Where I am suppose to be

I created this blog a few years ago when Jill and I were going through a rough patch in our marriage. I used it as a way to voice my thoughts. To reach out to her. To be vulnerable. It was therapeutic. As time went on I started blogging less and less. Our marriage was strong. We had two babies. My job had changed. I was focusing on that more and I felt like I was honest in who I was and in my marriage. But I was a fool.

My last post was in 2014. That same year, on New Years Eve, before the clock rolled over and gave us 2015 I asked Jill if she loved me. She told me "no." This post is not about pointing fingers. I am not going to list the multiple reasons why she said it was over. I'm not going to post the multiple reasons why I think it ended. All that matters is she wanted out no matter what I said or wanted. What she felt was as real as what I felt.

I'm not going to lie and say that almost 2 years later that I'm over it. I am not. Far from it. I think about it every single day. I dream about it every single night. It's not that I want to or that I'm love sick about it. I just really never saw it coming. I liken it to an unexpected death in the family. I wasn't prepared for it and I'm unsure of how to completely pick up the pieces and continue on.

Every single day I try to move forward. This will be the last time I talk about her or my divorce. What she wants to say or think about me is all on her. The memories will live on inside. The dance was worth the end result.

I didn't intend this post to even talk about my divorce that much. I just wanted to explain where I've been for two years. I was so full of heartache, anger, rage, depression, love sickness, confusion, and more, that I purposefully stayed away from my blog. I didn't want to write anything I'd later regret. This is the first time I've even logged in since that happened. I didn't want to read anything I wrote about her or my kids. It would have been too much. All I ever wanted was taken away and I was not prepared, until today, to have to face any of it.

But today is a new day. 2015 is long gone and 2016 is on its way out. Here is to new beginnings and better days. I still have my adorable girls, great friends, and my loving family by my side. I am right where I am suppose to be.

Hands

It's an incredible feeling when the small things you do for your children are then done by your children without any prompting. Since Lucy was born we've done something called very simply, "hands". I put her hand in mine and we admire the size difference. We look for similarities. We caress each others fingers and palms, giggling at the tickles and I marvel that these wonderful little girl hands were created by myself and Jill. Each time we do it, her little hands get just a little bit bigger and I always tell her this will be the last time her hand will ever be that small. It tugs at my heart knowing she won't be this small forever and I want to enjoy the little moments.

At the end of our little moment, I usually follow it up by kissing each finger tip and then the backs of her hands. I tell her, "I love this finger, and this finger, and this finger..." and so on. When we are done we continue on with our nightly routine. I cherish these moments because I know one day she won't want to play hands. But that day hasn't come just yet.

We spent the past four nights on vacation in St George, Utah. Ken and Pennie rented an awesome condo for us and the rest of the Howell/Garn gang. In our room was a nice large bed for Jill and I, a full size bunk bed for Lucy, and a crib for Ellie. However, sleeping arrangements didn't end up that way. Most nights consisted of Ellie in the big bed with mommy, and myself in bed with Lucy.

One night while trying to get Lucy to fall asleep I jumped into the bunk with her. I sang her favorite songs she requests from me including; "Twinkle Little Star", "Popcorn on the Apricot Tree", "Blackbird" by the Beatles, and "Rainbow Connection". Usually these put her down, but she was fighting off sleep. She was just too excited to be on vacation. At this point I just closed my eyes, kept quiet, and pretended to be asleep.

After a few minutes Lucy picked my hand up off the bed. She placed hers in it. I opened my eyes and saw her little hand, blue from the nightlight hue, running up and down my palm. She whispered, "Dad, I love your hands." "My hands are small, but one day they'll be big", Lucy said while sizing them up. After a few moments of looking at my hand she pulled it close to her face and kissed it. She wrapped her arms around my hand and kept it pressed to her chest. After a few minutes she grabbed me by a finger and kissed it. She moved from finger to finger, on both my hands. The whole time saying, "I love this finger, and this finger, and this finger...".

There Really Is A Santa Claus?

(1987)

By the time I was 8 I had pretty much figured out the deal about Santa. It wasn't that I didn't want to believe, but a series of things happened that lead me to lose faith in Good Ol' Sandy Claus.

The first time my faith was rocked was in 1987. I was 7 years old. We always celebrated Christmas by spending the night with my Mother's parents, my Poppa and my Grandma 'Cille. This was the first year my baby brother Keven was around. Of course the extended family wanted to play with the baby so Brian and I went to venture downstairs to play. As we did my Poppa warned us not to go play in the spare bedroom. Of course being 7, and Brian being an above average naughty 5 year old, we wanted to see what was in the bed room. At this point I wasn't even skeptical about Santa. But when we opened the door I saw a bicycle and a TV. Knowing that I really shouldn't be in there, we closed the door and pretended not to know what we just saw. I went to bed that night assuming that those gifts were from my Mom or even my Poppa. When we woke up that Christmas morning, Brian had a new bike that was labeled from Santa. I got a new TV that my parents told me Santa delivered. I asked again, did Santa bring this or did you. My Mother kindly told me, "Of course Santa brought it."

The next year, 1988, was the year that more things fell into place. You always heard talk on the playground at school about Santa. Kids would fight over whether or not he was real. It was a serious accusation! My best friend, David, is a year older than me, and was much more street smart, I guess you could say. He broke it to me around the same time that the WWF was fake, and he told me Santa was too. I fought him on both, but when my Dad confirmed that the Macho Man Randy Savage didn't really bust the Million Dollar Man in the face, David just had to be right about Old Saint Nick too!

My Dad used to work at Cottonwood Mall, in Holladay, Utah. He was in management. One day in 1988, Brian and I went to work with him. He got called away from his desk and told us to stay put in his office while he handled some business. We got bored fairly fast and started digging through his desk. After that we went into his office closest. And there it was. The nail in the coffin. Right next to an Easter Bunny costume and over sized rabbit head was a red and white Santa suit. Black boots and a black belt with bells. A red hat with white trimming was on the floor, right on top of a big, white, fake beard. The mall Santa was a phony. The jig was up.

I remember driving with my Mom. It was raining. She was playing a Judd's cassette tape in the car. I told her very nonchalantly, "I know the truth." "Know the truth about what", she said with a confused look in her eyes. "About Santa, he's not real, there really isn't a Santa." She asked me who told me that, and I explained the playground banter, the suit in my Dad's office, and about how none of it makes sense (I never fessed up about seeing the gifts). I explained that sometimes my friends at school who were bad kids, got expensive gifts, but some of my really good friends, who were poor, got hardly anything. Why would Santa give the mean kid a Nintendo, but my poor friend got socks? I was also confident that no matter what kind of magic he used, there was no way he could hit every house in one night. I let it all fly. My stomach dropped. I was nervous to say it all, but also felt some relief. Then she said it, "You're right."

I was right? Damn. I was kind of hoping she'd tell me otherwise. Debate my answers and explain my questions. She said, "Santa is in us all." "I'm your Santa and one day you'll be Santa to your kids." She explained to me that as the oldest I had to play along, which I always did, and never tell my siblings. I even got to drink Santa's milk and split the cookies left behind with my Poppa.

When we all woke up that Christmas morning my Poppa was reading a newspaper. The family was all talking and my Mom had a tear in her eye. They called me over and I sat down at the table. I'm not sure if it was on the front page, but in the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper, in bright red print, was the headline: "Yes Matthew, There Really Is a Santa Claus."I asked right away if they did that. Everyone said they didn't. My Grandparents were all smiles, but promised me they had nothing to do with it. Could it be he was really talking to me? My Mom asked me if I believed now, and honestly I did. To this day, I still do.

Thankful for our time

It's just about 2am on this cold Thanksgiving morning. I got off work at 1am, after a fun filled day working in a grocery store around this holiday. Always an adventure. I'm sitting down to write as my mind is still wide awake even though my body is ready for bed. Have to do something to even out the score between mind and body.

My house is quiet. Not the normal 2am quiet though. My wife and girls are all spending the night at my in-laws and I, for the first time in a long time, have the house to myself without an alarm to wake me up in the morning. Who knows how long I'll sleep? I need to pick up a few hours, but I'm betting it won't happen. I actually have a harder time sleeping without my wife and children around. They are my comfort.

When they are not around, I'm not enjoying the "peace and quiet", or whatnot. I actually miss them and think about them almost the whole time. Part of this I know happens because of my issues with mortality. For those who don't know, age, numbers, time, and such, scares me greatly. I fear time. When my girls aren't around I feel like I've lost time with them. They'll never be as young as they are in this exact moment. I also dwell on how I'm once breath closer to death, how we all are. These thoughts race through my mind even when I'm busy and my kids are around me, but they come at me in a full court press when things are quiet or when I'm trying to sleep at night. These thoughts are the biggest reason why I struggle to sleep.

My Mom died at 38. I'm 33. I know I'm not her and that everyone has a different story, but I always think about how young she was when she died and how I'm almost at that age. Because of this I have a hard time really enjoying things that should normally be fun if they are time consuming. For example, I like video games. A lot. However, I almost always have guilt right after playing them by thinking about how that was (insert time played here) and I'll never have that part of my life back. Even when I play from 11pm to midnight and I wouldn't be doing anything else anyways, I immediately think about how that's one hour of my life gone, and for what? I do that with reading, watching TV, driving places, and so on. I know, I'm broken.

I can't shake these thoughts though. I feel like life is too short as is, but I feel like maybe mine will be shorter than average. Not being cryptic or anything, it's just the way my mind works. But because of this, it's the reason why I try to take on more parenting responsibilities. By nature, I am a nurturer. I have the need to take care of people. I'm sure this comes from being the oldest and having to always watch over my younger siblings. But because of my fear of time and natural parenting instincts, I want to be around my kids as much as possible. I've set my work schedule so that I work weekends and nights while Jill works the Mon-Fri 9-5 gig. Sure it steals time away from seeing Jill, but it allows us to raise our kids and not a daycare.

It's not easy. Eleanor and I are still trying to get on the same page. She still doesn't trust me like she does her Mom. She likes me enough, but I'm not who she wants. She wants her Mom. It's made for some really tough days recently. It broke me down to the point I cried. I felt like maybe my baby and I won't connect. I know that it's rubbish. It took Lucy some time to be my buddy too, and we made it. I just thought it'd be easier the second time around. It's not.

For half a minute though I thought about maybe going back to my 9-5 style job. Maybe I'm not cut out to be home with the kids all the time. Jill makes it look so easy, even though I know it's hard on her too. But just as those thoughts crept in my mind, my fear of time hit me like a ton of bricks. Before I know it Ellie will be grown. She'll never be this small again. Suck it up big boy. Love your babies. Be there for them. Who knows how much time is left? I know that the time that we do have moves way too fast.

So on this Thanksgiving morning I can say, without fear, that I am truly thankful for the time I have spent with my family, and for all the time we will have together in the future. Jillian, Lucille, and Eleanor, you are my world. I am thankful that I get to call Jill my wife, and Lucy and Ellie my girls. I will continue to make sure that you three are my priority in life and that the time we do have is spent wisely. I will do better at enjoying the moment and not focusing so much on time, in the negative manner. Let's spend our time together how we choose and let's make more memories! With that said, Disney World anyone? ;)

Being a parent

Being a parent can be hard. There are the obvious things. Things like having your time stretched as thin as possible. Things like getting yelled at by a 3 foot dictator. Things like being tired. ALL THE TIME.

But then there are the things that are hard that people don't normally think about. Things like punishing a naughty child. Things like handling a sick kid. Things like wiping someone else's boogers and behind.

I wouldn't trade being a father for anything. The friends that I don't see, the parties I've missed, the vacations to Vegas that don't happen anymore, none of that matters. I can honestly say I'd rather be home wiping up boogers and wrangling up a wiggling 3 month old than out playing on my own. In fact, as I write this Ellie is trying to do a ninja flip out of my arms.

Of course I miss doing some of that stuff. I miss the friends that I don't see anymore. But, teaching someone how to behave and then having love reciprocated, trumps any fun I could have doing otherwise.

There is no greater feeling than having your child come up to you, unprovoked, and having them gush about how much they love you. Lucy runs up to me daily and says, "Dad, you know what? I love you". Keep your parties.

But the punishment is hard. I'm such a baby about it all. If I have to raise my voice or give a little bum tap (yes I do that), I end up crying afterwards. So manly, right? But I have to be diligent. Don't want my kids growing up to be jerk faces.

So for now my role is to be a role model. To be a father. To be a best friend. I enjoy my time dancing in the kitchen as a "princess daddy" and my time taking my kids on walks through scenic trails. One day I won't have that opportunity. There will be no more sick kids requesting banana suckers to cure their ailments. There won't be dances in the kitchen. My kids will grow and they'll out grow childish things. By that time I want them to understand how important they've always been to me and I want them to be well adjusted people. I want them to remember how daddy was always there for them and not off doing selfish things. There is nothing in this life more important than trying to make this place better for your own children.

Lucille and Eleanor, your mother and my world starts and ends with you two beautiful girls. Always and forever.

Searching for an identity

Let me start this off by saying that Ellie is a healthy, wonderful little girl. I haven't written since she was born as life has been a whirlwind of late. We moved from Saratoga Springs to Bountiful, which is like a homecoming for me. My parents both grew up here and I was born at the hospital up the road. I'm only a few minutes up the street from my Grandparents.

But this is not why I wanted to blog tonight. I'm doing this as a way to possibly make contact with some family out there. My mother, Marianne Parker, was adopted. She was adopted by Robert Parker and Lucille Matthews Parker in 1962. She was born in Boise, Idaho. Her birth mothers name was Rose, but I don't remember her last name. My father is pretty sure her biological fathers name is Billy Greathouse.

Years ago her biological sister, who's name I can't recall, contacted me on myspace. I never got back in touch with her and I didn't ever check my myspace account. I'm searching for her and for answers about my mothers biological parents. It would be nice to find of things for medical purposes and to know where I come from. I know my mothers biological dad is an American Indian, and I'd love to know more about him and what tribe he is from. If anyone reading this knows how to even start to look for answers, or if you're family and you can help me fill in the blanks, I'd really appreciate it. My mother and both her parents have passed away, so I'm left without much to go off of. Thanks for anything you can help with.

Mother:

Marianne Parker Mabey Tillotson
5/26/1962 - 6/30/2000
Born in Boise, Idaho

Birth Mother:
Rose

Birth Father:
Billy Greathouse (?)

Adopted to:
Robert and Lucille Parker
of Bountiful, Utah

Mending Fences

If you've been following my blog or If you've stumbled across some of my older posts, or if you're a close friend and you know my situation, you likely know that I've had some family issues in the past. I talked rather openly and freely about many topics, but the one that caused me the most pain and anger had to do with my father. For a long time we were not getting alone or even speaking. It was the hardest and most confusing thing I've dealt with. I'm not going to get into specifics as to why things were the way they were. There is no need to rehash the past, nor is there any reason to place blame on anyone or anything. People fight. People disagree. Bad things can happen even when the intent is good. In the end what matters most is that I have my dad back in my life. He's a rather private man, so I'm just going to leave our story alone, but I had to throw this picture up on my blog. It makes me happier than words can express.