Turning Forty

“If you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.”

I grew up on that quote from Pollyanna, and playing the “Glad Game” came second nature to me. No matter what my circumstances, I knew I could always find something to be glad about, and I really did try. But sometimes, it was darned hard to be happy.

It was hard to be happy when I had three kids in high-school, two in elementary, and and a baby to cart around. It seemed to me that I spent most of my life in the car, taking kids to school, performances, plays, rehearsals, ball-games, meetings, and doctor appointments. My journal from those days was one big list of places we went and things we had to do.

It was hard to be happy when I was so busy you didn't have a spare minute for myself. I was blessed to to serve as Primary President for two years right after Moe and I got married, and I loved that calling with all of my heart. But it kept me busy preparing Sharing Times for Sundays, meeting with my councilors weekly, attending Ward Council and other meetings with the Bishop, and trying to make sure all 100 kids in our ward were looked after, that we had teachers for everyone on Sunday, and organizing and holding all the other scouting and achievement day activities that were part of Primary.

I loved being involved, I loved the kids and the teachers, but once in awhile I just wanted to crawl in bed and hide.

It was hard to be happy when my family was changing and I realized that soon they would start leaving home. Mind you, I raised my children so they could grow up and move on, it was part of the plan, but sometimes I worried if I had done my best. Linnea was preparing for graduation and going away to college. Had I taught her everything she needed to know to be safe and happy?

One night we took her out to dinner with my parents and some of our other family, where we ran into a couple of our best friends. Jean had been my Mutual leader when I was a teenager. I had babysat for her children, and even named Alyssa after her oldest daughter. We visited for awhile, and in the process explained that Linnea was getting ready to move down to Thatcher to go to college. Jean was excited.

“I have a nephew going to school there,” she told Linnea with a wink. “He's really nice, and awfully cute.”

In the back of my mind I couldn't help hoping Linnea would run into Jean's nephew. I couldn't imagine a better family for her to marry into, but at the same time it floored me to think she was actually going to be old enough to get married.

It was also hard to be happy when I felt like my main role in our family was being the referee in a boxing match; the kids on one side, Moe on the other. He tried, he really did, but he hadn't grown up believing that the best way to discipline was to look for the good and make a big deal out of it, so the kids would do even better to get the positive reinforcement. Instead, Moe saw the problems and pointed them out, expecting the kids to change. Kids don't work that way. Mostly, they get cross and act up even more. I sure tried to explain this to Moe, but he just thought I was taking their side and got his feelings hurt.

It was hard to be happy knowing he thought I had bad children. I kept telling myself I had wonderful kids; none of them were into drugs, they all obeyed the law, they went to church, they did well in school, but sometimes they ate with their fingers or reached across the table without asking for things to be passed to them, and it really got on Moe's nerves. Of course, they acted even worse when he told them to stop, and sometimes I really wanted to just walk out the back door and drive away.

Most of all, it was hard to be happy when I was almost forty years old, pregnant again, and tired. That summer sure seemed long and hot and frustrating. I took Linnea and Kami down to Thatcher one weekend in the middle of July so Linnea could register for college and take an entrance exam. It was so nice to get away, even for just a day, and a little bit cooler down there. The monsoons had begun, and it was lovely see cloudy skies and smell the rain.

A couple of weeks later Stephen went up to spend the week in Show-Low with his step-mother and got appendicitis. She called me as she was taking him to the hospital, so as soon as Moe got home from work he and I and Kami and Alyssa drove up to be with him. The operation went smoothly, and we were able to bring Stephen home the next day, sore but fine. I almost wished he had needed to stay a little longer, though, just because it was so nice and cool up in the mountains.

Four days before my fortieth birthday, I got a call from our Bishop, letting me know I was going to be released from being Primary President. It was good timing, I'm sure, since I only had a few months left before my baby was due, and it would give me a chance to slow down and concentrate on the kids and our family, but it still made me a little blue.

My birthday was on Sunday that year. The kids surprised me with a birthday party before church, complete with black caskets and “over the hill” messages and gifts. I tried to act excited, but to tell you the truth, black confetti and streamers all over the kitchen made me feel more like crying than celebrating. I was released from being Primary President during Sacrament meeting, and since it was Fast Sunday I got up and bore my testimony and told my Primary kids thank you and that I loved them, and cried. Then I cried some more during Primary Sharing time, so I had quite the headache by the time we got home.

We always went down to visit Grandma Johnson on Sunday afternoons, and since it was my birthday it was even more important than ever, but it was also the closing ceremonies for the 1996 Olympics, and Moe was very put out about missing them. He still went with us to Grandma's, but he was in a bad mood, which put everyone else in a bad mood, so by the time we got home and I began sweeping up the black confetti and throwing away the black tissue paper, my head aching worse than ever, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and pretend that day had never happened. It was a pretty rotten way to turn forty.

Still, a little voice inside my head told me to look on the bright side and find something to be glad about. As I lay in bed that night, the pillow pressed hard against my forehead to ease my headache, I considered the forty years I surely had ahead of me. All of my kids would grow up, even the babies, eventually. There would be no one left to clean up after, to drive around, to try to negotiate peace with. Perhaps our home would even be peaceful someday. And maybe, just maybe, I'd have have a chance to exercise, read, paint, and write down some of my stories during those next forty years.