Letting Go of What Used to Be and Embracing What Is

Today I have plagued with a touch of sadness of what used to be. I’d get up, get ready, go to work and come home and do whatever I felt like doing. Sometimes going to yoga, sometimes watching TV and sometimes talking for hours on the phone with girlfriends in other cities.

I’d also work on school projects and connect with other teachers about lessons for my class and respond to emails from families.

Connecting with others through blogging and social media online and in person were some of my favorite things to do. Who doesn’t love a long lunch or an extended happy hour?

The only thing controlling my time and how I spent it was me.

Even my husband didn’t make a lot of demands on my time. We somehow fell into a comfortable flow of me time, them time and our time over the course of our decade and a half long relationship.

Fast forward a month + into parenthood and it’s dawning on me that I’m not the one in charge anymore. In order for me to meet the needs of my family I need to simply be available to them when they need me. And for now, they need me most of the time.

While I am no longer able to be spontaneous and available to others, I am answering the call of a little dependent person. Something I’ve never done before.

I feel like I am disappointing others because things are not what they used to be and I’m sad to have to let go of my identity of always reliable go-to friend and feel a bit disappointed in myself for not being able to have things like they were.

And yet, really happy to have my new role as mama.

For now  – I am increasing my tolerance for other people’s disappointment. {The words of my lovely friend Michelle from Love Wasting Time}

So I am trying to let go of what used to be and embracing what is and trying not to contribute to my own suffering for wanting things to be any different than what they are.

I am hoping this isn’t sounding like a whiny rant or a plea for sympathy, I am just noticing a huge, yet subtle change in my life and thought I would share.

How do you embrace change in your life?

How did you transition into your role as a parent?

Adoption is not for the faint of heart

We talked to the owner of our adoption agency today after months of weirdness with our case worker in the satellite office.

Here is a list of things I learned from today’s conversation.

  1. Our dossier – fancy name for paperwork – just got sent to Thailand a week and a half ago.
  2. Our “waiting clock” of 12-13 months started when our dossier got sent to Thailand.
  3. We thought our dossier had been sent to Thailand in the spring of 2009.
  4. What we thought of as almost a year of waiting patiently, apparently was just practice for more waiting patiently.
  5. Now our expected time to travel is Summer 2011.
  6. I’ll be working next year.
  7. Working with satellite offices – not so much.
  8. I really appreciate hearing the words “neglected”, “mishandled” and “miscommunication” immediately followed by the words I’m sorry.

 Since no one is quite sure how to react to this situation, please let me ask for what we need and to tell you what we definitely don’t need.

Let’s start with the DON’T LIST in case you are short on time:

  1. “This exact same thing happened to my (fill in the blank)” …. I’m sorry to hear that, but right now I don’t care. It’s happening to me now. Focus, people.
  2. “Everything happens for a reason”…. I know and my supreme disappointment is directly attributed to someone misinforming me at best and lying to me at worst. So unless the universe is trying to tell me not to trust people – save it.
  3. “But you’ll be such great parents…the kid will be lucky and …. it sucks that “good” people don’t have kids, but “those” people do.” – Quit judging us and them. You aren’t making anyone feel better.
  4. “There are plenty of kids here to adopt”  -Since you don’t know our situation,  keep this kind of not so veiled judgement to yourself as well.
  5. “I wish I could just make it happen for you”  -We do too, but you can’t.

Now for what we actually need:

  1. Hugs.
  2. Lots of tissue.
  3. Quiet time to be sad.
  4. Some fun. Please feel free to take us out to dinner, the movies, shows – whatever – we’re easy that way.
  5. A vacation. Feel free to offer any and all frequent flyer miles and vacations houses. We’d love to get away this summer. Hell, maybe even this spring.