Stop Sucking Wind...It's a Marathon

I am here to confess...lately I have been a little worn out.  It doesn't help that I had a touch of a stomach bug, that Joe Paterno passed away this week (it's like a death in the family), and that I have been staying up way too late.  It feels like each morning I take a deep breath, but by the time mid afternoon rolls around I am out of oxygen.  By dinner time I'm turning blue.  By bedtime, well...the first stages of rigor mortis are setting in.  I feel behind in my housework.  I haven't made out a meal plan in  over a week.  (Don't panic - no one's starving here.)  Don't even ask about the laundry or my bedroom floor.  Please.  I have been slightly overwhelmed and totally under-oxygenated.  (I know this is probably not a word.)

I had such a nice conversation this morning with another Latvian adoptive parent, and it put so many things in perspective for me.  I am not here to whine.  I adore my family.  I adore my life.  There is no amount of money (or chocolate - and that's saying something!) you could offer me to trade my life with anyone else's.  But I need to be very honest with myself and with anyone else who may wonder about life post-adoption.  Every day I wake up and want this day to be the day it is all easy.  The day I see total peace and healing in my daughter.  The day that feels like we are a completely "normal" family.  (Pipe dream, even pre-adoption..I know...I know...)  The day we will be the poster family for successfully growing your family through adoption.  The day I will know with absolute certainty how to successfully and joyfully respond to everyone's needs in a way that blesses and encourages always.  By the end of the day, I am frantically searching for a stewardess who can point the way to the oxygen masks, and I flop in bed disappointed, exhausted, and thinking maybe tomorrow.  Maybe tomorrow will be that day.  (Gasp, gasp...)

It hit me today talking with another adoption comrade in arms.  Our life isn't normal.  We deal with things "normal" families around us haven't dealt with - don't even think about.  My child has a past that colors the way she sees many of today's interactions.  All those parenting books I read before having Jude and Cal?  Throw those out the window - most of that stuff doesn't apply.  Now it's therapeutic parenting, and it isn't for the winded.  And that is the point where I took my first real deep breath in days and realized...my life is now a marathon and the finish line is far enough away I need to stop craning my neck to look for it.  My eyes are on the mile markers now.

I am not here to write that as a complaint.  I am here to write that as one of the most cheerful, encouraging revelations I've had in awhile.  There will be no more "Are we there yet?".  If I need to stop to "go to the bathroom", well, off the interstate of life we'll go for a break.  I actually have no idea where we will end up when (if) this is all said and done as a family.  But you know what?  Today I decided to stop worrying about getting "there", and just deal with where we are.  It is too big a burden to figure out where the finish line is right now or what it might look like someday when we get there.

I know this may not make much sense to someone who hasn't been through an adoption situation like ours.  I know it may sound slightly whiney and terribly over dramatic.  It probably seems like after nine months, I should be over talking about adoption and life change.  But the truth - the freeing truth of the day is - this is my life right now.  It will probably be my life tomorrow, too.  And the next day.  More than any fresh air, remembering that makes me breathe easier today than I have in days.