On the one hand, I wish I'd have written this post when we actually hit the six-month milestone. On the other, I'm glad I didn't because it would be sitting here mocking me and any reader who happened upon it. We reached our six month home mark on October 2. So, it's just been six months and change, but as we've learned over the past few months, a week or two can make a huge difference.
I'm not sure how other parents feel about their adoption experiences. I know what I read on their websites, but I also am becoming more adept at reading between the lines, so I don't always buy the rosy-glassed vision on the surface. I do know that nearly every book I read or expert we talked to said that doing any type of assessment or evaluation on how you're doing prior to the six-month mark is an exercise in futility. Fair enough. I'm an assessor/evaluator/obsessive-compulsive/always measuring train wreck of an individual, though. So any time I freaked out about anything in my new role as "Mom to an older internationally adopted child", I would calm myself slightly by saying, "It's only been x months. Relax. No need to freak until after the six-month mark."
But, truth be told, some moms I know more personally than those books' authors and adoption experts say it's been a year or more for them and it's still not all that noticeably different. I suppose I could push my estimates out to the spring and fend off my feelings of wondering what in the world we're doing most days and dreading, even on the good days, that the other shoe is going to drop and we're going to be entertaining more worries, concerns and frustrations in the coming days.
To me, it was like we were handed a map six months ago. We're familiar with maps. We had studied about this map, taken classes about what the map would be like and prepared for our journey with the map as best we could. We felt pretty confident that our previous experiences with maps would keep us from becoming completely and totally lost.
We were wrong.
We received a map and although it seemed strangely familiar, it really isn't at all. So, we set out. Trudging uphill, on ice, and we'd reach the crest of the hill only to slide to the bottom and have to start again. Sometimes we slid so far we were "dropped for a loss" and had an even longer haul than we'd had when we originally started. And, there has been more than once when we were walking down the street, thinking we knew exactly where we were going...feeling like we were accomplished travelers...only to realize we'd been lured into a not-so-safe part of town.
The past three days have been like this map scenario for me. For so much of this journey, it's two steps forward, six steps back and you know it when it's happening. But, every so often, the smooth stretch lasts long enough that you start to release your white-knuckled hold on every single aspect of every single thing that goes on inside and outside your house. And no matter how many times you tell yourself you won't, you do. You start to become optimistic...like, hey...I think we've turned a corner. NOT that the journey is complete and you can fold that map and put it in the scrapbook and look at it as a fond memory, but that you're done traveling down that street and you can head to a different part of the map.
I really thought we'd retired certain stops on the street we've been trudging up and sliding down since we arrived home in April. I thought, perhaps, we'd reached a point where the most evident indicators that M3 is testing us and our attachment would be retired for new or more subtle behavior. Over the past three days, though, we've hit all the landmarks on that street that I'd rather just not visit anymore.
Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt. Sent the postcard.
But, here we are again. And, like the rubberband snapping back, we're at Square Zero in many important ways. What I wouldn't give to land in Square Three or even Square Two. Heck, Square One is attractive some days. But, nope. Square Zero has a well-worn spot waiting for our bottoms to land and hard.
And, I find myself forcing a smile, faking optimism and praying when I go to bed that I'll wake up ready to truly take on the challenge of what has popped up again rather than wishing to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head until...well, until further notice.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is for those who are grappling with reaching the 6-month milestone--it isn't such a milestone after all. It's simply another month in a lifelong journey you decided to take. I suppose it's a good thing that I don't have to refold my stupid map all the time given that I stink at that. Might as well just leave it open because we're going to be on these same, familiar streets for a long time, I bet.
Maybe the 9-month mark will be better and we'll have less time on this street I've grown so tired of and we'll have moved into a sunnier neighborhood on our map. Until then, we'll just have to keep our heads down and our feet moving forward--because that's what you do.