Letting Go... again.

Before I start this post I have to say this... things around here are calm and for the most part, peaceful. But it's another 'letting go' kind of day and I'm a little (or alot) on the edgy side about it. I've been good so far about various things (which I'll go into in a minute) but there's one toughie that just keeps hanging on. And that's what I really want to talk about, but first...here's some 'letting go' to celebrate about....

The house isn't done (as in painted and therefore organized) and we're behind on a couple of important tasks but for the most part we're okay. I've had to let go of the fact that I don't have a nice family room yet, that it still looks like a storage room only a tornado has gone through it for all the times we've searched for stuff in there. By the way, has anyone seen my other set of flannel sheets? They are all cute with snowflakes on them. No??!?! Okay, I'll keep looking, or of course, I know for sure I'll find them the first day it hits 80F around her. I would love for the house to be "done"... painted and organized, bathrooms and kitchen redone with the floors too, but hey, it isn't happening anytime in the near, near future so I am letting my timeline go and living today and loving our home anyway. Letting go...

We've had some pretty tough discussions about our financial situation but I can say that each and every time we've talked, we've been able to say "God you know this and we trust you are working things out on our behalf" and then let it go and do our best to be frugal, to live simply and to enjoy each day. So far, so good. We have plenty of food...we are warm in our home...we have wonderful friends and family...we have a lovely faith community...Hubby has a couple of really good (and for now...) stable jobs...we have each other. The rest is just...the rest.

And I'm working through letting go of some health situations that are right now out of my control...mainly my foot which needs attention desperately but with no certain plan in sight. The doc wanted to run some tests to make sure the pain I was feeling was from the source we believe it do be (a neuroma) before doing surgery. Surgery is a big deal so I agreed. Little did I know that would put me on yet another interminable waiting list, standing in a queue. I was told this week that it could be MONTHS before I even get an appointment for an xray and ultrasound and that means it is most likely months after that before they would schedule any kind of treatment. I was pretty low about it on Tuesday because it does affect my life. And as I work to get back in shape anyway I feel it, the pain that takes over when I'm done exercising. But I'm done sitting around getting less and less healthy. I have to do something, like let go of the fact that regardless of the benefits of a public health care system (in that everyone is seemingly covered), it doesn't necessarily mean the health care is more available or timely. It's been two years since my break, and this is now the fifth doctor who has "treated" (not so much as their has been no treatment to date) me. But I have to let it go and pray and trust that God will make a way for me to get through this and back on track to health or heal my foot completely or help my endure in the meantime until I can get the health I need. I'm letting it go and living. That's all I can do.

And the endo... yet another queue as I finally got a family doctor (praise God!) but no openings for annual appointments until late April. That will be nearly two years since I've been checked. It makes me anxious because the pain is fairly constant and I'm always wondering if "this" or "that" is something more and they won't get to it in time. It is a fact that endo sufferers are at higher risk for cancer, but I have to let that go too, because daily life happens and I work through that pain. And it's okay... I've learned to live with and slowly letting myself feel less guilty that this interferes with life on a regular basis. It is what it is.

So there's the things I've done well letting go of, at least for now (for today ;)... but there's this one thing I mull over and over and just won't let go of... it's the idea of fostering children. I don't think it's going to happen no matter which way I turn it. And you know, I know we'll be okay regardless and really, alot of the feedback I've gotten about our particular family taking this on has been not so positive. Not because we're bad people/bad parents, but because of our family makeup and the timing of it all. And I've read some pretty revealing blogs (thanks ladies, and I mean it!) that showed me the true hardship is less about having another child to care for or even letting them go of the child when it's time for reunification, but the true hard thing about fostering is the cruddy system in which one functions as a foster family. And as I've thought about it, I feel like I've jumped through just about as many hoops in my family-building experience as I can take, that I don't know if I could take trying to work in a system that, regardless of the best intentions, isn't working and would be a constant in our lives if we chose this route. I don't know if I have it in me, even though I feel all that crappy guilt (I know, I know I'm working on it...) because I know we could help other families by caring for their kids while they get healthy...we could do it, but should we? I don't know if I am strong enough to face it all.

And I don't know if, with everything else in our very full lives if we should do it in the practical sense. I mean really, who am I kidding? I look at these other foster parents and say 'I can do that' but I think about what life would be like adding another child, not in the less complicated sense of giving birth or even straight adoption, and I wonder if I, as a mother, could handle it. I say I could handle letting go of a child we've loved, but would it in the end, break my heart? And am I a coward for even thinking about myself??? I KNOW it would probably break my daughter's heart and that alone stops me cold.

So there it is... and Hubby's silence on this whole thing is deafening and I get it, and in many ways I'm so grateful for his level-headedness and his willingness to live in the blessedness of this time in our lives and not think about MORE. I want that. And the agency isn't making it easy either, wanting us to basically start over with the parenting classes we've basically already taken twice in the last five years, as if our experiences don't speak for anything...really, all we wanted to do was help and it's another hoop and well...

if it weren't for the fact that my body literally hurts at the idea of letting this go... my body sometimes physically aches at the thought of being Momma to another child... my heart breaks I guess, because here is yet.another.thing that I have to let go of, that I can't just enjoy the possibility of. Sometimes it's just too much to process.

But...

just like when I decided to let go of the maternity clothes taking up space in our infertile household I think I need to start letting go of the baby things too. I know I can accept that the blessings we have received are so amazingly wonderful and it's all I need, and that someday we'll understand. I still don't get why I've had to go through this process over and over and all that has happened but I've come to realize that asking God over and over is arrogant at worst, and futile any way you look at it. I am willing to accept this, and be grateful, I really am... it's getting through the letting go that 's the hardest part.

So I guess it begs the question... anyone need any baby clothes?

Because I'm letting go. Working on it...

And maybe now that this is out there I can actually do it.