>This is a post about detours.
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And apropos of this theme, I have a detour before I start blathering on about detours:
As I’ve been stewing about this post, this subject…a great lot of um, stuff (this is a G rated blog, right? right) has hit the fan in the Ethiopian adoption world. And I have a fair bit of thoughts about it rumbling through my brain…but those are for another post(s). {New requirements, across the board, for all families to travel twice – complicated and difficult and possibly good in the long run but a huge hurdle in the short for so many} For the moment, I offer my condolences and my ears to hear and heart to hurt for all of the children and families affected – for the cold slap in the face of worry that this news brings. But again, it’s too easy to slide into the tempest of this news and start fretting aloud and repeating everyone else’s words, and those who are in it, right now. And I’m not. I don’t own those words. So I won’t go there, not today. Maybe another day, ya never know! But I will probably also go off on a tangent or two…as I said, this just opens up so much fodder for pondering and processing, for me anyhow, which means, of course, for you!
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Back to current post:
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Anyhooo. As I said, I’ve been stewing about detours. It’s hard to write all this because it’s close. It carves right under that spot in your chest, right in tight to your heart and lungs. So if you cut too close you kind of gasp and can’t breath, and you hold your breath as you talk closer to it, so that you can be really careful. Because you need to protect your own heart and also the hearts and breathing of the ones you love. I don’t know, it’s hard to make this make sense. I know I’m not making sense, and yet, this disclaimer must be put out first. Because its a raw spot. But it’s also a spot that needs to toughen up, heal, move forward and that only happens by bringing it out to the light and looking at it, and thus, this post.
Right. Now that most have clicked away out of confusion and impatience, it’s just us friends. Hey there.
So. A few times in my life, parenting life mostly, I have had some detours.
Scratch that: Ok, any life, my life, yours, we all have detours because no life goes as we initially plan it. Then it would be dull and boring and unsatisfying.
So, I’ve been to Holland, figuratively speaking. And you know, while the place has it has it’s beauties, it’s still a tough landing. And we have found ourselves detoured there once again, recently. And you know, this “Holland” is a complicated place. And like all control freaks (me), that detour thing?…..it makes you (ok, me) want to kick and fuss and whine.
Not as a punishment (because they are challenging, sometimes very hard, so it is easy to mistake them as such).
But as a gift.
A gift.
That detour, this Holland, is to break our/my grasp on my own deadly vision: Us. Ok, me.
Of course.
Ever.
I – not so long ago – literally prayed this: “Save me from myself, Oh God, send me a child, the one you choose.”
They are waiting to show me Holland. Again. Or – their Italia.
I want to go to Italy.
I love Italy!
>Love this post! Thanks for always being so honest about how hard parenting is. It makes me feel better to see a seasoned "pro" like you struggle too!
>Well said. I love the Welcome to Holland story, it taught me a lot as a teacher.
>Wow…..Italy. My dream too. And landing in Italy on Ethiopian Air doesn't count! It's my dream…..and probably not God's. Hard to let go, isn't it? I think if I can let go of MY dream, I'd find that Joy and Contentment that's been dogging me for so long!
>Wow…to think that I almost missed this post. Well written and beautiful. Have not been on my fav blog in too long so I also missed the novena.
>Thanks for this one…lovely…just what I needed to hear…Amy