Well, I started reading another adoption book this week. I know what you are probably thinking: “big freakin’ deal. That’s probably all that girl thinks or reads about anyway.”
I hear ya, but you’re wrong. Well, wrong on the reading part anyway.
Back in the summer, I was smack dab in the middle of an excellent adoption book when we caught wind of the whole six month regret letter hoopla. With this news, I closed the book and hid it away in our bookshelf. It is a very rare occasion that I stop reading a book midway through, but my heart couldn’t handle another page. For a short while, I found myself stepping back from all things adoption as an almost-instinctual act of self-protection. If I didn’t continue to pour myself into adoption literature, I surmised, then my heart wouldn’t hurt quite as badly if our Rwandan adoption fell through.
And yet, here I find myself starting afresh. With a new book and fresh hope. I have even allowed myself to resume my daydreaming. Although I never ever stopped praying for our little boy, I had put a stop to my constant daydreaming. Because again, I was operating under the naive belief that an indefinite wait would be less arduous if I did not have a mental picture of our Wyatt in mind. If I dreamed big, I would have way more to lose… right?
For whatever reason, all bets are off now. I think the holiday season in which we find ourselves has set me over the edge. I’m picturing Wyatt in our family Christmas card photo next year. And wondering what he’ll be for Halloween. I’m trying to picture what his little face might look like. Will he be chunky? Spirited like his siblings? (Lord, help me.) Will he attach easily? And just like that, I’m back in the game, leaving behind any sort of self-preservation/self-protection mechanism I previously had going on.
Overall, despite the serious lack of referrals in the past month, I feel as though I’m mentally in a pretty okay place right now when it comes to our adoption. Today, that is. Ask me tomorrow and I might be a wreck again. I never promised that I was 100% stable. Heck, am I ever 100% stable? Matt, don’t answer that….
Oh, and you should read this post by Jen Hatmaker. Go. Now. She is spot on.