Just When We Thought It Never Would...

...the phone rang and we learned that...

On June 22, 2009 in a far away land called Sri Lanka, a baby boy was born who would change our lives completely. And you see, we had no inkling that this momentous birth had taken place, not the slightest idea! Though I no longer remember it now, we must have woken up and went about our day as usual, unaware that the moment you took your first breath was miraculous. Well, we know it now and the thought of meeting you fills our hearts with awe.

If You Manage To Make It To The End Of This, Adoption Is Mentioned Here Somewhere. I Promise. :)

It's so easy to get carried away by emotion. Perhaps you'll have gathered by now that though I strive desperately to be cool, calm and collected, I am sadly no such thing. In fact, at times, I am somewhat of a drama queen.

In the past when I was sick and had to miss a day of school, it was not uncommon for my family (for whom I feel much sympathy in retrospect), to hear me weeping openly and moaning pitifully from my bedroom. Actually it was not uncommon to hear me shrieking to God to just let me die instead of having to endure the agony of a headache, stomach pains, flu...you know, all those serious ailments people suffer from. Luckily I was and am quite healthy and these terrible dramas took place only rarely. But still...

Or when I worked briefly as an au pair for a German family in Schwandorf and was lucky enough to have my own small set of rooms in their massive manor house. The main problem I had with this otherwise ideal situation was spiders. Yes. Spiders. The bane of my existance. I hate to even type the words but there are such things as spiders. You can close you eyes. You can pretend all you like that they don't exist but they do. Exactly why they exist though, I don't know.

Anyway, southern Germany was rife with the hideous creatures. Rife. One night as I lay on my bed writing in my journal (in all likelihood about spiders, I don't remember now), I actually heard a horrifying scuttling sound that alerted me to the fact that there was a spider in my room actually big enough to make a sound when it moved. Being late at night, there was no one I could call for help. This was one giant I would have to face alone. Screwing my courage to the sticking place, (Disclaimer: The part of this sentance referring to courage is a bold-faced lie.), I stood on my bed and screamed. Then picked up the nearest thick book and threw it with all my might, widely missing the spider. It began to move. I began to cry. Being a good Catholic, I also began to screech "Hail Mary's" in desperation. I threw some shoes. They crashed nowhere near my nemesis. I began to call on God to save me. You'll have to trust me when I say this was not done in a blasphamous way. In a final act of desperation I picked up a lamp, taller than I am, that stood by the side of my bed. Still standing on the bed, I held it aloft like a harpoon and knew this was my moment. In slow motion this huge metal lamp glided through the air and landed, miraculously on the spider. In the aftermath of the monstrous crash, I collapsed in a heap on the bed...sobbing in relief and fear. It was over. Just like that. After an hour of shouting, sobbing, praying, and throwing large objects that didn't belong to me. It was only later that I began to contemplate what the family sleeping above me must have thought of this fiasco. They may well have questioned the sanity of this newly hired au pair girl from the prairies of Canada who they were paying to watch their two year old. After I regained my strength I hopped off my bed, looked in the mirror and began practicing casual shrugs that would hopefully ward off any queries as to what I had been doing in the wee hours of the night.

So really, what I'm trying to say is that with a history like this, who can blame me for being a bit emotional as I wait for our referral call? :) Who can blame me for feeling like I am slowly going insane? Or for feeling like I can barely get through each day I am so burdened by all these feelings and dreams of the future? Who can blame me for all the frustration, anxiety, fear, joy, and desperate hope I feel while I am waiting to hold my baby in my arms and walk out the door of an old life into a brand new one?

Icarus Falling

I had a dream. In the dream you died. I would never tell you this. It was nothing to joke about. It was devestating, disconcerting...bewildering. A world without you? Colorless. Empty. Impossible.
And it occurs to me that there are times we hurt. So much. There are time that our smiles are desperate imitations of the real thing. There are times we ache for somebody to hold out their hands to us. To look at us. Really look at us and see who we are, the life that pulses beneath our flesh. It occurs to me that we can die without this.
Small deaths. And we all bear the weight of this.
The death of truth. The death of hope. The death of communication. The death of prayer. The death of unity. The death of trust. The death of friendship and love. The death of that life and spirit that pulses beneath our flesh and makes us who we are.
I hope that you know I can see you. I hope that I can be there. These times when you're hurting. I see you. I hear you. I know who you are. I won't let you go and I won't let you fall. I won't let these small deaths be permanent.
Be so gentle. With yourself.

Toxic Influences

There are times throughout life when everyone encounters people who are "toxic". Those who drain those around them emotionally. Those who critisize everything and everybody. They bring discontent and discord with them everywhere they go. They spread rumors. They are "the wounded party" all the time.

They are insincere and although they probably don't equate their behavior with dishonesty, it is exactly that. A person who is insincere can not be trusted with anything.
I think that in these situations, it is healthy to make a clean break. To remove, (not physically of course;), this toxic influence, this untrustworthy and hurtful person from one's life.

I refuse to cater to these people. I refuse to be hurt by them. I refuse them access to my life.

I am an independant person and will not allow my feelings, my self worth, or in fact, anything at all about my life, to be dictated by others. It's easier said than done though and I understand that. It's a daily stuggle.

I try to have a generous spirit and an open personality, but self respect demands that I have my limits as well. I will not be made to feel less than I am. As soon as I see insincerity showing it's ugly face, I will create a tangible distance, I will be polite and distant and you will no longer know me.

The Ability To Empathize With Zombies

Look, I don't mean to be a bore...but perhaps you'll excuse me this...hmm...once? :)

Lately this constant waiting is mind-numbing and as dulling to the senses as a full day spent watching reality television. It leaves this thin gritty veil of tension over every area of life at the moment, work and play are colored with it. A slight, prevailing tension. I am so tired. Physically weary. Emotionally and mentally exhausted. I am not really with you. I am a million miles away...

A Healthy Dose Of Cynisism Would Be Nice

Sometimes I'm a hopeless cynic who feels the world and everything in it is on it's way to Hell in a handbasket. (Don't ask, I just happen to think that expression is bizarre and funny.)
Sometimes I'm a hopeless optimist who feels that there is so much beauty and goodness around me and in this world and in others that I can't take it all in .
Perhaps both are equally annoying.:)

Most of the time I have a healthy balance of both although I seem to be easily fooled sometimes and believe almost effortlessly that the man selling roses in Rome really does just want to give me one or two because he has never before beheld such beauty as mine. Or that the Jamacian men making bracelets at the bottom of the steps of Sacred Coeur in Paris honestly are fascinated by me and all I have to say and really do see very good, wonderful things coming my way because I am just so young and vibrant and lovely...I am almost shattered by the harsh reality of it all when they then demand money, for the roses or bracelets they have just offered me with such goodwill. I gasp in dismay, I stare at them with hurt eyes... I find it difficult to believe that they are so enterprising. I find it easy to believe that they honestly adore me until they explain that now they need money for the service they have just done. Service?? Service??!! So it wasn't that I bowled them over with my beauty and charm after all. Ouch. I must sometimes suffer from an extraordinarily high opinion of myself. ;) I sometimes feel bewildered and betrayed for days after such things...in Rome, I immediately threw the roses that had been "given" to me under such devious and false pretenses onto the top of a garbage can, sniffing with wounded pride. In Paris I tore off the bracelet and stepped on it, grinding it into the filth of the cobblestone street. My husband finds this all quite amusing and perhaps slightly exasperating.:)

And I don't even have the excuse of being new to travel. I have backpacked and traveled with the best of them! There is no excuse or explanation for my occasional gullibilty...and no point to this entry. Sorry if you assumed there would be.