Working It Through...Again

I'm in constant internal monologue and dialogue (with God) over our situation...our journey...our life. And I find the more I mentally digest, the easier it seems. Yet, the more I allow my heart to scream out, the tougher the wait...and the weight. Pun intended.

I just shared a few thoughts with a friend which, for me have been eye opening (likely again) over the past few days. Because, if you're like me this journey has day-to-day ebbs and flows. Moments, days, sometimes (rarely) weeks will go by and I'm fine. I can endure the wait. Other moments, days, weeks go by and I truly do not believe I can last it out. We've talked about our "line in the sand" and how hard the unknown is on me and how, while we do our darndest not to live our life as a family on hold, there is something impossible about doing that. How can you live as if complete, when you all know, (as sure as the sun will rise) someone is missing?! (And seriously, if you have the answer for that one you can speak right up.) On road trips we are always thinking and talking about how it will work as five. (Notice I said "will" not "would" or "could"...that was intentional.)

Wherever we are, one of us is thinking about our life as an expanded family, or our boys are asking about or on the lookout for something for their baby sister.

So in order to talk myself down, back to the brink of reality and rationality I have to take it from a mental angle. And the past couple days have been revealing to me.

Yesterday morning I was reminded to be thankful for all.that.laundry. that needs to be folded on a weekly basis. I must be grateful for all.those.thousands.of.square.feet. to vacuum. It is imperative that I be patient throughout those.many.silly.arguments.I.must.break.up.

And I am.

If I weren't thankful for those things...the laundry, the vacuum(ing), the ridiculous arguing, it would mean we weren't able to cloth ourselves, sleep under a solid roof, or have our two children.

Instead of always looking, waiting, and wanting for more I should focus perhaps on what is present in the here and now. And extra couple of months truly will not kill me. It could in fact grow me.

If we didn't have to endure this wait, it would mean we wouldn't be on this journey at all. It could mean two things...either we never hopped on this adoption train in the first place or we did hop on but when the agency went belly up, we chose not to pick ourselves up on the floor and get back on.

The other thing I have been processing is something I heard while sweating it out this morning in the basement. A psychologist was commenting on parenting styles. And, while I consider myself a relatively educated woman of average intelligence and fairly knowledgeable in the kid department, I had to hear it voiced through "an expert".

This is what he said: our parenting is a product largely of how we were parented.

That's to say we either do as was done to us or the near opposite.

My sister and I are two years apart. My husband and his brothers are 11 months and 14 months apart. We are all, the five of us, similarly age gapped from our siblings. And this is not uncommon. So, there are times when I find it hard to let go of the fact that our children will not be consistently age gapped. And in moments of weakness for some reason I find this hard to grasp. Re-reading that last paragraph makes me feel rather superficial - that's not my intention.

Yet, when I think about it...when I rationally think it through...it truly is not a big deal. So they won't all be 19 or 20 months apart - that ship sailed around July 13, 2009. I'm not sure why I am finding it so hard to get over.

And there are days when I start to panic over the fact that we set out on this journey when I was 28 and I am now nearing the end of 30. Gasp. There, I said it.

But, at the end of my life, (and longevity runs pretty thick in my family so I think I've got quite a ways to go), I am quite certain that being 28, 30, or 31 will make no difference.

And when I think all this through, when I let my brain do the talking to my heart instead of vice versa, I realize there shouldn't necessarily be a line in the sand. I realize that what's done is done and what's to come is already planned out...and has been for thousands upon thousands of years.

And that has to be okay.

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For I know the plans I have for you", declared the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11