Stability & Grace

Yesterday we hit a day of stability.  Hope returned to school.  I returned to work.  I had dinner on the table at a decent hour, and we acted silly for nearly two hours afterward.  No real static, no real drama.  We had a single moment that we both decided to let go before it turned into something that it didn’t need to be.

Yesterday, I watched Hope dancing and acting silly with her long arms and legs whirling around and thought to myself, “Yeah, this is cool.”

It’s amazing what a difference a day can make.  Wednesday was…

Ugh.

Yesterday, there was some backtracking on the RAD diagnosis. Does it matter?  I don’t know yet.  I’ve had to put those emotions on the shelf and just press forward.  I picked up some parenting books on attachment, on adoption blues, on adoption challenges and on parenting adolescents from the library, along with some recipe books.   When on earth will I have time to even flip through these books?  I don’t know.  My oral defense is shaping up to happen in about 20 days.  Onward and upward with good intentions, right?

Today I was talking to someone on the phone (who is apparently going to need a blog pseudonym soon, since I’m finding him creeping into this space), and he was chastising me on saying, “You know today is a good day, I just hope the weather doesn’t wreck it (we were supposed to get an ice storm this morning).”  Dude is eternally optimistic and urged me to find the silver lining, when all I could think about was how I associate bad weather with really hard times with Hope and breaks in new routines.  I had my defensive arguments all lined up when it dawned on me that he was right, and I should just shut up and listen and stop needing to be right.

Before Hope I always had to be right; most of the time I was right.  The times when I was wrong, I could find a way to make it right.  #fullofmyself #firststepisadmittingit Now I have so little control or my life that my need to pick and win absurdly small, inconsequential fights is really high, just so I can feel like I’m doing something right, when everything feels so ridiculously wrong.

So as I was sitting there listening to dude coach me to speak positively and being a little pissy about the conversation that I had conveniently re-labeled “lecture” for my convenience, I just realized that he was right, and I needed to be gracious and take his words to heart.   When I let that defensiveness and fear of judgment abate, I heard the emotion behind his words, which was sincere and very sweet.

#raisedeyebrow #smiling #hmmwhathavewehere?

I thought, “Self, ya gotta keep some of these guards down because you’re keeping out both the sour and the sweet.  Sometimes the sweet is far more powerful that the sour.  Get over yourself and get out of your own way.”

Another day, another lesson, right?  I do believe in the power of positive words, but it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed in the face of the mess that I’m experiencing.

So, today I’m going to try practice grace.  Shut up and listen.  Let some things just go.  Be deliberate about speaking positivity.  And admit that its hard and sad and that I need help, but also that there are sweet, sweet times too.  It seems that Hope isn’t the only one who needs to hear some affirmations and put them out into the universe.  I realized today that I’m so terrified of “breaking the kid,” that I’m very likely breaking me, and well, that isn’t going to be good for me or the kid.  At all.  Not even a little bit.

So I’m going to try to practice more grace and less fear.   Here’s to hoping it opens me up to more sweet than sour days in the future.  #2Corinthians129