Things That Shatter: Family Ties

My Family

My parents, who had moved to Marble after my wedding and become fully involved in the community, decided to leave Marble in February of 1998. My mom asked in a community meeting if there was any sort of budget for the tithes, restitution and other income for the church that could be shared with the congregation. She was immediately condemned for daring to question the word of the lord (through Anne Byrd), and called out for a spirit of Jezebel that would sow seeds of mistrust in the community. 

The final straw for them came when another family at Marble (which happened to be Anne Byrd's brother and his wife) dared to question Anne and Barry and were formally excommunicated. We were told we could have no communication with this family or hear their side of the story. Their confessed sins were recited by Anne and Barry for the entire congregation to cast judgement and vote for excommunication, guided carefully by leadership. We were told that Anne's brother carried a spirit of Absolom, a character from the bible who was King David's third son, a rebel who set himself against his father and was killed.

The vote was almost unanimous, with a few abstentions from families who would leave Marble shortly thereafter. Community involvement in processes like this were a way for leadership to disperse responsibility for actions taken across the congregation so that no fingers could point directly at them. The guilt of our involvement in these events is the overwhelming reason that most of us who have left Marble have not told our stories. We all live with the burden of shame for our participation. After the excommunication, my parents had had enough, and they made plans to leave. 

When it became clear that my parents were making an exodus, Anne Byrd cautioned them that if they chose to “slander” Marble to the outside world that they, as leaders, would be forced to share with the community the sins that my parents had confessed to leadership. This was a reference to my father’s “confessed” lack of strong leadership and my mother’s insubordination to spiritual authority.

Shortly after this meeting, my dad was called into a meeting with some of the male leaders (my mother was not invited) and was told that he needed to get his household in order and bring his wife under submission. When leadership found little traction in this approach, my mom was counseled to “Matthew 18” my dad for his lack of leadership and apostasy of his spiritual authority over her.

My sister, who was turning19 in April of 1998, was desperate to stay in the community where she (as I) had found a network of peers were she felt that she belonged. The chronic church-hopping of our childhood and being homeschooled made us hungry to connect and belong in one place with people our own age.   

Even though she was legally an adult, the strength of belief in spiritual authority that both my family and the church carried meant that she could not stay on her own independent of a male covering. This was one thing that my parents and leadership agreed on. Until she was married there was no question in my parents' minds that our father would be the only appropriate covering for her. They would not give their blessing for my sister to stay.

My sister wrote a letter of appeal to Anne and Barry, requesting to be allowed to stay at Marble. In her letter she wrote that she felt called to Marble and that she couldn't follow my father away from the church because she lacked faith in his spiritual leadership. She wrote that she feared spiritual death if she would be required to stay with my family. 

The men then called a meeting and were required to vote either for or against taking ownership of my sister’s spiritual covering. My sister was planning to go into the Prep School and would be living in Steve Parker’s house and under his authority. Steve Melzer also took personal responsibility for her spiritual covering and after Prep School she would live with the Melzers until she was married.

At the meeting, her letter of appeal was shared but my parents were not given an opportunity to give their side of the story, nor even allowed to attend. Later, long after my dad requested a meeting with Barry about the issue, Barry responded with a scathing letter to my dad telling him how rebellious and insubordinate his spirit was in the request and how he couldn't think of indulging such a spirit. Having read both my father's letters to Barry and Barry's response recently, my stomach turns at the outright and oppressive bullying tactics that Barry employs in his response.  

It was made clear to the men that were gathered in that meeting that my father refused to hear the Holy Spirit regarding his daughter, basing the accusations once again on my dad's confessed weakness in spiritual leadership, and every man in the meeting (except for one) voted in support of the church assuming the role of her spiritual covering against my parent’s wishes. This was another example of the Byrds systematically use of the congregation to pass down decisions which they impressed upon members as revelation from god. 

The Shunning

After my parents left, momentum was building among families who had also cut ties with Marble, including my father-in-law, Paul Glanville, Anne’s brother and his family and several other people who departed from the community after the excommunication. From these families, letters were written to leadership, and up the accountability line to Dennis Peacocke and the Fellowship of Christian Leaders, the authority council that Anne and Barry claimed to be submitted to, as well as several letters sent to community members, pointing out damaging leadership style if not calling Marble out as a cult. 

My parents wrote a letter to Barry in defense of Jay Grimstead, a philosopher and pastor of some repute in the theological circles that we belonged to. Jay had made a public statement decrying Anne and Barry’s lack of accountability, controlling leadership style and the warning signs he saw during several months at Marble when he and his wife lived there during a sabbatical. Grimstead, along with other former members who dared to speak out, or "slander" leaders at Marble, was heralded as heretics and false prophets, according to one of Barry’s sermons. Slander became one of the hottest buzz words at Marble during this time, used liberally to refer to anything said about Marble that leadership didn't agree with. 

We were warned to keep our distance from the dissenters and the spirit of rebellion that was seeking to destroy the work of the lord. At the end of 1998, it was determined that all relationships with slandering former members should be cut off. They should be “shunned” from fellowship, with the intention of using “tough love” to bring them back into covenantal relationship. For me and my sister, this meant that we needed to tell our parents that we could not longer have relationship with them until they repented for the slander and rebellious attack against Marble.

We wrote letters to them, delineating the trespasses that they had committed against us and our covenant family and casting judgement on them for their spiritual rebellion. 

Until my sister married some time later. My dad could not bring himself to recognize the newly, self-appointed spiritual authority in her  life and the rift was painful. When she married her husband (who had come to the prep school from a sister church in Zillah), she was walked down the aisle by Steve Melzer. My parents were invited at the last minute through a special dispensation of grace from leadership, but they decided against coming to bear witness to the rejection of their role in her life. 

The repercussions of this process on our family would last for years. My journal is filled with entries crying out about the deeply conflicting thoughts, beliefs and feelings about cutting off relationship with my parents. In one journal entry I list off several repentances I needed to make, including one to Anne Byrd for "Unholy loyalty based on uncovenantal relationships and damaged trust." I remember having several conversations with Anne and Cheryl about how wrong it felt, how dishonoring I thought I was being. The response was sympathetic but staunch. Anne had, after all, excommunicated her own brother and his family. 

Excerpt from a letter to my parents, dated May 4th, 2002: 

    “Today is Emily’s wedding, and the place that only you can fill is painfully empty, but I believe God has a plan for all of us in this. Emily has so much to learn, and many of life’s lessons require the pain of many people. I am thankful for your willingness to endure the pain for the sake of growth. 

  "I confidently speak for Emily when I say that you are the best and only parents that we could have asked for, to raise us into our destiny and make us who we need to be to maximize God’s plan for our lives. We love you, and we thank God for you.”

Things About Dominion: Control and Intimidation

"God isn't concerned with your present happiness." - Anne Byrd

Stealing Their Joy 

My second pregnancy was overshadowed by a deep depression that I could not shake. Reaching out to my sister and friends for support resulted in a meeting at Anne Byrd’s house. There all of my peers, my sister, best friend, sister-in-law and more all took a turn telling me how my self focus and sloth (the biblical term for depression) had been disillusioning them about marriage and the futures that they were looking forward to. That I was destroying the hope of many young women at Marble. None of these girls were married yet or had any children. We were all around the same age. I had gotten an early start on this “ideal” lifestyle and I think some of them were even jealous of my new family and felt like I was being ungrateful.

Keep in mind, these young women did not know the details of what was going on in my marriage. All they knew was that I was feeling sorry for myself because my life wasn’t the fairy tale I had dreamed of. In that meeting I was asked to repent to all of them for stealing their joy and robbing them of hope for the future. I choked out the words of repentance through blinding tears and went home even more devastated than when I had arrived.

Interestingly enough, not long after this meeting in one of the “training sessions” ahead of Marble’s annual Banquet & Ball event, Anne Byrd herself would warn all of the young ladies that sex was a drudgery that they would be required to perform at some point for their spouse and the greatest gift a husband could give his wife was abstinence. She repeatedly shared her disgust with sex and mocked Barry and other men for their buffoon-like need for it.

My journals during this time include a daily repentance for “self focus” and a constant travail about the self absorption that was holding me back from my place in the Kingdom. This spirit of sloth, self focus, as well as a handful of other random sins, were touted as the disqualifiers for me to be involved in various activities and projects in the community. As time went on I would be accepted into and then removed from Anne Byrd’s newly beginning Prep School. First a “drama instructor” and then as an auditing student.

I wanted so badly to immerse myself in the learning and the social life that I saw my peers enjoying, but I was repeatedly “disqualified” when my house was not kept well (another frequent repentance in my journals), my t-shirt was deemed too tight or I had had an episode of self-pity, crying with a friend, who would promptly report it to Anne. When the sins of my husband and my subsequent self-focus came to light, Anne decided I was no longer qualified to help instruct since my “home wasn’t in order.” She considered letting me audit some classes but after meetings (like the one with all of the girls) she decided I might bring the class down and I wouldn’t be allowed to sit in.

Still intent on staying in the loop, I got some of the teaching materials that Anne was using and did some of the bookwork on my own, including one of her favorite texts to teach from, Dedication and Leadership by Douglas Hyde. Written by a former Marxist, the book outlines the strategy of the party in recruitment and how to strategically maneuver people, applying principles of psychology to manipulate a population into compliance with a specific agenda.

The Secondborn

I wasn’t ready for another baby. I barely knew what to do with the one I had. Halle was such a good, happy girl. Without the support of David’s mom, who lived next door, and Halle’s own resilient personality, I am not sure how I would have taken care of her.

I was confronted again by some members of my Cell Group of  young married couples for my rebellion against God and rejecting the baby he had given me. They held a “prayer counseling” session over me and the baby,  casting out the “spirit of rejection” and my self focus and prophesying an embrace of the new life growing inside of me in spite of my unworthiness. I wept and repented to God for my rebellion against his will.

MacKenzie was born in July. My journals paint a happier picture than I remember, but I was intent on capturing in words the gratitude that would kill my spirit of self focus. The same midwife that delivered Halle was on hand for MacKenzie’s birth. Throughout both pregnancies I had never consulted with a doctor.

MacKenzie came into the world on a blazing hot day. She brought with her a fiery personality to compliment her strawberry blonde hair. She and Halle couldn’t have been more opposite in their demeanors, but both were very good babies, which I count as a mercy being barely 19 years old with a newborn and a one year old.

James Buck and Sons

After a year or two bouncing around between part time and minimum wage jobs, David was hired by Jim Buck, who was a licensed contractor. David had no building experience so to be expected he started at the bottom of the food chain, slightly above minimum wage. After some time on the crew the Bucks pulled all of the families who worked for them together and pitched a proposal to change their corporation into an LLC, with each crew member owning 1% of the business.

They preached an opportunity for us all to become “sons of the vision” and invested in the business, telling us we’d get our percentage of the profits at the end of every year. The only downside, they said, was that we’d be on our own for any L&I, unemployment, and other insurance etc, since the guys would now basically be working for themselves. Being young and naive and wanting to buy in as “sons of the vision” we all agreed, and the business was re-branded James Buck and Sons.

Never once (as far as I know) in the following years did any crew member see a percentage of the profits. Ronnie Buck artfully “reinvested” the profits into “gifts” she could write off and presented us at the end of the year with a selection of crappy items from Walmart. Meanwhile, the young and inexperienced crew had no worker’s compensation coverage, and when work dried up in the winter time, no unemployment benefits. It was brilliant on the part of the Bucks, and the cost to us was on our own heads for foolishly buying in.

As far as ownership or any autonomous perks in the business go, the one time that I tried to appeal a decision that Jim and Ronnie made denying a day off that David and I had requested, I was met with a wrath unlike anything I have ever seen. We caught the Bucks after church and I asked why we were not allowed the day off, and if there was a way around it. I don’t remember why it was important to me now, but I believe there was a family event happening with my parents and siblings.

Ronnie burst into tears and told me that she had never felt so dishonored by someone under her leadership and spiritual authority in her life. She went on a tirade about how much she had laid down her life for us while Jim went and pulled Anne and Barry in to reprimand me for “biting the hand that feeds” us. I was shut down. Hard. It would not be the last time that I would face that kind of fury from a “dishonored” leader.

Core Group members would frequently meet any question of their authority or decision making with an outrage at being “dishonored.” Toni Parker (Steve’s wife) once railed on me for dishonoring her when I asked her son to leave church early to make it on-time to a practice in Kettle Falls (which he had committed to) where a handful of us were studying Irish Dance with Deirdre Abeid. Her reaction was so off the wall outrageous that another leader (again Jeanne Ochs) stepped in and stood her down. I believe we had a “meeting” about it later at which I was required to repent to Toni for dishonoring her.

Restitution

The principle of restitution was visited upon community members in many arbitrary ways. The most bitter memory for me was after my husband and I had moved into our house on Marble Flats proper, we had enough money from our tax return to buy a brand new washer and dryer from Sears. I was so divinely happy. That set was the nicest, newest thing I had ever owned. My first real appliance. Shortly after we bought and installed the pair a member of our cell group, called a meeting with David and I and Steve and Cheryl Melzer. She told us that while MacKenzie had been hospitalized (more on this later), and she had been “serving us” by doing our laundry, my husband had neglected to clean everything out of his pockets and some nails had made her washer begin to spit rust into loads of clothes, ruining several items.

For restitution, she felt that the only thing that would remedy the distress she experienced would be a brand new washer. The machine I had was identical to hers, only newer. Steve and Cheryl asked if a lesser form of restitution would work, such as us paying for repairs, but the other woman didn’t want to have to deal with fixing the washer and it potentially having problems again. So in order to “restore relationship” I was required to trade appliances with this person.

When we took apart her older washer to fix it, we found no nails - only gobs of rusty bobbi pins (I had never used a bobbi pin in my life and the other woman was an ad-hoc hairdresser at the time). After we cleaned it out it ran like a charm for the rest of my time at Marble. While her brand new washer turned out to be a lemon that she had to pay hundreds of dollars to repair repeatedly. She called a meeting and tried to force me to trade back but the Melzers shut her down.

David’s $9.00/hour salary was also garnished (I don’t remember the amount) when he had to pay “restitution” to the community for sins he confessed to. This restitution went straight into the non-accountable church fund managed by the Byrds, and came straight out of the mouths of my children. This “restitution” went on for months, if not years. Many other individuals and families had to meet similar requirements.

There are endless stories from survivors of Marble about arbitrary restitution, including one family who “donated” thousands of dollars to pay the cost of drilling an unsuccessful well after the head of the household confessed to some sort of transgression and they were accused of bringing "sin into the camp." This violation was thought to have dried up the well site that had been selected based on a word from the Lord. In another instance the theft of a candy bar from the small mercantile was repaid to the tune of $500. Another community member was required to give her electronic keyboard to the church because she had no money to pay restitution for whatever sin she had confessed.

Headmaster Parker

Another involuntary offering that we were required to pay came when Steve Parker and other leaders at Marble decided he had been called to start a high school for the home schooled students of that age. With some teaching background (I have no idea where or what he taught), leadership ordained him as “Headmaster” and required each family at Marble to pay a portion of the amount that Parker deemed necessary to maintain the lifestyle he desired. The total amount was divided equally between every family at Marble, regardless of the age or number of children, or if they had any. I had two small children and the time and our monthly income was already being tapped for “restitution.”

It was during this season that Steve Parker oversaw the high school boys’ fundraiser to build a basketball court at Marble. The young men worked all summer to raise enough to pour a concrete slab, rounding up somewhere in the area of $6000 with car washes and various efforts. A member of the community donated materials to build concrete forms. When all the work was done and the boys needed money to pay for the concrete pour,  Parker sidestepped their request, making them instead rewrite their “mission statement” for the project and rejecting several drafts. After weeks of this type of avoidance, two of the young men leading the charge requested to address the issue in a community meeting.
 At the meeting, Parker opened it with the announcement that two boys were being expelled from the high school after they had been caught looking at porn online. Using this as some sort of verification that the collective of the young men had “disqualified” themselves from the privilege of a basketball court, he went on to claim he expended the money they raised on textbooks. Students who were attending Parker’s high school at the time contend that the handful of books purchased were far from equal to the amount of money raised. When one of the young men stood up and questioned this, he was immediately met with outrage from another leader for “dishonoring” Parker’s decision. The meeting escalated to a shouting match which Barry Byrd shut down with an admonition to the youth to respect and honor their elders. Not another word was to be said about the basketball court.

The details of this incident can be elaborated more eloquently by several of the men that were students at the time. There was some speculation about where the money went, but most of the students in the high school were keenly aware of a new shop being constructed on Steve Parker’s property since they were conscripted to “volunteer” their services to help build it out of respect to their headmaster. This was only one of many free labor projects that the young people were required to perform for leaders.

Looking back through my journals where I kept monthly budgets and expenses, there are hundreds of dollars every month paid to various entities set up to manage “utilities” on Marble. In addition to Marble Utility District, we were paying a decent sized chunk to Marble Flats (which I think was some version of an HOA) and some other bills for which I cannot pinpoint a purpose. None of the budgets for these various funds were available to community members for many years and they were, to my knowledge, managed exclusively by the Byrds and Rick Johnson.

Things That Are The Worst

There's this self-help guru out there on the inter webs named Tim Ferris, and other than having a stellar six pack and rocking a bald head almost as well as Bruce Willis, I am not sure what he exactly does that makes him so amazing, other than writing some pretty decentish things, which is something that I aspire to (along with a stellar six pack). But whatever it is that he is famous for, he's so good he only needs a website with his first name : https://tim.blog/ - also something I should aspire to, except http://liv.blog/ has a WAY cooler vibe than his. Anyway, Ferris - Tim, that is, has this thing he talks about called fearsetting. It's like goalsetting, except the un-side of it. Like, what you DON'T want to happen. When I stumbled across Tim's fearsetting TED talk, it occurred to me that I had actually been fearsetting in my own life for several years.

The first time that I remember consciously doing it was when I was in Uganda , trying to sleep in the searing heat under a mosquito net with tarantula sized holes in it. I was having a full-fledged panic attack. I couldn't breathe enough to gasp out the sobs that my soul was working up, and it wasn't the mosquitos or the tarantulas, since I am pretty sure there aren't any tarantulas in Uganda. It was as if I had suddenly realized, laying down to sleep, that I was, at a bare minimum, two days of travel away from my four little girls, without the resources or ability to get to them if something went wrong. I was a single mom, beyond poor, halfway around the world from my kids. The fear and doubt and guilt that raced through my mind that night was crippling. I couldn't escape it, so I faced it. Starting with the Worst Thing I Could Imagine, I looked each fear in the eye and asked myself what I would do. If one of my girls was hurt -  how would I deal? I made a plan, who I could call, how I could get there. Then I faced the next fear, until I worked my way down the Worst Case Scenario List, making plans, until I had taken away all of the reasons to not go on with my trip and sleep soundly that night.

That, in an nutshell, is fearsetting. It's looking the most Terrible Thing You can Imagine in the face and asking yourself what you would do. Once you find an answer, the fear subsides. And there is always an answer.

On a daily basis we deal with anxiety about relationships and money and decisions, when the reality is that the thing that we are freaking out about is something we have probably already faced (which makes them rational fears, but fears nonetheless). When I panic about the risk of a being dumped or rejected or abandoned, I remember when I was, and I think about how I survived it, and how I would survive it better now. When I fear financial destitution, I reflect back on the moments of absolute poverty-stricken impossibility and how I got back on my feet by digging all of the quarters out of the couch cushions to buy gas to get to work. I wish I could say I was exaggerating.

I have never faced the loss of a child, or even a very close loved one, but I can imagine the disabling grief and when I am overwhelmed with the knowledge that their protection, especially as they launch into their own lives as adults, is out of my hands, I have to find peace in knowing I have the people around me to keep me together if something like that happened. And if I don't, I'd better get busy finding them.

Fears are really the things that keeps us from our goals. Fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of wasted time, energy, passion - those are my big things. I have never really had money to fear losing, and failure is such a ritual procedure for me that it doesn't scare me that much, but wasting one more day of this infinitely short life (yes, that's an oxymoron), scares the shit out of me. It's like FOMO (fear of missing out, for all you old people) on speed, because instead of missing out on like, the best Halloween party EVER, you're missing out on years of your life - or you gave them away like an idiot to some jerkface who didn't appreciate them.

So I face that fear, the fear of wasting time, and I look at all of the things that I have brought with me from the "wasted" years. Four AMAZING kids. Skillz. Mad skillz. Insight. Compassion. Empathy. Humility. A complete Battlestar Gallactica DVD set. So how wasted were those years? Look where they brought me! To a place I would never be otherwise, with people I might never have known. The fear subsides and I look forward to the next adventure. I pray that it is one that will last, but if it isn't, I know I will have gained even more.

So that's where I am at. Eating fear for breakfast along with pain and failure and stomping off all of the negative vibes. Or at least most days I am. Why we, as humans, and especially me, are so intent on finding the things to worry about when we have such good things to be doing, cookies to eat and dogs to pet and just, LIFE! But we, me especially, have to bog the good things down with the what ifs. And what if things were just fine? What if we had nothing to fear because we always have a way out? I say these things to remind myself that even the Worst Things can, and will be survived, so I might as well enjoy all of the Best Things that surround me every day.

Lost Munu

Things About Driving

I have had this recurring nightmare for several months. It changes setting and the details are usually different, but the overall theme is the same, and the horrible feeling that comes along with it. In every dream, I am being pushed backwards by some invisible force - like gravity. Sometimes I am in a car, or walking, or some other mode of transportation, some of which I don't remember, but against my will I begin to roll backwards, picking up momentum. No amount of braking, dragging my hands and feet, screaming, or trying to jump off will stop the ride. Into traffic, against traffic, I roll, going faster and faster. In one of my dreams, a friend's young child was behind me and I couldn't stop my car. It was the most horrific, helpless feeling. I woke up in a cold sweat with tears running down my face. I had the same dream last night, but it was me and Aspen, maybe on a bike or something, rolling back down a huge hill with no way to stop. Traffic rushing at us, gaining speed with every second. We were locked on and couldn't bail off. I was completely out of control.

Some days this feels like it's happening to me when I am awake.

I am hearing it now, the message. The voice of the universe is whispering to me about the powerless route that my life has been taking for years. The forces driving backwards against my will into chaos and danger and destruction. I want off of this ride. Last night something in my dream shifted and I began to push back with my hands and my feet and my voice with all of my might. I barely slowed the momentum, but I was doing SOMETHING. This is where I am. I am ready to push back and fight and not be ruled by the bad decisions and fears that have been directing me for more than 20 years. Maybe I won't stop the train right away, but I am gonna create a hell of a drag until I can get it turned around and heading the right way.

I am ready to be in the driver's seat of my life for once, as much as somebody can be. Not being blown around by every landmine and catastrophe that falls in my lap. Not being distracted by the easy outs and hand outs and bail outs and escape routes (beer, anyone?). I want to push through until I crest that hill and gravity takes me where I want to go. I want to quit coasting backwards. I want to quit having nightmares. I look around at my friends and family and realize that I have so much to be thankful for, and we all have things in our lives that are out of our control. It's how we handle the hits that define who we are as people and I have spent many years coasting around my circumstances instead of wrestling them back to the place I want to be. Its the action (or the inaction) that I take that determines my direction. It's time to be the driver of my own life.

Things I Declare

In the spirit of National Fail At Life Week, I totally bombed on my NaBloMo commitment to post every single day in the month of November. (Sorry, Amaia.) Arguably, this can be overcompensated for by multiple daily blog posts between now and the end of the month, but in the words of that immortal philosopher, Thumper, "if you can't say something nice..." And I just haven't had many nice words.

Until today.

Maybe it was the triumph of finally, if ineffectively, grounding an insolent 17 year old. Or letting go of sleep depriving nightmares about things that ultimately, are out of my control, no matter which option I take. Maybe it was stepping up to the plate of responsibility and turning down something that I wanted in order to save something that I needed. Perhaps it's the acknowledgement that NO AMOUNT of worrying, freaking out, or denying will make certain things so. Maybe it's the undying affection of a blind, obese wiener dog, who would give anything for one good snuggle, or to sleep in the arm of a hoodie for the night. Or it might be that every single fail, all of the obstacles, and each pitfall that I have encountered lately all say the same thing to me, over and over: "you're hilarious". They giggle at my foolish attempts to control the evil universe around me, they mock my feeble swings at Looking Perfectly Together. And they remind me, over and over again, that I am, in the words of my gentle ex-husband : "more broken than anyone I know." And I am. Gladly. Because it's brokenness that brings healing. And growth. Even with the pain. The only people who aren't broken are the ones who aren't living.

All of that being said, I have some Declarations About Life that I feel compelled to make:

First, and Of The Greatest Importance:

It's The Holidays

So get with the program! It is now officially time for egg nog, snow, mittens, decorations, sledding, eating Too Much and Too Well, hot buttered rum and mulled wine. Gone are the doldrums of fall and the mediocrity of seasonless apathy. Now is the time to celebrate family and love and All of The Reasons that WE ARE. 

My next declaration to you, the Whole Universe, is that I am sorry. I cannot fix it all. And for the time being, I am going to quit trying. Also, I cannot control it all. Or even any of it. So don't look at me like that. All I can do is take the next step in the Best Way I can imagine, and if you see a better way, feel free to point it out kindly. But don't think I didn't try. 

Thirdly, in the order of global announcements, I believe in Kindness. But at some point, tough is better than kind. And after many moons of "falling on my sword" and "dealing with myself", etc, etc, etc, I think I need a cosmic minute to bust a cap in the A** of destiny. Because, dude, really? Enough is enough. Take your stupid somewhere else. It's certainly not ALL my fault, and until you stop dealing from the bottom of the deck, I'd rather not play. 

In my declarations I am in no way condoning the use of Christmas Music before-after Thanksgiving, or December 1st, or Easter, or whichever your family standard is. And I am not recommending busting Ye Olde Holly and Ivy out of turn with the Cornucopia. To each his own Holiday Observations. But as for ME and MY Irreverent, Ridiculous, Totally Overrun With Hormonal Emotions House, GAME ON. 

We're watching Elf tonight. Because It's The Holidays.