Five months and a day

It's funny how one can feel like a situation is still so new, and also that it has always been.  We met JP for the first time five months ago yesterday.  We still have such a long way to go getting to know her, but it's also hard for me to remember what life was like before she joined our family.  I'm kind of thankful for that- thankful that our brains create these sort of memory eras where we take away certain broad feelings, but the details of the day-to-day slip away.  I remember very little of my life at four and five years old.  I just remember, from childhood in general, knowing that my parents loved me, believed in me, and were always there for me.  Several shining moments stick out (mostly good or funny) from my later childhood, but not much from the early years.  That makes me so relieved, because I feel like I fall short every single day.  I mean, everyone does, but I look back each evening and wish that I had been perkier, more engaged, less irritable, and just more... fun.  I mean, I'm a pretty fun person, right?  But the reality is, even though things have evened out a lot, and we have a routine, and I smile at you when you ask how it's going and say, "As well as can be expected!"  I'm still in survival mode on the inside.  I'm still treading water.  Good gracious, I hope they don't remember me as this walking shell of a human being that I am right now.   

I remember reading Jen Hatmaker's post about the first year of adoption a couple of months before we traveled.  I had no idea at the time how many tears I would shed going back and nodding in weepy agreement at her descriptions.  I'm pretty sure we skipped the honeymoon phase and went straight into "spaz out".  We've been in "triage" for several weeks now.  We've definitely seen a recurrence in lengthy meltdowns lately, though.  It's usually triggered by something miniscule; not getting what she wants and throwing a fit that somehow escalates way past the realm of the normal little kid I didn't get my way tantrum.  You look at her eyes and suddenly realize that she's no longer with you, no longer concerned about not being allowed to stand on her head at the dinner table.  She's somewhere else, terrified, and completely unable to communicate what is causing her such distress.  In a strange way, I'm thankful that it reawakens those feelings of compassion and understanding whose absence I have been lamenting in the midst of the redundancy of our daily life (I mean really... I've said no acrobatics at the dinner table about a hundred million times in the past five months.  Why am I still wasting my breath?).  If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, I guess the only thing keeping me out of the psych ward is that I'm doing the same thing over and over again knowing full well that the results are going to be exactly the same despite my best efforts.

Then I have my bio baby, regressing like a champ in behavior, and even basics like potty training (which we have had down for a good two years now).  And what can I do to help her except pray?  I'm 32 and hardly know how to process all of this.  I can't imagine trying to wrap my mind around it at four.  There are so many great big feelings to express.  But my life is exactly as Jen describes it: chaos, anarchy.  

Then the next minute, they are playing fine, maybe even doing something great, and it takes everything in me to go and praise them for it, because it draws attention to my presence when I am contentedly hiding out under the radar in the pantry eating chocolate covered raisins in those few moments of peace.  But you have to water the flowers, not the weeds, right?  Right.  So I hear myself like a robot telling them what a good job they're doing not clawing each others' eyes out playing, because it's the first time in three hours that they've given me an opportunity to do something besides correcting, redirecting, or disciplining.  They can see through these theatrics, right?  Apparently not.  Thank God.  (Yeah, I still hide out a lot when things aren't hitting the fan.  I realize this is an epic mommy fail on my part, but seriously, it's all I've got right now.)

And the thing is, I know I am missing out on what great kids they are a lot of the time.  Whether I can't see it most of the time past my constant mental exhaustion or their ludicrous behavior, I don't know, but then there are these shining golden moments every once in a while that are so beautiful I could weep.  

 That moment at the end of the day when I am done and I can't hide the few tears leaking out of my eyes and N wipes them away saying, "Oh Mama, stop those tears.  I love you all the way to the moon and back, no matter what.  Everything's going to be ok."  

Or that time JP randomly throws her arms around my waist, even remembering to be gentle, and says, "I lub you, Mom."  

Those are the moments that eventually win the day, right?  The ones that stick with you.  Mothers have remarkable selective amnesia.  Somehow, we are given the gift of remembering the smiles and forgetting the pain, because eventually, we start to see the fruit of our labor, whether that is a new babe in arms, or our middle schooler being courageous, or our grown up babies shining a light in the dark places of this world.  I do believe that fruit will be there.  I believe there will be a time when I am not soul weary and bone dry.  It is not this day, but I know that slow and steady wins the race.  

And bless the LORD, the lifter of my head, He has never left my side through all of this, and how gentle He has been as I am refined through all of these daily difficulties.  Just yesterday I went for a run, and as I came up to the split in the road, debating whether to take the shorter route to the left, or the longer run straight ahead, I heard him as if He were next to me, "Take the long road, Love.  I'll run with you."  And He spent the next three and a half miles speaking the most precious words to me.  Words I will treasure for all of my life.