Sometimes I wonder what life is going to be like to live day to day not waiting for the one big thing. Some days it seems that for as long as I can remember – and I will actually go so far as to say almost as long as Gregg and I have been married, we have been waiting for someone to tell us that we can be parents. If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, at the very beginning of this journey I was the one who wanted it, and Gregg really wasn’t ready yet. And honestly, that’s OK. By the time we had figured out what direction we really needed to be headed (the Philippines) and got our health issues under control for the required amount of time (phew!), he had not only climbed on board, he was a willing and active participant.
We’ve gone through some tough stuff in our marriage – in the first five years we had stuck together through and overcome more obstacles than many couples will see in a lifetime together. And somewhere in the back of my mind there was always the hope that completing this adoption, bringing home this little person, would be the light at the end of this very long tunnel for us. It was one of the things that helped push me through the mess and gave me hope.
And yet despite the good that waiting seems to have done for me, there is still the nagging feeling that I have been waiting forever. More than seven years is a long time to wait for something – and I don’t mean to complain, because I know how worth it the wait for this child will have been in the long run. I’m glad that we’ve been able to spend time on each other and our marriage, because I know things will be different when our little one comes home. And yet there is still that underlying theme of waiting that runs through the day to day. I’m always wondering how to make the wait easier. (Become a workaholic? Work-Eat-Sleep-Repeat? Check. Have an activity every weekend from the end of June through the end of August? Check. Holy cow, did those months go by quickly.)
I guess what I’m saying, without rambling on and on about nothing, is that I almost can’t fathom what life will be like when it’s time to sit back and enjoy life, getting to shower all of this love I have stored up on this child I haven’t even met yet without the thought of how long I’ve been waiting running through my mind. I know it will happen when it should, but in the meantime – this waiting thing, boy, it’s kind of exhausting.
Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteYour comments are so on the spot. Unknown waiting is more difficult than knowing a date for something. And this something is in not just anything, it's a little person, an addition to the family, a child to care for. It's big. It's important. And it's what we've been waiting for soooo long. In our case, 14 years. And as you said, the tough experiences in our lives, are special moments of possibility to turn things in a relationship so much better, and prepare us more for our task ahead.
I'm glad you went from quiet follower to active follower on our blog. Now I also can follow yours, and hope we can be of encouragement to each other, as we are waiting well!