Brave, Anyway

Tag: divorce

  • Life Goes On, Fite Girl

    Life Goes On, Fite Girl

    Remember that show in the 1980s called Life Goes On? Patti Lupone was the Mom, a young Kelly Martin played her daughter and a young Chris Burke played her son Corky (the first actor with Down Syndrome that I remember being on TV).

    The intro to that show was a little jingle that went something like this:

    Ob-la-di ob-la-da

    life goes onnnnnnnn brahhhhhh

    La-la how the life goes on

    When the show opened each week, that jingle played to images of the family throughout the morning – children hogging the bathroom, the coffee pot, Dad deciding not to exercise. And, of course, over the years the visuals in the intro changed as the characters grew older and changed.

    But one thing that stayed the same is that throughout the morning routine, their dog Arnold waited patiently for someone to feed him. As they all got dressed, as they came into the kitchen to get juice, as they greeted friends picking them up, as they had their coffee. Arnold waited with his red food dish and it seemed like his wait was never-ending.

    In the very last episode, the intro was updated and at the very last second as he’s about to lay down and give up, Arnold’s big bag of food falls out of a cabinet next to him and he is no longer waiting. He has food in abundance, and can eat as much as he wants.

    Life Goes On Intro

    I’ve waited a whole year to get my name back. Like Arnold the dog holding my dish, watching life go on around me and just hoping at some point that my dish would be full and I’d feel…I don’t know what I thought I’d feel, really.

    Yesterday, I officially got my name back. And a beloved friend reminded me of the verse I recently discovered in Joel: “I will restore or replace for you the years the locust has eaten.”

    My name *restored.*

    And it was kind of anti-climactic, actually. I worked, rushed to get Ella to her youth retreat, saw my Mom for a few minutes, exchanged funny messages with my sister, and then headed to Dave and Busters with Audrey.

    Life Goes On.

    Beth is the same core Beth, who just keeps moving and is always surrounded by family.

    And God is the same faithful God, restoring something as promised. Restoring it even earlier than everyone told me to expect. And yet restoring it just when I was feeling so tired I wanted to lay down my big red dish and pout about my restoration not coming.

    I have not thought about the show Life Goes On for years, and yet I woke up this morning thinking about that song and that show and that dog. I had to actually google the dog’s name because I couldn’t remember it, only to find that it was Arnold – my Dad’s middle name.

    My Dad’s last name is Fite, the name now restored to me.

  • Here’s Your Proof, Brave Girl

    Yesterday, I signed the name Beth Ranee Dembitz for the last time. And I had this crazy thought that the person with that name is a stranger to me. I am no longer her. She is no longer me.

    I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year thinking about the fact that the person I married is not at all who I thought, but it didn’t occur to me until today that I may be different than who I thought. And I recalled this gem from Iain Thomas: “Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I have ever been.”

    I read it a few months ago, couldn’t wrap my head around it at the time, and dismissed it. I recalled it yesterday and realized that it does speak to me.

    My experiences in the last 12 months have changed how I think about some things, but they haven’t changed who I actually am. I think we all often think of ourselves in relation to other people – as the wife or husband of someone, as the mom or dad of someone, as the child of someone. For 20+ years I’ve thought of myself, in part, as in connection with someone. Recently, I’ve been purposely thinking of myself more and more as just me. I’m a Mom, and that role is the most important one in my life – but it’s still only a part of who I am. What’s actually true is that I am the kind of Mom I am, and the kind of friend and daughter and sister I am, because of me and who I am. Because of who I am on my own.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always relied on faith.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life my immediate response to challenge is to circle the wagons and prepare for a fight.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always project-managed whatever is happening.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always been able to find the funny.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life that’s been filled with adversity I have always had to figure out the why and be angry as I overthought all the possible reasons.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always made my way back to hope. Hope in something bigger than this seemingly broken world. Hope that most people are fundamentally good. Hope that things will all work out OK in the end. Hope that everything can somehow work out for our good.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always been a difficult child who demanded that God show me signs that He’s really there and that I’m on the right path and that I’m doing the right things.

    Everything has changed and yet, I always end up light-hearted and hopeful and happy again. That’s not entirely happened for me yet in this period of my life, but I am on my way.

    Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I have ever been.

    Yesterday I signed papers that will, in just a couple of weeks, formally change my name back to Beth Fite. And you know what? She’s me. Beth Dembitz is also Beth Fite, and she always has been. Beth at 3 and Beth at 10 and Beth at 20 and Beth at 30 and Beth at 45 all have the same core characteristics – prank-playing, over-sharing, organized, somewhat superstitious while faith-filled, demanding, impatient, controlled chaotic. The only difference is that the Beth of other ages always got back to hope, and the Beth at 45 is not quite there yet.

    Hope requires bravery. Hope means I trust that my daughters will grow up to be strong women who believe in love and marriage despite how their parents’ marriage worked out. Hope is expectation that my daughters will persist and have happy lives filled with people who only want the best for them. Hope is belief beyond a shadow of a doubt that those things will absolutely happen. So I guess you’d say my hope is still a work in progress.

    And yet there’s absolutely no reason for my hope to still be at the work-in-progress stage. The proof that God has a sense of humor and He wants me to find the funny in all things and He is still willing to entertain my constant petulant demand for signs that I’m on the right path, is that my papers arrived for signature this week on the day of Halloween. On a day I was dressed in a costume chosen by Ella many, many weeks ago.

    I signed the papers to restore my name and to formally and legally change my life while dressed as Merida, from the movie Brave.

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  • Kinda Prickly Brave Girl Wannabe

    It’s been a year. A year since everything changed for my family.

    I thought I’d wake up sad on the anniversary, but I didn’t. I’m not sure what that says about me and I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with it, but it’s the truth and so it is what it is.

    I also thought I might wake up angry. I pray a thousand things for my girls every day and I pray only one thing for myself – please take away my anger.

    I think the most accurate description of my more recent demeanor came from a very funny coworker. Beth is better but she’s a little prickly…kinda like a porcupine. I seriously laughed out loud when I heard it. Porcupines have sharp pines to protect themselves and their children from predators, and the truth is I have been in prickly mode and have shot more than a few quills in the last 12 months. But those comments were honest and with affection, and I appreciate the people in my life who I can be totally honest with and who can be totally honest with me – and who call me out on my BS. It’s not easy being my friend, and I know it.

    I have been working on getting up each day and putting something positive in front of my eyes before I put my phone or social media in front of them. I fail at it regularly. I woke up this morning, on the anniversary of all of our change, and picked up my phone. Pinterest was what I had open last and that’s what came up when my screen saver went away. Only what I saw was not a post I’d been looking at yesterday. It was a completely new post and it had a scripture I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen.

    Joel 2:25 – “I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten.”

    I looked up that verse across different versions of the Bible and the NIV says “I will repay you for the years the locust has eaten.”

    I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe that everything happens for a reason. We may not understand that reason for days or months or years, but there’s a reason. After a frustrating search I found my daughters’ greatest helper, an art therapist, through someone I met at a mutual friend’s house for just a couple of hours just a few weeks prior. There’s a reason that my ex and I elected to attend an annual party we have never gone to. There’s a reason that that which was meant to stay hidden in darkness was revealed.

    I don’t have all the reasons yet. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that I awoke to that verse for a reason. It’s a promise, and I have been repeating it over and over in my head all day.

    And you know what else? I’m not angry today. And that’s so weird because 24 hours ago I was pretty angry. But I have been at peace all day, and I have no explanation for it. I didn’t have a big cry or a big shouty catharsis or a big anything. I just woke up different, and I read “I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten.”

    I may have angry moments ahead and I may have sad moments ahead, but I also have happiness ahead. And I have contentment ahead. And I have freedom ahead. And I have wholeness ahead.

    I have restoration ahead. “I will restore for you…” Restoring is repairing, fixing, mending – that’s how we deal with things that are broken. Broken is not the end. Broken is fixable. The only reason for anyone to embrace brokenness is fear. Fear of doing the hard work. Fear of failing. Fear of being vulnerable. Fear of exposure. Fear of consequences. Fear we are not actually worthy. Fear we will find we are not actually fixable.

    Perhaps one of the most brave things any of us can do is embrace restoration. To face restoration we have to admit that we are fallible. We have to embrace our ability to be mad and sad and laugh and pick up a sword and slay dragons and roar all at the same time.

    Remember high school history class and looking at your textbook with pictures from The Restoration Period? It produced a lot of great art, and in many of those paintings you see people with swords. That’s because restoration involves a fight. And in a stroke of what’s-not-an-actual-coincidence, that just happens to be my name. Or rather, it’s my family name – the name that is about to be restored to me.

    On the last day that the Dembitz’s existed, he bought me fancy overpriced sunglasses. It was such a treat for me and I was truly delighted to get them. I can’t own expensive sunglasses, because I can’t be trusted with them – odds are that I will repeat history and I will sit on them and break them. (This has happened more times than I care to admit.) Those Tiffany glasses were returned long ago, during my days of cloudy sadness, without my ever wearing them because to me they represented a lie.

    And I did not think again about those glasses until now. My current sunglasses are on their last leg of a sad life in the seat of my car, where they regularly get sat on. On a whim and in that good mood I woke up in, I went shopping. I bought new overpriced sunglasses – purchased by me for me. They are gold and fancy and glittery, and totally outside of my comfort zone.

    I picked up my sword and restored something. You might even say that I restored one of the things that the locust had eaten.

    Brave Girls can buy their own damn sunglasses.

    IMG_6368
    Photo Assistance by Audrey

  • Brave Girl Stories, in Pictures

    I love photographs. Color photos. Black and white photos. Sepia photos. Panoramic photos. School photos. Nature photos. War photos. Historical event photos.

    Not only do I take a ton of pictures thanks to the convenience of my iPhone, I have tons of old photos in boxes and frames around my house. And a few times a year I still have prints made, and I meticulously put pictures of the girls and our family into albums for each of them so that at some point they can browse through their childhood memories (in order, courtesy of OCD).

    I love anyone’s and everyone’s old photos. I will look at them repeatedly and notice tiny details and reason in my head about what led up to the photo, what followed the photo, and what environment surrounds the photo. Photos tell stories, and I guess more than anything, when you boil it down, I am actually in love with the history and the stories that photos document.

    In the last few months I’ve felt awkward about photographs. I want to continue to document the girls’ childhood memories and not have a big gap in their lives and in their books, but documenting a part of their life that includes sadness and grief feels…not wrong, necessarily, but also not right. And yet everyone’s life includes periods of sadness and grief, so why does it feel odd? Is it wrong to show us vulnerable? It’s not wrong to show myself vulnerable, but it does feel wrong to reveal their vulnerability and their down moments. So is the answer then to only show the pictures of the phases of our life that are fantastic? That’s also wrong. Not only is that what we all see all the time – everyone’s day  boiled down to an adorable “your story” on Facebook and Instagram – it’s not the truth.

    And yet at the same time, I feel like it’s wrong when I do post some of our daily happy pictures. We are actually laughing and having fun when we’re at bowling alleys and trampoline parks and farms and our driveway, but if I show us having fun will people think we’re fine – that we’ve moved on and life is great and we’re past our little speed bump? That life is back to fantastic? Back to blessed? That’s not the truth, either.

    And then…the big what if. What if happy pictures lead people to believe that what happened wasn’t really a big deal because we’re able to have fun so quickly – and if so, does that mean that what happened to our family wasn’t really all that bad?

    That thought makes me angry. Just because we make decisions to find positives and to find some happy and to experience some joy – and make no mistake, those are DECISIONS we make – does not in any way make a statement as to the severity of the actions of others who hurt my girls. They persevere despite those actions. They persist despite those actions. They keep moving despite those actions.

    But I digress. The point, I guess, is that I think of pictures differently now. Maybe I overthink pictures. I desperately want Ella and Audrey to look back at this time and not just think about the fact that our family changed. I want them to look back and be able to see how courageous they were. See how far they’ve come. See that they could always count on me. See that I was strong.

    I think they’ll be able to see some of that. But I think they may also look back on a photo and think ‘that’s the picture where we were feeding a piglet, but earlier that day Mom really shouted at Dad.’ That’s what I think when I look at some of the photos, so I have to assume they will, too. And that makes me sad. And yet, it is truth.

    I keep mulling over this snippet from The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt.

    ‘You really believe that there are subjects that shouldn’t be photographed?’ George said. He spoke evenly and softly.
    ‘Maybe I do,’ I said, thinking aloud.
    ‘You believe in censorship then,’ said Stephen.
    I looked up at Stephen. His face was tight, combative. ‘Not censorship,’ I said slowly. ‘That’s external. I mean control from the inside. After all, pictures can lie, too, can convey falseness rather than truth.’

    We need to tell more of the stories behind our photos, so that we are all a little more real with each other. Here’s our story in three photos from this weekend, and it’s really the story of the stages of girl vanity.

    Audrey is in disguise in her picture. Basically, I think the young just don’t care what they look like in photos. Audrey wants to try every snapchat filter every day. I also regularly find pictures she’s taken to try to see up her own nose or in her own ear, or where she’s trying to see how big she can make her teeth appear. The young either find all photos of themselves awesome in some way or they don’t think twice about the photo after they realize they cannot see up their nose into their brain.

    Girls in the middle of growing up care a lot about photos. Ella takes photos of herself all the time and although it doesn’t seem possible, I think she discards more photos than she keeps. Middle School social media is somewhat confusing, but I think it can be summed up like this: girls like all the photos posted by all other girls at their school, but then hop onto House Party with just the girls they actually like to talk about the photos they just “liked” posted by girls they may or may not like whose photos they didn’t really like. Got that? I mean, it’s so simple really.

    And then there’s the old: me. Instead of “old,” maybe we’ll just characterize that group as women over 40. When we end up with a picture where only *some* of our wrinkles show, especially at a time we’re trying to grow our hair out, we call that a win.

    AGGI0322

  • Why don’t we say Partly Sunny?

    The word broken means a lot more than I thought it did.

    I’ve always thought of broken as not working and not fixable. Like a mirror – once it’s broken, it’s done. Nothing but an annoying thing you need to clean up (as you’re trying not to cut yourself) and throw away.

    But according to dictionary.com, broken actually has a lot of definitions.

    • fragmented
    • fractured
    • torn
    • (of sky cover) being more than half, but not totally, covered by clouds
    • changing direction abruptly
    • incomplete
    • interrupted
    • disrupted
    • disconnected
    • weakened in strength, spirit
    • not smooth

    These definitions make me think differently about broken. Broken isn’t always a mirror that will never be used again. Sometimes it’s a toy that a child thinks will never work again, when really that toy just needs new batteries. Sometimes it’s a cell phone that just needs a little time to rest and dry out in rice. Sometimes it’s a leg that needs to be in a cast while it heals. Sometimes it’s an egg that’s a necessary ingredient for a cake.

    Broken is not the end.

    Broken is when your life changes direction abruptly.

    Broken is how you might describe the flow of things when your life is interrupted.

    Broken is fragmented thoughts and feelings you struggle to pull together, because you’re disconnected from who and/or what you used to be.

    Broken is when life isn’t smooth.

    Broken is not the end.

    I keep coming back to the sky cover reference for broken: “being more than half, but not totally, covered by clouds.” That’s what life has been like for a little while now. The dark and angry storm clouds have cleared out and we’re in a weather pattern that is party cloudy – or perhaps partly sunny is the better way to look at it. (Why the heck don’t we say partly sunny?)

    Days are filled with normal things like camp and dinner time and play and work and tickling and fart jokes and board games. Days are filled with happy moments. But here and there, our days have moments of sadness or anger or melancholy. Sometimes our days have many of those moments. Because things that used to function how we liked don’t function that way anymore. Because we face situations and people that challenge us. Because some of the pictures that used to hang in our house don’t hang here anymore, because some of the people that used to live here don’t live here anymore.

    I love to take pictures. I so love pictures that I still have hundreds of 4 by 6’s printed each year and I meticulously place them in order in old-fashioned tangible photo albums for each of the girls. Pictures tell our story. Pictures help us to remember events and moments.

    But when we share pictures online, we are telling a fragmented story – a broken story. And that’s because we tend to share only the pictures that show us happy and having fun. In part, we tell happy stories with our pictures because no one thinks to take pictures when they’re crying. And no one gets pictures of their family all shouting at one another as they try to figure out whose fault it really was that someone dropped the container of eggs. We often literally have no unhappy pictures. And frankly, no one really wants to see those pictures.

    But we should see those not-so-perfect pictures, because that is real life.

    Real life has brokenness. Every single one of us has days and lives filled with fragments of loving, smiley, happy, sad, angry, shouty, and cut-off-that-guy-in-traffic moments.

    The girls and I love to play with Snapchat filters. If an alien 7 light years away finds our family photos 300 years from now, they are going to wonder what the heck kind of creatures we really were. One of their current filters is called Broken Mirror, which just struck me yesterday as the most “real” thing that I’ve ever seen on social media – showing ourselves fragmented. Showing ourselves broken.

    My life has brokenness, and that’s OK.

    That’s OK because broken is fixable.

    And sometimes things that are broken end up contributing to a really awesome cake.