Wednesday, August 24, 2011

If I say I'm sorry, will you take me back...

It's been almost a year since I first started this blog. A chance to take the down the walls surrounding our little family and share the journey to bringing our daughter home from Ethiopia. A way to share the ups and downs of our daily walk and to be honest about the emotional struggles of highs and lows that we were to experience. But also a way for friends and family to follow this process and to know how to pray for us each step of the way.

I never intended to drive our blog into the ground...

But I also never intended the Titanic size year that we would have and how many emotions (good, bad, UGLY) that we would go through. I never knew that we would experience the life altering year that battered us to rag dolls. I never expected that I would be so raw that the only thing that I really wanted to do was dig a hole and escape.

Avoidance became my coping mechanism. In general, I'm a selfish person. I like my "free time" in the afternoon while the kids take some quiet time for themselves. I like to have my nights at home staring at the tv with Nick at my side. It's not really romantic, but just being together is enough.

But even as a selfish person, I try my best to help others out. I enjoy being a hostess in my home to friends and family. I enjoy taking care of kids while their parents are able to run errands, enjoy a morning off, or just take a breather for a bit. I like being there for someone who just needs someone to talk to. But this summer was different.

This summer I dropped off the face of the earth. Not in a depressed, hopeless way, but as a way to allow myself time to grieve. I gave my kids all of my attention and did not seek to satisfy any one else's needs. It all seems so selfish, but it was so needed.

This summer was not pretty, not by any means. I struggle with emotions, especially sadness. I HATE to cry. It makes me feel sick, ugly, and then even worse than I did before because I feel sick and ugly. My sadness comes out in anger and avoidance towards people who I feel most vulnerable too.

Unfortunately, the people I care the most about receive the biggest brunt of my anger. My husband, my children, my family, and my closest friends. In July after yelling at Nick for probably the 100th time that day, he confronted me about it. To me, it's just venting and letting that deep hurt out, but to him its a constant stab and cut to him and all that he does for me.

That night laying in bed, I started thinking about all that I was feeling and realized that I was affecting my relationships and I could do something about it. I may have been in an abyss of pain and sadness, but I didn't have to drive the people I care most about away. In fact, I needed them close to me. In that moment, I decided that in order save what I hold most dear, I needed to let my mom go and move forward.

It's the thing that is the hardest to do. To say you are moving on, is to say that you accept this life without her and that it's ok. It's saying that you are forgetting the very memory of the person whose biggest request is that they not be forgotten. It almost feels like you are turning your back on the person you just wish could be with you all the time.

But it's not. It's a tribute. It's saying I'm going to keep living because she would want me to. She wouldn't want me feeling angry at the world on her behalf, she'd want me to take my kids in my arms and kiss them thousands of times and hug them so hard that there is no mistake that I love them. She'd want me to honor and respect my husband and to be the God-fearing wife and mother that she was to us. She'd want me to embrace my friends and not run from them. She'd want me to be an example of the woman that she raised me to be.

That was six months after her death and it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I couldn't carry that longing pain anymore.

I'm not sorry for the selfish way I spent my summer. If anything, it healed a broken family from the unstable ground we had been walking for two years. Healing is beginning in myself, my husband, my children, our family. We will walk out of this stronger, better, and closer to Jesus.

I am sorry that I let so much time pass and so many major steps go by in our adoption without sharing them with all of you. I look forward to reopening our blog and sharing with all of you what we've been up to and where we are in the process. We are so grateful to each one of you for your prayers, support, and patience as we dealt with circumstances far out of our control. We relish the day that we get to bring home our little girl whose name will represent the woman I most wanted to be...my mom.

PS Here is a song I wanted to share with you all that has been in my heart this summer.

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