So,
what came next? A constant need existed to occupy our minds. This busyness and
sense of adventure really did help dull the pain we felt deep within, or at
least it helped us avoid dealing with it until a later time when we might
handle it better emotionally. First we took a long vacation, far away from home,
and then we headed out on a short mission-trip, the very thing that made our
hearts beat. After that, two precious little puppies filled our home with life
again.
Suddenly
the calendar didn’t hold a single new activity or adventure. I didn’t know how
to handle that. Life started to dry up all over again.
My emotions didn’t expect a
rollercoaster ride through those dry months. Oh, how it hurt to attend a “baby
shower” for a fellow teacher adopting two children. I still remembered when she
expressed a tug on her heart to look into adoption after I announced our original
plans to adopt from El Salvador. Now, over two years later, she adopted not
one, but two children. We inspired her to start the process. Now, a son and
daughter filled her arms, while mine felt emptier than ever.
One of the couples we met
in Austin finally traveled to Colombia to complete their adoption of a child
they met the same summer we met Juan David and Viviana. I felt thrilled for
them, but reading their blog tore me up inside. They posted pictures of places
we planned to visit. They stayed in the very place we arranged to stay. Those
were supposed to be our pictures, our adventures, and our memories. Yet they
reminded us now of pictures we’d never get to take, adventures we’d never
experience, dreams that would not become realities, memories we'd never build.
I
tried to settle back into life and work, but the emptiness quickly resurfaced. While
I paid no attention, the music in me died. I found myself in a spiritual and
emotional drought. In times past, I always had my poetry as an outlet, as sad
as it might have been at times, to get me past each hump in the road, to help
me connect my inner and outer worlds, to help me process and make sense of what
life handed me.
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