Let there be love ( revised ) ...

this weekend as i was singing with my choir, one of the songs reminded me that i wrote about it and how... i was moved to become very introspective.

we have sung this song for years, between rehearsals and performances, i must have sung this song more than a hundred times ... but for some reason this weekend it really hit home ... for the second time ... 

"Every life has a plan
Though sometimes the map is out of our hands"
- Dawn Langstroth

i have been trying to focus on letting go of the control i think i have over what goes on around me. i can't control the people around me, the choices they make, the weather, the events in my life, the cycles that my body goes through. i only have control over the way i react and respond to what goes on. i am not a religious person. i don't believe that there is a higher being paying enough attention to each of us that that higher being helps people win american idol - if a higher being helps people win american idol but allows other people to rape, murder, torture, abuse .... well then i don't want to participate in worshiping that higher being .... but i digress. my point is, that i am not a religious person, but i am spiritual. the universe is full of energy and we don't control what goes on around us (no matter how hard we try! how hard i try!!!) i need to let go of these crazy attempts to control what cannot be controlled and release my fears of following a path that is not in my hands ...

"Every day is a step
Though we may not know the reason just yet" - Dawn Langstroth

i am constantly reading and researching and trying new things and trying to make things happen that i really have no control over. there are people who have come into my life to teach me things, and although some of these things have been difficult, or even painful, there are reasons i needed to learn these lessons. there is growth that comes from pain, and from heartache, and from loss.

"When your faith fails
When your dreams sleep
Learn to let go, and just let it be"
- Dawn Langstroth

I don't think that letting go over the idea that i can control the uncontrollable is giving up. over the last year, i have felt like giving up on my dreams. i have felt like my dreams will never come to be. but it's time to live my words and truly stop trying to change the things that are inevitable and unchangeable. that is really easy to write. it is not as easy to live.

"Let there be love
Let there be light
Let there be hope in the dark of the night
For every heart that's lying in wait
Let there be love
Let there be love"
- Dawn Langstroth

There is a heart out there waiting to be in our family. where that heart is, no one knows. but the heart is waiting, whether or not it is already beating. and i am giving up on the notion that i have any control over this process, no matter how many books i read, or how many needles are poked in my feet and fingers, and how many cups of tree branch tea i drink, or what music i listen to while i sleep, or what mantra i say to myself, or the course that we are taking, or the hoops we are jumping through, or the interviews and home visits and references ... 

i am open to whatever will come to be, in whatever form it may take.

"You are strong
You are brave
Though I couldn't even count all the ways"
- Dawn Lanstroth

people keep telling me how strong i am. how brave i am. how hard i work. what a difference i make in so many people's lives. and i don't see any of that. i see the tired, scared, girl with the bully in her head who tells me how lazy, and stupid i am. i could do so much better at so many things. i could put so much more effort into so many things. i am not strong. or brave. but i am trying to hear these words and i am trying to believe them ... i am trying .... it will take time ....

"There's a time to be still
Let the river carry you where it will
When your faith fails
When your dreams sleep
Learn to let go
Just let it be"
- Dawn Langstroth

this is my "time to be still." this is my time to take really good care of myself, not so that i can fit into a stupid white shirt that i hate with a passion that i only wear twice a year, and not so that i can fit into my favourite pants .... this is my time to take really good care of myself so that i can feel good, and have more energy, and be happy, and healthy, and not feel sluggish and feel like sleeping all the time.  i am trying to let go of the notion that i will ever be a certain size or look a certain way. i am trying really hard. 

"It's a long, hard road to travel
Yes, I know what it's like when you lose your way
When the best laid plans unravel
That's when you've got to believe"
- Dawn Langstroth

this has been a long road, and i'm nowhere near my destination. this isn't where we wanted to be in 2014. this isn't where we saw ourselves. but this is where we are. and i most certainly lost sight of the destination. i had lost sight not so much of where we were going .... it's more like i had a map that i was reading upside down, which i actually do quite often with real maps! i was heading in a direction that had nothing do with our destination. i was off on my own path and needed some redirection.

and so i am trying to believe.

i am trying to believe that when i take care of myself, the universe will take care of me.

i am trying to believe that the hard lessons i have learned this year have served a purpose and have made me a better person.

i am trying to believe that when i let go, i will continue to grow, and to change, and to be the person that i have always wanted to be.

be kind to yourself

xoxo

Anne Murray - Let There Be Love
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcjEG1skuzQ

...

adoption

“Because now I know what I have been waiting for. I know exactly why the other processes didn't work. I know I was supposed to wait for this little girl.” ― Nia Vardalos

Adoption: the legal transfer of parental rights and obligations from birth parents to adoptive parents.

Dear readers,

DP and I are in the adoption screening process. I call it a process, but a better word might be interrogation … ordeal … trial … tribulation … inquiry … tribunal …

“There are times when the adoption process is exhausting and painful and makes you want to scream. But, I am told, so does childbirth.” ― Scott Simon

The process to become declared “adoption ready” is 

long, 

                 invasive, 

                                  emotional,

 intense, 

                         and a lot of work.

It begins with paperwork. 

Piles and piles of paperwork. 

Questionnaires about our lives, and personal habits, and our relationship. 

Intrusive questions.

Then there is the course. Parenting Resource Information Development and Education (PRIDE). 3 hours a week for 9 weeks. With topics like abuse and neglect and the effects on children. With homework each week that is evaluated by the instructors and then sent to the social worker who is doing the safe home study.

The safe home study.

“Despite the reams of paperwork, obstacles worthy of a horse show, and a wait that can rival an elephant's gestation, adoption feels no different on the inside.” ― Scott Simon

A social worker comes to your home and asks you a million questions to get to know you. And needs copies of everything you can think of from your birth certificate, to your taxes, to your life, car, and home insurance policies. This is followed by 3 or 4 more interviews by the social worker who wants to know everything about your life. And finishes up with an inspection of your house looking for things like working smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and a fire extinguisher. As well as things like furniture secured to the wall and a map of all the fire escape plans for each floor of your house.

And that is just the logistics of the process.

“Even though you weren't born to us, you grew in our hearts. We will be forever connected because love is what makes a family.” ― Deanna Kahler

What goes through your mind while you jump through hoop after hoop is wtf? You think about all those children out there, born to parents who don’t want them, who neglect and abuse them, who mistreat them, and who don’t cherish every moment with them. And you think about how unfair it is that those “parents” were able to just get pregnant and have children and not care for them and we have to go through all of this to get on a list.

So how do I get up every morning and do the next step? Jump through the next hoop? How do I sit through 3 hours of a course I resent having to take?

“Anyone who ever wondered how much they could love a child who did not spring from their own loins, know this: it is the same. The feeling of love is so profound, it's incredible and surprising.” ― Nia Vardalos

How do i keep my hope alive?

I think about the fact that out there in the world right now, somewhere in this city, there is a baby … my baby … s/he was born to parents who are not his/hers. s/he is in care, in a foster home, waiting for us to find her/him. Our baby is out there, and every night I think about our baby and wonder what her/his favourite toy is, and what song s/he likes to be sung. What does s/he like to eat?  And I send warm, loving thoughts, out into the universe to find their way to our baby who we are waiting for. 

out there is the baby that will make me a mother. maybe i am already a mother to him/her. i already love her/him ... s/he just hasn't met us yet. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

sunshine

it has been days and days since we have had a day like to day with sunshine. it was hard to remember what it felt like to have the rays beating down on me instead of rain beating down on my umbrella. 

“Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.” ― Helen Keller

it's hard to keep your mood up when you are trudging through day after day of cold grey rain. so on a day like today, i throw open the windows and let in the fresh air. 

“The sun,--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.” ― Charles Dickens

the sun is a ball of burning gas ... but it's the most important thing in our atmosphere. for so long it was thought that the sun revolved around us ... and it is humbling to remember that we revolve around the sun with 8 other planets (i still count pluto thbbb scientists). it makes me feel tiny to think about the 7 billion people on our planet, tiny as ants in comparison to the sun. does being tiny make us inconsequential? 

“Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously…” ― L.M. Montgomery 

a world which was meant to be taken seriously ... life is too short to be taken seriously. i want to be as dancing and irresponsible enough to shock marilla cuthbert. i want to dance in the sunshine, dance like the sunshine, and soak in it's life-giving rays. without the sun, there would be no life on this planet. 

“Worry does not keep it from raining tomorrow, but it does keep it from being sunny today.” ― Shannon L. Alder

it is hard to remember that the sun is always there, even when it is cold and rainy and cloudy and gross and depressing outside. it's hard to remember that there is always a burning ball of gas keeping us alive. on a planet that we are destroying, but i can save that for another post. 

“Hope is the sunshine and sprinklers of your life. It's what makes you grow and thrive.” ― Justin Buzzard

how can we find ways to keep the warm feelings of sunshine when we can't see it. how can we trust that it is there when we can't see it or feel it? how can we believe in the sun when it goes away for so long?

“Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.” ― Thomas Mann

we can fill our days with the light that comes from laughter, from poetry, from hugs, from art, from music, from beauty, from a hot cuppa tea, from a good chat with a friend, with a good piece of chocolate ...

find your sunshine ...

be kind to yourself,

xoxo

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