Last Thursday night I went to dinner with Montana. I hadn’t seen him in two weeks because I had been so sick the week before. After dinner we just sat and talked at my place and I brought up the latest placement drama mostly because I was still feeling the sting of rejection. Montana is making plans to go to the Philippines on a missions trip in February, although he still doesn’t know the dates. We were joking about how it will be just like this past week of not seeing one another and then he said, “you never know you could have a placement by then.” I shrugged non-committedly and he said, “we just have to be patient.” We? We have to be patient? I thought it was me, when did it become we? I don’t quite know how to take this. I mean, clearly he is not directly involved and only barely secondarily involved because he is dating me. He doesn’t really have a horse in this game, yet he included himself in the waiting and being patient. Maybe it was a futuristic thought? I said to him that I know this is strange, this whole messy situation I call life. I know it isn’t ideal, I know it isn’t traditional or “normal” to choose to become a single parent on purpose (or to be dating someone who is technically still married - just to throw that into the mix). Montana has told me in the past that he supports me, but I guess I just don’t believe him. It’s just too good to be true, isn’t it? I told him I am sure once I have a placement and things change and I’m not so readily accessible that he will change his mind and think it’s not worth it, I’m not worth it. He said, “You are mine and I’m not going anywhere.” Still, I worry that going into mommy mode will wreck things, yet it is a chance I am willing to take.
Since October when the kids left, I have been contacted about 10 potential placements. That’s all, just 10. Last year I was getting call after call, now I’m lucky to get one call or email per week. I’m impatient and I don’t want to be. I’m anxious. I just want “this” to be over – the waiting and willing the phone to ring. I told my family worker I forget what life is like not waiting to become a mother. And I truly do. I don’t remember what it feels like to not think every single day, “this could be the day!” Before it was the day I would find out I’m pregnant. Now, it’s the day I get the call that I’m getting a placement. I wake up every morning and tell myself “today could be the day!” I fall asleep every night telling myself, “tomorrow could be the day.” Other blogs I have been following have shut down because they got their babies and now life is too hectic to keep up with it. Others still do a monthly up-date on their child’s growth and progress. Some are still waiting for the final adoption day and for the ink to dry so everything is official. My blog just celebrated its third birthday and still I am waiting. It is the song that doesn’t end, it just goes on and on my friend. I spin around and around and around, never going anywhere and unable to stop the incessant vortex. Will it ever end? I’m told I need to be patient, that “it” will happen. How much more patient must I be? I have now given myself an expiration date (the end of 2014) because I cannot continue along indefinitely. If I don’t have a placement by the end of this year, I am stopping. Not to say I won’t start back up again after a period of rest, but I can’t stand to think about looking at yet another year (2015) stretched out in front of me with no promise of ever getting to the end. And I can’t keep putting myself through the heartache. It takes a lot of self-control to keep my emotions in check when I listen to the calls or read the emails about a potential placement. I take it all with a large grain of salt, never letting it penetrate into the inner chambers of my heart. And, the example of the Christmas miracle baby is a good reason why. I cannot put into words just how elated I was, how light my heart felt, how the whole world changed colors more brightly than when Dorothy first arrived in Technicolor Oz. I couldn’t stop smiling, I couldn’t stop thanking God, I kept pinching myself to be sure I was awake, to be sure the joy was real. I was so excited I could not sleep. I was so excited to get everything ready, I sang myself silly “I’m-so-happy” songs while I washed and folded the baby clothing and got everything perfectly right. I was as high as the man who sky dived from the edge of space, the world nothing but blue-green swirls at my feet. I was alone in my own bubble drinking in the mixture of sheer pleasure and some healthy fear. Just like the man in the balloon, I had practiced for many years and I had waited for the perfect timing, the best weather, the perfect day. But, rather than leaping into eminence, my balloon just popped and I plummeted to earth with no parachute, slamming into a cold, hard reality that shattered everything inside of me. Doing that once and surviving is a miracle; more than once and it’s slipping into masochist territory, wearing a hair coat and enduring a daily flogging. I think I’m walking a fine line between the two right now.
So, I’m getting the young man with me again this weekend. It was supposed to be for just Saturday so his foster mother could attend the all-day training event at CHOR, but he text me last night to tell me it will be for all weekend and I should come get him tonight after work. I wonder how he talked the county into that, since the foster mom told me they didn’t want him to be with me the whole weekend and they didn’t want to make this a regular occurrence. I don’t mind except I got a phone call from a Peace Corps friend on Wednesday night. She lives in Oregon but is going to be in Philly this weekend for a seminar. We tentatively planned to see one another on Sunday, but now I will have the kiddo and I doubt I will be taking him with me for the visit, since I won’t be back by 5 which is when his foster mother usually picks him up. Sigh. I guess I will figure something out. It’s just my messy life!
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Often times I type up a post and then don’t get it posted onto my blog because I like to let it sit for a moment before I edit it and slap it on up here. So, I wrote a little something Friday and never posted it and now I have more to say, some of which is related to what I should have posted on Friday. Oh well…….
So, I mentioned a Peace Corps friend from the West Coast was in Philly for a seminar. We made plans to meet up on Sunday after church. I gave the kid the choice of going home early or coming with me (which I could not guarantee would be much fun, since I would be spending the time catching up with my friend). He chose to go along and we made sure it was ok for me to bring him home later. Great! We headed out down the Turnpike towards Philly. We were cruising along when all of a sudden my car made a weird noise like it randomly down shifted on its own, but it was still driving along. Luckily we were right by a service station, so we pulled over. After consulting my dad, adding some oil, and canceling on my friend, I started the car up no problem. I shifted into drive and the car did not move. I gave it some gas and the car did not move. I tried reverse, low drive, drive 1 and nada. The engine would rev but the car sat stubbornly still. I called my dad again and he suggested I check the transmission fluid. My hands already freezing and blackened from adding the oil, I dove back under the hood and checked my transmission fluid – it was fine. My dad called a tow truck and we sat and waited, intermittently turning the car off and on to keep warm. The car broke down just before 3 and we were back to the farm (after the kids first ride in a tow truck – how fun!) just before 7pm. My dad drove the kid home and then took me home. He took me to work today and the administrator of my office took me home. The administrator saved me from having figure out how to use the public bus because my dad could not take me to and from work every day this week. I’m so thankful to have a ride because it is very cold outside to have to stand and wait for a bus – not to mention the snow along the curbs and sidewalks that has frozen into crusty and dangerous ice. We are hoping the car’s issue is some solenoid thing that would not require a whole new (costly) transmission. The tow bill will be enough to break the bank. And no, I don’t have triple A (AAA). I’m trying to not freak out about this. I’m trying to remain positive, but inside I am panicking hard core. I don’t have the extra cash for this! Please, oh please, let it just be the solenoid thing!!!!
So, being trapped inside the car for hours with a teenage boy, not high on my list of things to do, but it wasn’t so bad. He’s really a good kid – weird in an emo kinda way, but good, well-behaved and even helpful. My heart aches for him because, despite his devil-may-care attitude, he’s quite sensitive. He mentioned last night about some aunt that wouldn’t take him in to save him from foster care (my words not his) because of the man she is dating (I immediately hated this aunt for choosing some man over her nephew), but that it was ok because being in foster care meant he got to spend time with me. How does that not melt your heart into a little puddle? And, it’s not like we do a lot of things. We watch movies, some TV, clean, go grocery shopping – nothing mind-blowingly fun! But, he desperately wants to move in with me and leave his current foster home (I feel I should interject here that there is absolutely nothing wrong with his foster home, they are good people, it’s just a matter of personality clashing with his foster dad – I am not in the business of badmouthing other foster families because in fact, I haven’t met a foster family I haven’t liked. Besides, I had a foster kid who was desperate to move in with another family to get away from me, so I know how that feels). He’s talked his case worker into letting him spend every weekend with me (he’s coming back again this coming weekend – which sans car should be loads of fun!). Yesterday I explained to him how I doubted the county would let him move with me, I explained the whole issue to him (with as little details as possible) and how I’m on the BCCYS black list. I told him that I was hoping to adopt and that CHOR would not place a child with me if someone was already living in my house. Have you ever tried to reason with a teenager? Especially if said teenager is dead set on a thing? He said his case worker keeps telling him she will talk to me about it, but we haven’t spoken since the very first week she called me to take him. I feel like I’m getting wedged in between a rock and a hard place here. If I was just doing foster care, I would take this kid in a heartbeat. He’s easy peasy lemon squeezie. But……. But, he’s supposedly going home soon (I’ve heard that one before) so he’s not even a legal risk case, just straight up foster care. Besides that, he’s not the age I would be hoping to adopt (I would have been about 18 when he was born……). Yet, how can I look at this kid, who just wants to hang out and suck up all the one-on-one attention he can get, how can I look him in the eye and tell him no? Is it so bad that I’m hoping the county will do it for me? I did promise him, if he’s still in foster care come summer, we could go on a bus trip to the shore – assuming we can get permission for him to leave the state for a day trip. He said, even if he wasn’t in foster care, he would text me and see if we could still go (I’m not sure about the legalities of this – I would assume, as long as his mother gives the ok, we could still go….. I just wonder how his mother would feel about this?). I don’t make promises lightly, so I will do all within my power to make this a reality for him. I’m sure we would have a ball and he was already planning the selfies we would be taking with the beach as our backdrop (he was taking selfies in the car to pass the time). Maybe I will get a call for a placement and it will all be a moot point, although, with the car complication this would not be the best time to get a placement and be dependent on others to get around…. Wouldn’t that be ironic? I get a call for a placement but can’t get the placement because I don’t have a car…… Life is just complicated that way isn’t it?
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