Life

Sometimes it is healing to write what is on your mind, but I have found that at those times it may also be hard to write long, flowing comprehensible essays. So today you will get bits and pieces of life. They aren't all related. It might not all make sense. But, I am here and writing, so that is a first step.
Earthquake. Devastation to Haiti, to children, to peoples lives, to those living the daily struggles of Haiti, to people who don't live in Haiti, to those who love Haiti with all their hearts, to those who are forced to sit back and watch helplessly. Webster says that devastation means 1 : to bring to ruin or desolation by violent action 2 : to reduce to chaos, disorder, or helplessness. How could a place already chaotic, disordered and helpless suffer devastation? Well....it did. January 12th it did.
Why did it bother me so much? Why do I care about Haiti so much. Haiti and its people have played a key role in hurt, pain, broken heartedness, fear, daily struggle, depression, and suffering in my life. So it makes absolutely no sense that I would still feel overwhelmingly drawn to this country and her people. Most people who have seriously bad things happen to them tend to avoid the situation that caused the problem. People in plane crashes don't want to fly again. People who nearly drowned don't want to swim. Am I stupid? I go back and forth on this one. In the end, I think that I believe that my desire to go there and to be with those people and mostly the children is that it is something God created within my heart. He placed that desire there. He gave me the chance to live out His dreams for me. All the negative things came into my life because of sin and bad choices on my part. Now I am left with the fallout. A heart that still desires the things that God wanted for me, but a life that can have no part in it because of the stupid things I did. It is a rough place to be. It hurts. A lot. Deep down inside.
Back to the earthquake. I got a phone call from my mom a few minutes after the EQ had happened. She told me to turn on CNN. I was shocked and couldn't move for awhile. I just stared at the TV with tears pouring down my face. Once that initial moment of shock was over, my mind started racing. What about the babies, crowded three to a bed, who couldn't run to get out of the orphanage? What about the ones who did make it, who are scared beyond imagine without anyone to comfort them? What about those people who I love, who are still there? What about the kids I taught and their families?
My next several days were filled with lots of yucky feelings. More than anything I wanted to be there to hold a child or to give support to friends. But instead all I could do was sit in my house and watch the hours and hours of news coverage. I recognized so many of the places they were showing. The store that I did much of my shopping at was leveled.
The days got better and I was able to resume normal daily events. I think that is because I just blocked it out. I didn't accept that I can't go help. I didn't feel good and at peace about that; I just placed it in a deep dark compartment of my heart that is full of "stuff" that I can not yet deal with.
Yes, a lot of what I just wrote about was completely selfish and no I didn't address the true and horrible suffering going on by millions even as I type this, but I needed a few moments to be selfish.
Infertility. Webster again: : not fertile or productive , incapable of or unsuccessful in achieving pregnancy. Another source of deep anguish in my life. The doctors don't really know why. Sometimes I wonder if they even really care why. Maybe because I have PCOS and my hormones don't work they way they should. Maybe because I am just too fat. Maybe because of some other still unknown reason. End point being that it is very hard for me to get pregnant and the 2 times that I have been blessed with conception, they have ended in miscarriages. More pain and hurt. It is rough. Why do I want this so much? Why do I long for the day to feel labor contractions that will be more painful than even my worst headache? Why do I long for the day that my husband will cry tears of joy because he is holding his child? Well, the really short answer is because I love my husband. Having a child is something that he has looked forward to his whole life. Some people dream of going to space my husband pushes on each day so that one day he might have a child. He is his mom's only child. She wants a grandchild too. I want to be the transporter of that dream. I want that goal of his to be realized. But, as of right now, I can't do that for him. Talk about heavy. But I will keep trying as long as God allows for it.
RAD aka reactive attachment disorder. RAD engulfs my life and pesters every moment of my days and nights. RAD is developed when a baby is not properly cared for as an infant and because of that the brain does not develop correctly. The baby learns to trust no one. I have a child with RAD. It plays itself out in many different ways. Some aren't so bad to deal with. Some are annoying. Some are dangerous. Some just hurt me really badly inside my heart. It is what it is. I do the very best that I can to create an environment that will cause the RAD to manifest in less severe and less disruptive ways. It is what it is. I have dreams for my child. I have expectations for my child. But life with RAD is hard. It hurts. As a mother my heart and mind tell me that if I do x, y, and z for a child and that if I love that child then the child will love me back. That the child will be happy to see me. That the child will say "I love you too mommy." But, not with RAD. Nope. I still haven't been able to completely condition my heart and mind to block out all those normals parts of being a mommy.

Dreams. Things I look forward to happening in my life. Things that, when I was younger, I thought my life would involve. Some are here, most are not. I will just keep dreaming, and praying.... a lot.....praying a lot. I can only do what I can. I am a passenger. God drives this boat. I just have to believe that He isn't done yet.

So these are just a few things that occupy my days and my nights. Yes life is hard. No it isn't all bad. It is just hard. I normally write about happy things on here. I will go back to doing that again. I just needed to be "real" for a moment.