Here is a little written "snap-shot" of my life just at this moment, in case I want to look back and think, "What was my life like, back on May 24th of 2012?"
It's Thursday. My desk is cluttered. On it, I have my cup of coffee and my husband's dog tag so I can recite his social security number easily- my brain goes blank sometimes under pressure, so I have it just in case I forget it in one of those hundreds of times I need it.
Also, there is a card with the name of our Adoption Associate, two cell phones- my old one and my new one, a random pen cap, my glasses, the flash drive that holds all my writing and a post it note with the address to the medical clinic where I will hopefully get my medical report filled out.
There is an extra pen, with its cap attached, a post it pad, a camera with a dead battery- I'm trying to take a lot of pictures so we can prove, pictorially, that we are a happy, happy jolly family- two pictures of Keith in cheap frames and my flip calendar.
My calendar reads:
"Oh, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, you who serve as night watchmen in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in holiness, and bless the Lord." Psalm 134:1-2 NLT
That's just to prove that I don't always get a verse that is somehow incredibly illustrative of my current spiritual or emotional state, though that does happen ridiculously often.
Though I do somehow feel like a night watchmen at the moment, and that it is two o'clock in the morning, and I'm exhausted and the night is dense and heavy. On the night shift, the hour between two and three were the worst.
On the printer that does not work because it is out of ink, there is a stack of papers that our adoption agency sent over. There are three sample print pamphlets of other families, to show us the best way to showcase our home, hobbies, family and life and instructions for the video that we will take.
There is an inch thick pile of papers detailing every little piece of the Home Study necessary before we can even begin thinking about marketing.
Because that's what we're doing; we're marketing ourselves. I never thought of adoption this way before. What happens is, the birth mother sees our pamphlet or our video, and connects emotionally with us. She can't connect if she can't see our life.
So, we have to spread it out, as if it were a sort of buffet: Here is the pool! Behold, the neighborhood park, the grill, Jenny cooking, Keith working in garage, both kissing! How cute. Imagine child here.
That's how it works. I feel cynical about this, in case you hadn't noticed.
I keep telling myself that this is the real world; this is how it works, and this is just part of the process. Who cares how our birth mother finds us? She needs us; we need her. When we meet, it will be right. So sell, sell, sell!
Gah.
At one o'clock, I must meet Keith somewhere in downtown Columbus to get our fingerprints taken. It's part of the process of getting a criminal background check for Georgia.
I feel exhausted. I forget, for long periods of time, that somewhere behind all this tangle of paperwork there is a child.
It's just a human story afer all. It's real people meeting, their lives joined and wound together afterward by one little human life.
It's a small and powerful illustration of how all our lives are bound up together. If we lift up our hands in the middle of the night, feeling foolish and exhausted, we might end up catching someone just before they hit the ground.
