved between sobs, opening the car door and vomiting right there in the car line. I prayed that no one had noticed. “Okay, okay,” I soothed him, patting his back. “It’s okay. Put your seat belt back on, we’ll go home.” He was so hysterical that my words didn’t, couldn’t penetrate. He cried into his hands, rocking back and forth. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t,” he cried. I pulled out of the car line and into the parking lot. “Mommy, I want breakfast,” a little voice peeped from backseat. “You said breakfast after Buddy go to school.” “I know,” I said, getting out of the car and walking around to Buddy’s side. I opened the door to buckle him in and he kicked at me. “NO!” he screamed. “No. No. No.” He thrashed in his seat trying to keep me from forcing him out of the car. His small fist makes contact with my cheek. “Buddy. Buddy. Buddy! Stop!” I yelled. Sniffles and sobs started in the back seat. “Buddy in trouble,” Thing 2 cried. “I hungry,” Thing 1 whined. And the ...

I wrote the following a year and a half ago. " We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul- We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." Articles of Faith #13 It's ironic almost to the point of laughter that this is the scripture we have have been focusing on this month in Primary, children's Sunday school. Almost. "We have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things." It makes me want to laugh... if only to keep from crying. It's no secret that life in the Marrott household is never dull. In our nearly fifteen years of marriage we've endured: twelve moves (to include those of the international variety), several separations (of the military variety),...

Anyone that follows my blog... ehem, all two of you... has probably noticed that the tone has changed over the last year. I've written less and what I have written, some of it has been almost cryptic. There's a reason for that. I've been struggling with this question: How do I write my story when it involves so many others? Perhaps this is the answer: Also, Ernest Hemingway said, "Write hard and clear about what hurts." So here it is:  I was sexual abused as a child. The pit of snakes in my stomach are alive and biting after typing that for all the world to see. So much shame. And yet, I feel empowered. Strength is running through my veins at the liberation that owning this statement brings. It's not that I need to wear it as a badge, but not being able to have an open dialogue about it is suffocating. And yet, having an open dialogue about it often leaves me feeling too exposed. Ya know? Vulnerability hang-overs suck. Mostly, I...

Mixed Messages by Aimee Rae Ellington MIXED MESSAGES      MIXED MESSAGES           MIXED MESSAGES Dinner is served.     "All is well."              All is not well!     "Stop whimpering! You are fine!"             I am NOT fine.                 NO, I'M IN PAIN!!!     "Sit down and eat your supper."             It hurts to sit down                    can't you tell                            didn't you hear my screams                                     can't you feel my PAIN??? "Clean up your plate.      Don't you appreciate how hard your mother...

--> Au Naturel : in a natural state; without anything added. Bare : devoid of amplification or adornment; lacking tools or weapons. Raw : not treated or prepared for presentation, marked absence of refinements, unprotected. Nude : without conventional covering; having a natural appearance. Naked : devoid of concealment or disguise; lacking embellishment. In the beginning, God’s children came into this world naked and naked they remained while in close communion with Him. It was only after Adam and Eve had gone against their Father’s wishes and partaken of the forbidden fruit that Satan pointed to their nakedness and shamed them for it, pushing them to hide themselves from God. It has been the story ever since. Death is a separation of our spirit and bodies. Eternal death or spiritual death is a separation from our Father in Heaven. This is the Adversary’s sole focus. And since the beginning he’s known just how to push us away from God. He villainizes our divine origin, ...

Looking back now, it’s all so obvious. But you know what they say about hindsight… The first time I cut my own hair, we were living in Wyoming, it was summer and I was hot. I was tired of trying to grow my hair out and we didn’t have money that day for me to go to a salon, so I just started chopping. It was liberating. Setting myself free from my heavy, overlong tresses. Okay, let’s be honest, my hair was just reaching my shoulders, but anyone that knows me knows that I’ve had short hair for over fifteen years. It’s just me. Though, there may be a mental block as to why that is… hmmm, I’ll have to ponder that one. I remember feeling like a new woman after giving myself that first haircut. Something inside me felt lighter, a little less stressed, a little less painful. That should have been my first clue. Well, that and the timing… it was a remarkably stressful time for me. Over the past seven years, I’ve continued to sporadically cut my hair. Though it’s gone from ...

A while ago, I was prompted to write about a place I had been, I chose to write about my experience inside depression. INSIDE It’s dark in this place.  The kind of dark that paralyzes every muscle and weighs heavy in one’s lungs. It presses in on my ears with its silence, causing them to ring.  I want to scream, but my mouth won’t open.  Every joint and ligament is tense, waiting to spring into action. The very marrow in my bones struggles against unseen restraints.  Sweat collects on my forehead from the effort.  My head spins as my breathing grows evermore shallow.  I’m on the verge of implosion, though, from outward view it probably seems like a quiet collapse.  It is not quiet.  The shrieking pain of it all pushes blood from my ears. I am dying.   No, I realize.  My fate is worse.  I’m a prisoner here.  Fear has me in his clasp and laughs at my timorous attempt to escape.  Hot tears pool in my ears, not blood, ...

The house is quiet… mostly. Except for the whispers of my boys who are determined not to sleep. Not that I can blame them, there’s a pretty awesome thunderstorm happening right now. I’m sitting in my dark office, watching lightning illuminate the world outside the large picture window. The almost dead, but refusing to die tree in the front yard is rocking rather precariously over my husband’s car. If I close my eyes and listen, I can hear the sophisticated symphony of the storm: wind whooshing, thunder rumbling soft and low in the distance, and rain slapping and tapping and patting the world around me. It’s a lovely lullaby. And yet, I can’t sleep. It's ironic that just a week or so after Bruncle was admitted to a residential treatment facility I was approached about publishing this essay about him. It was almost painful to say "Yes, I'd love to have it published" when it seemed to be null and void. It's not. Not completely anyway, but it felt li...

Dear Insecure, Unstable, Unlovable Girl, It’s not you. It’s me. Honest. I’ve outgrown your skin. I’m too big to live wrapped up tight in your shell, being an observer in my own life. I want to be the main character in my story. I’m no longer content to pass through my days listening to the voices in my head that write my life for me. I want to create my own magic. I’ve met this man. He’s a good man. He makes me laugh. He shows me all the ways I’m beautiful. He grounds me with his kisses and loves me inside my mess. But sometimes, I feel so lonely even when I’m wrapped in his arms. Then, late at night, I cry. I don’t want to cry anymore. I’m exhausted. I want to laugh all the time. To smile every moment, even in the chaotic, disappointing ones. I want to smile because I’m me. And being me is good. Being me is enough. I want to be present with my family, really present. I want to see and taste and smell them in the seconds that we share together. I want to experience ev...

There's a tree in my front yard that's quite pathetic. It has but a small tuft of leaves on its topmost branches. Many, strike that, all of its lower branches are long gone, stripped away by forceful winds. And yet the tree is hanging on, growing ever higher, its leaves as green or greener than its healthier, neighboring trees. It reaches for the sky, taller than all the others, waving its arms unceasingly. “I am still here,” it says, “I’m not done yet.” And I wonder, do the trees resent the wind? Would you if it had ripped away pieces of you, large important parts that define you? Do the trees hate the constant push and pull of the breeze? Do they shake as if to say, “go away you merciless bully, quit picking at me, and let me alone?” Are they scared of the storms? Perhaps they aren’t. What if, instead they loved the wind, thanked it for the constant companionship? Maybe they adore the way their leaves look as they wind whips through them, all shimmery in ...

Today is D-Day, a day that never really meant anything to me.  Just some distant event in a long bygone war that I had no part in. I'd read about it in high school, briefly studied it in college and seen and heard reference to it on the news over the years, but I never felt connected to it.  That was, until I met my husband. A few days after we met, I drove from Idaho to Utah with Geoff (a four hour drive each way, a nine-hour round trip).  We talked of many things on that drive, but what I remember the most is how Geoffrey spoke of his granddad, John Henry Davies.  He was a large, Welsh man, a boxer in the Royal Navy.  He had died just over a year before I met my husband and Geoff had gone to see him before his death, had been there when he died.  There was so much loved wrapped around the words Geoff used to describe his granddad.  He told me of the last conversation they had; it was mostly one way as his grandfather could no longer speak and could...

Let's be clear, I'm not God. Nor am I His spokesperson. But I have studied His words for the majority of my life. I've poured my heart out to Him. I have listened to His still, small voice. And, I hope, I've learned a few things about Him. Of course, I could be wrong... but as I understand it--in my understanding of God's love for His children--this is why He doesn't save all the starving orphans, all the children born into abuse, all the mothers who lose their little ones, all the little ones who never get to take their first breath of Earthly air, all the fathers who mourn the innocence of their children gone to the wiles of addiction and fornication, all the parents that never get to experience children of their own, all the men and women that lose their jobs, their families, their lives, all His children that experience pain in all its gloriously pervasive forms... Because God doesn't keep any of his children home. What does that mean? Let me expla...

*I began writing this last month, but have been stalling finishing, because vulnerability is scary and it's sacred.  I don't write this lightly, but I write it in hopes that somewhere someone else needs to hear what I have to say. Three years ago, my father died.  It was January 4, 2011.  On January 6, 2011, I called my husband and said, "Congratulations, we have a 400 lb.. 12 year old.  He's a mess, but he's ours."  And I smiled. And I cried.  Because as those words came out of my mouth, the reality set in: our lives would never be the same.  I was scared to death.  I was having second thoughts.  I was anxious about how we would actually do this.  And then a peace settled back into me as God reminded me that no matter what happened next, this was the right thing to do and He was with us every step of the way. And He has been.  But that doesn't mean it's been pleasant... or pretty... or calm... or happy.  It's been a very...

When I was pregnant with my first, I read several books, like What To Expect when You're Expecting , and the like.  I'd been babysitting since I was 10 and had taken care of countless infants.  I thought I'd had most things figured out.  Of course, like most new mothers, I was wrong in this assumption. There was a time, shortly after my son was born, where every evening when my husband came home from work, I would hand him the baby, and promptly lock myself in the bathroom, where I'd wallow in a hot bath, crying myself dry.  I'd lay there weeping in the tub, leaking from my eyes and my swollen breast as my  baby boy cried out in the hall and my husband asked through the too-thin door how long I'd be and if I could come out soon as the baby was hungry... again. That kid nursed every hour on the hour, for at least 40 minutes. Every day. For nearly a month. And I wondered how it was that my life had come to this: I was nothing more than a dairy cow.  Plu...

Today I learned that Congress is trying to cut my spouse's military retirement by 124K.  This literally makes me sick.  Our politicians have become so out of touch with America and its people; it's maddening.  So I wrote to my Senators in hopes that they might reconnect with the military families of America... if only through my little one here in Texas.  And I hope that no matter what the cause is, that you will write to your senators and congressmen, that you will picket, that you will organize groups to lobby, that, whether or not you agree with me politically, you will find something that matters to you and that you will do something, anything, about it, to help maintain a government for the people and by the people.  Throw tea for all I care, just do something. I sent the follwing letter to Senator Ted Cruz: Dear Senator Cruz, First of all, you are my hero for fighting the Affordable Care Act and all its unconstitutional ridiculousness.  Se...

There is verse of scripture that reads:   " for the  Spirit  speaketh the  truth  and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really  are , and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us  plainly , for the salvation of our souls. " ( Jacob 4:13 )  And this morning as I lounged in my bed, refusing to get out from under my down comforter, there was a bit of truth running around in my head.  A touch of something as it really is that has been nagging at me and, finally, I was able to give it a name. Romance. Wait.  What? That's right, I'm talking about romance.  Can the Spirit teach us about such things?  Certainly. You see, I posted this to facebook two nights ago:   "Writing poetry by firelight. My world is rather romantic. Or it would be if boys weren't having a bionicle war at my feet,  the laundry from winter ice storm adventures wasn't piling up ...