This school year I enrolled four of the six school aged kids in the local public school. It was not an easy decision. It was a very difficult few weeks. I had to face and admit my own failings and the consequences they have for my children.
For the last couple of years I have been on survival mode, just trying to keep from drowning with the responsibility and demands of raising a large family, homeschooling, being pregnant alone with eight other children, the emotional roller coaster of a marriage in crisis, financial struggles, and illnesses.
My whole life I have been the responsible one, a hard worker, a “law abiding citizen” as my father would say. I accomplished a lot on my own, I graduated college in three years, married my high school sweet heart, traveled the country and spent time overseas. I had beautiful baby after beautiful baby, ran my home efficiently even on a very modest budget. I appreciated what I had, and didn’t feel I was missing out on the things I did not have. As the years ticked by I felt God’s blessings more and more. I had a husband I loved and respected; and kind, intelligent children. We often struggled financially but we had a roof over our heads and our bills were always paid even if sometimes late. We did not need to depend on government hand outs, we lived without many luxuries most people consider necessities in order to afford to remain open to life, to keep me at home with the kids and to give our children a quality catholic education. Homeschooling too was a wonderful experience. I loved watching my children grow and discover the world. They enjoyed learning and were children of strong gentle character. I was succeeding. God blessed me with everything; many children, home, health, faith… I was proud of our accomplishments, but they were not a complete picture of our lives.
I was overburdened, responsible for too much and often for things I did not control. Complaining was not an option because I was so blessed with all these wonderful things, it would have been ungrateful of me to say it was too hard, too much work. If it needed to be done, I was just going to have to find a way to do it. If I wasn’t the perfect wife, mom, friend, daughter, Christian, I would not be loved, I would not be wanted, I would be abandoned.
This was the dirty little secret no one knew…no one saw…no one except my husband. I was overwhelmed, and scared. Having his own poorly healed wounds too, he knew something had to change but didn’t know what. We knew something wasn’t working in ourselves, each other, and consequently us; but couldn’t understand the why and what. (I won’t talk about my husband here. This is a part of MY side of the story.)
While I was happy with my life and loved my family with all my heart I was not joyful to be around. I was always disappointed with myself, too busy trying to do everything I felt responsible for, too tired to “see” the very people I most wanted to know and please. I avoided people and things that reminded me of the skeletons and ghosts hiding in the closet or might cast light on weakness. Conflict was avoided at all costs because exposure to weakness or fear would mean risking rejection. It was as if not making eye contact with brokenness would keep it from attacking.
Asking for help was painful. It required vulnerability, dependence, and invited criticism. Needing help felt too much like failing. If I couldn’t handle something it meant I wasn’t competent, prudent, grateful, responsible…I wasn’t good enough. My obsession with being able to handle it all on my own was making me exhausted and miserable, but I couldn’t admit it. I couldn’t say it was too much because it would mean I didn’t appreciate what I had. It meant I would have to risk dependence. A shackle from my past was the unhealthy lesson that if I wasn’t perfect, if someone felt as if I needed them or depended on them they would see me as pathetic and weak, they would abandon me. It was not a conscious thought. It was a festering childhood wound that hadn’t healed right.
My needs couldn’t be as important as taking care of my family, being responsible, not burdening others. After all God had given me so much it would be wrong to complain about having too much work or being tired. My difficulties were challenges; other people had to deal with real sufferings. Who was I to say my responsibilities were too heavy to carry?
I was miserable wearing the mask of a super strong successful independent woman. I wanted to be happy, I wanted to be grateful, I wanted to be able to succeed at all the opportunities I was blessed with, especially raising a large family and homeschooling. I appeared on the outside to be succeeding. Deep down inside I knew I was not. This ugly truth crept out in unhealthy ways. I was too proud of an image and too scared to admit failings and these truths were killing me inside.
Then a bomb went off in my life almost two years ago and everything rapidly began to unravel. Surviving was the only thing that then mattered. While on survival mode I was still refusing to admit needing others (misguided lesson=dependency leads to abandonment); refusing to admit how overwhelmed I was (misguided lesson=not appreciating blessings will have them taken away); and refusing to admit I was failing (pure pride here) I was still digging a whole. A poorly placed whole under my own feet and even worse the feet of my children.
After years of trying to hold it all together my greatest fears were happening anyway and there was nothing I could do but watch it all crumble.
Part II coming soon.
Unfortunately, we often throw things into the machine that really should be tossed out. Of course the obvious red crayon makes a mess, but we recognize that and learn our lesson right away. But what about the smaller things, less colorful and noticeable? We assume that since those things seem to have come out clean with our laundry or were rinsed away easily enough it is okay to keep them in our pockets. Since the machine seemed to handle it we become lax in our sorting and more and more junk is thrown in the load and yet we still expect our laundry to come out clean.
2- Replace it: We can replace it. We seek out other washer replacers who support us as they too are wanting a new machine. We are thrilled with the capabilities of the new machine and convince ourselves our old one never worked this well. Since we don’t understand why the other machine stopped working and we still have the same laundry habits this new machine eventually doesn’t work for us either. From machine to machine we go never really understanding why none of them work well for us or last. We think we understand all about the machine for having tried it, but we really don’t know all the cool features or how the machine runs because we never open it up, we never studied it before moving on to the next one. We may even eventually opt for number one, trash it.
If competant and if we give them full access to our machine and enough time the expert will point out the 
will deep clean us if needed, teach us how the machine is built and set us up with our original machine now restored. We may even become repairmen ourselves. No limitations and but the guarantee expires upon death.
Shortly after we moved here four years ago we began to attend Mass on Wednesday evenings. It was an incredible blessing. There was something so special about sitting in the church surrounded by many of the people that were essentially the core of the church ministries. It occurred to me one evening sitting there with my husband and children that we were part of the church’s future. We were going to be the next generation to help fill the positions in the ministries that serve the community. The idea scared and excited me all at the same time.
I had been slacking on laundry for three days. With nine kids that is a very long time. The laundry pile was taking over the house. With much grumbling (just one of those days) I started the first load. Half way through my first load in the washer the machine started to beep. The dreaded error code message was flashing. With the aid of the Use and Care Guide I determined the cause to be the machine was not draining.
1) Open bottom of machine and unscrew filter housing.