We had a wonderful Fourth of July spent with friends and their kids, between my continued surgery recovery and before L ended up with oral surgery that he healed remarkably fast from (so not fair). It’s been a lot of Groundhog Day©; same stuff, different day. Throughout it all has been a lot of work on adopting that is enough to make my head spin yet again.
The emotional part is starting to take quite a toll on me at times. I re-watched Mama Mia© to have it fresh in my mind before my mom and I go see the sequel, and I bawled so hard, for so long, over “Slipping Through My Fingers”©. Just thinking of the song gets the ole water works going. The girls that we have inquired and worked toward are all aging while we wait through this system. We’re losing the precious little time we have with them. Then I started getting acne and an oily T-zone again. Seriously. Hormones from emotions be gone…NOW.
With a lot of this I have gotten so worn down mentally and emotionally that I didn’t feel like me anymore. I’ve always loved and cracked up at the Wednesday Addams© character, and in a lot of ways I relate to her sense of humor and mischievous streak. I may look innocent, but I like that looking innocent makes people underestimate me. I really appreciated it when I was able to flip a guy over my shoulder because of it and walk away safe. And I appreciate that when strangers make me mad, they’re never quite sure where my mind is going or what I may be planning. It’s the part of my personality that L likes best, I suspect. *grin*
In all reality, I’ve never been a super cheerful, cute decorations, happy unicorns, and as-sweet-as-apple-pie kind of gal. I’m the one that sits in the corner observing people and interactions, that can only carry on a conversation easily with someone in my “care about” zone, and whose strongest love language is giving gifts, because I care more about making things easier for others or making them smile. And I’ve always wanted to be as okay with being me as the Wednesday Addams character was, especially when played by Christina Ricci. Admittedly it’d also be hard to resist playing the game “Is There a God?” with a few people from my past…(Kuddos if you get that movie reference, by the way!!). Since the movie came out when I was young I tried to learn from her and accept that I’m different, and that it’s not always bad to be different from the mainstream crowd. It’s hard when people don’t understand me or why things interest me, but I’m still learning that it comes with me being a bit different.
The saddest part to me for the past few months is that I lost the pride and strength of associating with that character. I could only see the crying at Hallmark commercials, not getting to exercise, developing a really bad infection, very sad shadow of me. I was a name behind hundreds of pages of paperwork, inquiries, and emails. I was the one with my nose stuck in all of the assigned and recommended reading for parenting traumatized children. I was the one juggling so many thoughts that I stopped watching most of my British shows, reading my cozy mysteries, and nothing could hold my attention. I was, quite simply, lost.
Thankfully I was on SL late one night, talking with a really good friend, and we talked over this, because he’s one of the few that understands how lost I feel. We had an incredible night of hanging out in his SL pool and just talking for hours. My eyes are filling now, but he said I’m still a lot more Wednesday than I give myself credit for. Then he said one of the most awesome statements that is super empowering to me that I’m going to post by my bed about being careful to not “poke” people like me. In five minutes he did more than anything else has in months. I felt more like me again and felt… strong (thank you Derek; that’s a gift I will always treasure). I can be the misunderstood and underestimated me, yet still do all of this. I can’t let myself get lost in this process, despite how easy it is for all of it to consume every moment and thought. When I meet our daughter I want them to meet ME, not the shadow that has been lost in the adoption system. So I’m bringing back the raised eyebrow, the looking over my glasses at someone, and the quirky smile that hints about all of the things in my mind that you really don’t want to know about that amuse me. For a while it’ll just be a show; until I can work out again (a week left of antibiotic and I think this sinus stuff might finally be over thankfully!), find my confidence, and stop worrying about how the Case Workers are judging me (because honestly, it’s best that they like the real me and not just what’s best on paper!). They say “fake it until you make it”. Well, it’ll take a little faking to get the confidence back in place and then hopefully I’ll let the real me show in all it’s impish glory. *grin*
I’m just so thankful to not feel lost in a twirling toilet bowl of emotions, to do lists, and remembering which child to follow up on. It sounds stupid, but it’s become a bigger part of my life the longer this has taken, and there are a lot of things I have to consider and decide, and I started to believe that this new unknown person was who I needed to become. I’ll always be thankful that I got pulled back from the edge, because I don’t think that woman is capable of being a good mother. Just a thankful and tired one. The real me is capable of smiling with my daughter as we are all homicidal maniacs for Halloween and laughing at the mutters about how weird we are.
Georgia's Pampering 