The Stifling, The Letting Go, and The Moving Forward

Just over a year ago, we experienced a loss. In many ways, we knew the loss was coming. We controlled the date that it happened and how it happened. We controlled it because it was already so ambiguous that I simply could not handle any additional unknowns.

I remember the day clearly. It was a Thursday. We were late in getting up and out the door. Usually, I would have been in a tailspin for that reason, but I wasn't then because I knew what was coming. It sounds ominous - maybe more ominous than it is.

We went out for donuts. My husband, me and the three littles we loved and stressed over and cared for and nursed back to health for two years. They really didn't know what was happening. We had talked about it some, of course, but it's hard to explain what the change means to three littles who can't quite understand concepts of time and space.

We splurged on extra sugar for the donuts. And then we watched as their faces got messy. We wiped down their chins and their hands for the last time, and we drove them to daycare. We had decided, along with their biological mom, that we would keep the day as normal as possible. They would go to the daycare they had attended for two years, and she would pick them up from there and then take them to her house. This had happened before. It wouldn't be a shock to the system.

The hardest part of the day was leaving the daycare knowing we would not be back, knowing we would no longer be the people they called if the littles were sick. Walking through the main office and back to our cars, I watched the drawn faces and the quivering lips of the people who had known, loved, and taught the littles for two years. They didn't quite understand why this was happening, and as overwhelmed and unsure as we were, we didn't know how to explain.

Additionally, in so many ways, it wasn't our story to tell. It still isn't. Our story involves two years of love and laughter and struggle and uncertainty. Our story does not involve the choices the state made or the biological parents made. It's taken me 14 months to understand and accept that.

the stiffling

I left for Colorado on a planned trip quickly after we said goodbye. But before I left, I sent an email to the littles worker and his supervisor as well as our foster care certifier and supervisor. I wrote incredibly difficult words with tears streaming down my face. I let them know that we were "done" and that the littles could not come back to our house after the weekend. I did this to control how the loss happened. I did this so that we could prepare for our next move. I did this so that the littles biological mother would have closure and certainty that her children were home. I did this because, until I sent that email, there was no certainty on when trial reunification would happen. I did this because, until I sent that email, there was every intention that the littles would come back and live in our home until I left to move to Oregon.

This was such a lonely time for me and for my husband. We both deal with grief so differently, and I wasn't able to be there for him in the way he needed me to be. And he wasn't quite ready to move forward and jump feet first into a new life and new reality, one that was absent of three littles who called me "mom" and called him "dad."

Over the past 14 months, we've discovered a new life. There are moments we miss them - so many moments, and there are moments where we realize our life likely would not look as it does now if they were still here. This isn't to say we minimize the impact they had in our life or minimize our ability to do things with them, but realistically, so much of what we have now would not be possible or feasible if we had three small children to care for.

When they first left, I hoped for text messages from their biological mother. Those were a reminder that we still mattered and that the littles were okay. They allowed me to breathe. I also searched Facebook for pictures and any sort of update - just wanting to know they were okay and healthy and happy. Then there were times when I received calls from pharmacies in Oklahoma letting me know that their prescriptions were ready to pick up. Those calls broke my heart. I had so hoped that maybe, just maybe, their parents had been right. Maybe they wouldn't get sick once they returned home and lived in a house without dogs. But they did get sick, and I often knew.

I reached out to their biological mother and to the caseworker asking that my number be taken off as the number to call or text about a prescription. And it was - I think.

Walking through this ambiguous grief has been just as difficult for those who love us. Maybe it has been even more difficult. How do you comfort someone who lost something that was never really theirs to keep? Foster care is always intended to be temporary. The hope is always for children to be able to return home safely. It doesn't always happen that way, of course, but that is the intention. Intention or not, saying goodbye isn't easy. And truly, if you pursue foster care the way you are supposed to, your heart will break when you say goodbye.

Love isn't fleeting. Love is messy and changes you and hurts when it leaves. And as much as I wasn't a perfect foster parent, as much as I think of all the things I did wrong, I know that I loved those three as well as I could and as hard as I could and with as much strength as I could.

the letting go

It took me several months to come out of a fog. While I pushed forward and ignored any thoughts of the littles, I couldn't fully make the leap. Work went well - as well as it can when you are a social worker. I found friends. I started to make a new life. My husband joined me two months after I moved, and we started the process of figuring out who we were individually and as a couple now that we were no longer parents.

The journey since our ambiguous loss has been a hard one. I can only truly speak to what it has been like for me. I can only truly speak to what I have learned and how I have changed. And I can say that I still have so long to go but that, for the first time in years, I am okay with that.

When we were fostering, I felt as though I were drowning. In August 2015, just two months before we said goodbye and 22 months after we first said hello, I was able to put to words the sensation of drowning.

I equate foster care with drowning. Any sort of life and help you get... You cling to. And sometimes you get greedy with wanting more because you are fighting for your life. When you are fighting for your life, you can't be bothered to think about much beyond surviving.

This has been reverberating through my head. As we have journeyed through foster care, lifesavers have been cast at us and hands have stretched out, but we haven't always recognized it or been able to reach back out because of the current and seaweed pulling us back into the ocean.

I don't think the sensation of drowning ever goes away - even once there seems to be stability.

There is also always the sense of possible loss looming. How do you prepare to grieve or actually walk through the stages of grief when you signed up for this knowing goodbye was likely? It's not cut and dry. It's just another way to drown.

But Jesus walked on water. He reached his hand out to Peter when Peter sank from disbelief. He does the same for those who foster. He's calmed the waters some for me and has taken the anger away, replacing it with sadness. Anger is easier... I can use it as a shield. But sadness gets to the root of my heart and allows me to feel.

I feel the constriction of lungs and the seaweed gripping my ankles as I fight against the current and stormy seas of foster care. But I also feel Jesus reaching out and holding me steady (once I stop fighting him) and teaching me how to float and how to swim again.

Foster care changes you. The change will stick, and you'll never be the same. That's what happens when you come face-to-face with darkness and light, when you catapult out of the safety of the boat and into the torrents of humanity.
(originally posted on Facebook.)

For many reasons, I wish I had shared this sensation of drowning sooner. I wonder what life would have been like if I had been able to articulate how difficult it all was instead of my words sounding as though I constantly needed and asked for more. Fostering was such a lonely season. We lost so many friends; at least, it felt as though we lost so many friends. It's possible that I pushed them away. Whatever the case, I learned something so important about myself. I realized I was stifling myself and alienating others. I recognized that this needed to change and that only I could change it.

the moving forward

I've been working on that for the past 14 months. It's a slow process - this changing and morphing into the person you want to be while forgiving yourself and others for past hurts. It's a process that's not quite done, a process that will continue for the rest of my life, a process that I have to constantly recommit to.

My life now is one in which I am learning to slow down. I am working to pry my fingers away from this sense of perfection. I am reminding myself of how important it is to struggle and that making mistakes is just as important as finding success. I am finding that I am better able to find God in the mess and the muck than I am in the perception that everyone else's life is perfect and mine can't quite measure up.

For the past year, I've stepped away from writing. I've dabbled some in posting musings on Instagram and in writing a few pages to my novel, but mostly, I have focused on other things. Rather than rushing, I have allowed myself to marinate in the beauty of life in the Pacific Northwest and in the importance of just living life in the moment versus feeling as though every bit has to be chronicled for the world to see. There's no longer this need to show everyone just how well or not well I am doing. Instead, there's perspective and growth.

As I look forward to 2017, I do so with open hands. 2016 came and I grabbed a hold of it, determined to make it fit what I thought I needed in order to get over the loss I experienced in 2015. 2017 is a reminder that sometimes the worst things in life bring the most beauty. Grief is stiffling, but the life that comes after the loss is often filled with more air and light than you ever could have imagined.

running around my head

I spent much of last week adjusting to my new normal. But my adjustment period was more than an adjustment - it was a week filled with excuses and poor choices.

I ate fast food several times last week. And I made bad choices every single time - ordering french fries instead of asking for a side salad, getting a fried chicken sandwich instead of a turkey sandwich. When we went out for dinner on Saturday night, I ate lots of bread and polished off a plate of tortellini and alfredo pasta before eating Girl Scout cookies at a friends house.

I recognized what I was doing the entire time - but I didn't stop myself. I even went so far as to point out, at dinner on Saturday, that I recognized the healthy options but chose the unhealthy options because who wants to eat healthy food at a restaurant?

I'm not proud of those days or last week, but I learned (or re-learned actually) a valuable lesson. I am my own worst enemy, and I too easily fall back into old habits.

Real life does not always afford the opportunity to be in control of how something is prepared. Real life sometimes means grabbing dinner from a fast food restaurant, but you can always make a healthy choice.

I regretted my poor decisions every time. And every time I promised myself that it wouldn't happen again. But it did - until tonight.

We ate lunch with my in-laws earlier today. I enjoyed mashed potatoes and a roll along with some roast, and I finished the meal with a delicious, moist cupcake. Every bite was wonderful, but I knew that the evening would not go the way of the rest of the day (which started with breakfast from McDonald's). I was determined to take my newfound knowledge about myself and make a plan for the upcoming week.

I'd gone grocery shopping the week before and filled the refrigerator with fresh produce and meat. The freezer held frozen scallops, frozen mahi mahi, and other frozen meats. And once we were home from lunch, I set about cooking enough food to last me the rest of week. I have ratatouille to eat, grilled mahi mahi (recipe found here), baked scallops (recipe coming this week), and there is a batch of turkey chili (recipe also coming later this week) cooking in the CrockPot currently. There is also chicken thawing so I can make chicken salad and lightly smothered chicken later in the week.

I needed a week of failure. It reminded me of how easily it is to slip back into an unhealthy lifestyle and also reminded me of how far I've come. Because my choices weren't good but they could have been so much worse. And it showed me that I never want to go back to where I used to be.

I don't know how long I can eat a low-carb diet. I don't know if I'll be able to continue to stick with South Beach Diet for the remainder of my weight loss journey. I do know that I will never not eat fast food. I do know that, at some point if the future, I will forget to plan and will be faced with the choice of what to order while in the drive-thru.

When that happens, I will remember the last week - how I felt a few days feeling sick because of what I ate, how I spent a Sunday planning and cooking lunch and dinners. I'll remember the stress already cooked food eliminated from my life and that I didn't let a week of bad choices stop me from continuing on in my journey.

There were other lessons last week, too. Lessons that I'm still working through at the gym as I push myself to go faster on the elliptical. Lessons that I can't wait to really learn and then apply to the remainder of my journey.

(title from "why do i" by joe purdy)

done looking for the critics (week 12)

I'm still here - just adjusting to a new normal. That's how the next few weeks, maybe in the next month or two, will be.

My new normal includes a 60-hour work week. Right now, it's 20-hours at a part-time job and 40-hours at my current full-time job. In a few weeks, it will be 20-hours at a part-time job and 40-hours at a new full-time job. It sounds crazy to type that out and claim it as my life, but it's there. And I know that it is right where I am supposed to be.

But knowing it is right where I am supposed to be does not make it any easier. In fact, it makes a little more difficult because I can feel myself easing into the transitions and allowing things to take their course rather than planning how I will transition.

I see it the most, right now, with food and water and how those things seem to be slipping away from homecooked dinners and into fast food dinners where I don't make the best choices possible.

I'm not home at dinner time now. I'm driving between two work places and stopping at the healthiest and quickest place I can think of. And every time, I have a choice to make of what I will order. So far I haven't made the healthiest choices. I've had french fries instead of a salad and sourdough bread instead of wheat bread. I don't know why, though. Is it that I miss those foods and am saying to hell with watching every morsel of food? Or is that it's just so much easier to order food the way it comes rather than ask for it to be changed?

And the gym. Right now, I complete my work-outs during my lunch hour and then return to work sweaty and a little stinky. When I start my new full-time job, I may not have that as an option. So, then, when will I have time? I honestly don't know, but I do know that I will make time for the gym.

If I can make time to work two jobs, I can make time for the gym. If I can make time to spend with my husband, I can make time for the gym. There is no excuse for not having time.

And water. I don't drink nearly enough water. I try to, but I don't make it a priority. That needs to change - maybe more than anything. My body is craving it. I feel dehydrated when I wake from a night's rest. Yes, my food choices need some improving, but I've stayed at or below my calorie allotment each day this week. I have't consumed the amount of water I need.

So I know I need to plan much better than I have. There will be little time in the mornings to whip up dinner, and foods cooked in the CrockPot need to be done so the night before so I can take them for lunch, and maybe even dinner. And I need to recommit to myself and to this journey. Because without commitment, I will fail.

The commitment part almost seems more difficult than the planning. I am so tired of having to commit and then recommit. I am exhausted from reminding myself of why I am doing this in the first place. I'm over looking in the mirror, in the midst of zumba or another class, and seeing a girl that still has so long to go.

I'm ready for the journey to be over. I'm ready to know that I actually did it. I'm ready to see the hard work pay off and not just hear from others that it is paying off. I'm ready to be healthy and fit and to be able to tell others that they too can do it (without feeling like a hypocrite).

Right now, I feel like a hypocrite. I feel like a liar for telling people they can do it when I'm hurriedly eating dinner from Chik-Fil-A. I feel like I am somehow failing myself, and everyone else, because I'm not even to the halfway mark.

And yes, I could watch what I eat more and drink more water. I need to do those things. But even doing all of that exceptionally well does not guarantee that the scale will go down or my clothes will feel looser. The body is a tricky thing and sometimes it decides to hold onto the weight while other times the weight seems to fall off. Right now, I feel like my body is holding onto the weight, and refusing to let go, and it's making it difficult for me to remember that all of this is worth it.

I say all of this because it is where I am right now - not because I am giving up. Because I'm not. I know I have come to far to say "screw it" and return to the life I led before. I'm just trying to figure out how it all works together and how to make all of this my new normal.

Because it is my new normal. This weight loss journey doesn't end when the scale shows me I have lost 100 pounds. This weight loss journey ends when my life ends because even after I've lost the weight, I will still fight for my healthiness and fight to keep the weight off.

(title from "f*ckin perfect" by pink)