I took a long break from this space. In fact, it’s been almost a year since I’ve posted anything. That didn’t start out intentionally, but as the year progressed, I did have a sense that I needed a pause. In the past two weeks, as one often does at the start of a new year, I’ve been reflecting on all that’s taken place in the last year. It was a big year, and it was one of the most transitional periods of my life in both positive and negative ways. As an adoptee, loss and change can often feel monumental, and like more than a person can handle. I am happy to say I’ve started the beginning of 2023 with a giant sigh of relief. I made it.
January 2022 started with unexpected grieving. I’d spent the last three months of 2020 and all of 2021 meeting weekly via Zoom with 20-25 other adoptees. We were working our way through writing prompts and intentional efforts to unearth various facets of our lives as adoptees. When that ended in December of 2021, even with all of the ups and downs that I’d experienced, I found myself missing the weekly check in with people I’d shared deep emotional experiences with. I missed the friendships that faded away with the last pages of a calendar.
February brought a change of jobs. I stayed within the same school, but I moved from working with kids in the classroom to working in the front office. It was a change I chose, but it was also a loss. I loved my students, and I missed my daily interactions with them. We’d shared learning and life, and I worried they’d feel like I’d quit on them since I moved to the office. More big feelings.
May was a real whopper. My father-in-law passed away somewhat suddenly. Yes, he was in his eighties and his health had deteriorated over the last several years, but his final days came quicker than any of us expected. He was rough, often terse, and his heart and love for his family were huge. He was a presence that is deeply missed. My husband also graduated from seminary, bringing a 5-year journey to an end. We traveled to the campus to celebrate his accomplishment, but it was all overshadowed by grief and the planning of his father’s service that was happening at home simultaneously. We’d also tied a visit with my maternal first family in with the graduation trip. I know I was only there physically. There were so many other things demanding attention, essential as they were, I dissociated. The whole trip is but a blur in my memory. I’m sad for the lost opportunities that should have been celebrated.
When July ended, so did the year-long internship that my husband had been doing at a rural church. They are a beautiful community of people, and from the first day we walked in, they had taken us in and loved us like we were there forever, even knowing our time there was predetermined. I’d made good friends, strengthened existing relationships, and grown to love the people who had taken us in. Leaving those weekly interactions was hard. Internship ending also meant that my husband’s new placement in a church would begin to unfold. The culmination of his years-long efforts was no longer some far-off reality. We were wading into the wilderness.
September included my highest high and lowest low. The month started with the birth of our grandson. We were so grateful he made his much-anticipated arrival into the world safely. There is nothing like holding a new baby, especially when you’re related to them. Like REALLY related to them. My babies having babies also reminds me of what my first mom and I lost when we were separated by adoption. The end of the month brought deep loss again. My dear friend’s 4-year battle with cancer came to an end. Within three weeks, the extremes of life hit me square in the gut. A beautiful beginning and a painful end.
October brought the finalizing of my husband’s new church placement. The home that we lived in, the one his grandfather built for his own family, was listed for sale. For the first time in our married lives, we were moving. We weren’t going far. Less than 250 miles, which by Montana standards is nothing. This move would symbolically be huge. We were leaving a community that we’d raised four of our five children in. We were leaving a place where generations of my husband’s family had lived. Our adult children and their families would no longer be able to stop by on a whim as they’d done since the time they’d each grown and flown from our nest. Big family dinners and yard parties would not happen weekly anymore. Yet with all of the loss that seemed to be happening, there also became a sense of hope in the new opportunities that were beginning to unfold.
We intentionally planned for our move to happen after the holidays. We wanted “one last time” to gather with our extended family around the table. Unbeknownst to us, our last time with everyone gathered together had already happened. Illness prevented us from celebrating our last Christmas together in grandpa’s house. Those last moments passed without fanfare. Our time there had ended before we’d physically left.
We celebrated the beginning of 2023 in our new home in our new community. While I initially looked back on 2022 with a sense of regret and feelings of loss, I soon began to see it as something more. 2022 was merely the closing of a chapter in the story of my life. I am in a new chapter, a part two in the journey. I have grown, and a new sense of self helps me navigate through the world with an updated version of my personal GPS. I have more pages to write, and with some renewed intention, hopefully some more blog posts, too. Cheers to you and yours in the new year.