Goodbye 2011.....

I am sitting here looking back over this year, where we were and where we are today.  It has been a long year with a lot of ups and downs.  Some of which have forever changed me as a person.

January was my first forever change as I committed to be the mom of a 9.5 year old little girl with a boat load of issues through adoption.  Little R has worked so hard this year on her healing.  She has grown stronger both physically and emotionally.  A year ago she was fearful of everything even going to take a shower or go into her bedroom if the light was off.  She would lash out in violence if something didn’t go her way or she would rage for hours if her PTSD set in.   Now I sit here writing this with her showering on her own in the other room and no fear of a dark bedroom.  She has shown me so much about resilience and taught me so much about the power of trust.  I have had to earn her trust and it has been a long road and will continue to be so.

Little R is still “little” and will require consistent 1 on 1 from us for many years to come. This has been very unexpected and taxing on me.   We are hopeful that her healing will continue and she will become more independent as time goes on.   I struggle at times with having a 10.5 year old who is still requiring toddler supervision but who is growing on the outside.  I find myself as mom, psychiatrist, and listener most days as Little R works through and grieves her past and tries to process the present and future.  I realize that it is all a process and she is making great strides and growth.

For me personally this has been a tough year.  I have struggled continually with my connection to Little R in trying to find that feeling that she is mine forever.  I love her very much but she pushes me away so often and doesn’t let me be her mom that I feel rejected and don’t feel like a mom but a babysitter to her.  I lost my job in April and really have had a hard time recovering from that.  I loved my job and had envisioned staying there forever.  I was thrust out when the company went under in such a quick fashion I never had a chance to process.  I did find another job and am so blessed by that, but it is so different from my previous job I am struggling to adjust. Then there was my miscarriage.   I never had a chance to truly grieve the loss of my baby last December because Little R was here for her first Christmas and the adoption was right around the corner.  I brushed it under the rug.  Not a good idea.  It has finally surfaced and I am struggling with the loss of something I never even had.  Something I have always wanted and something I may never have again.   So this New Year’s Eve I am working through a lot of junk.

Feelings of loss over my pregnancy, fear of the future with my job, and connection with Little R, and my idea of what parenting should be.  I do know though that my God who is more powerful than all of my fear and all of my loss and all of my grief and will be there to lean on. He knows all that I am going through and feeling and will hold me up when I am weak and can’t walk another step.  My emotions are raw these days and I struggle at times to know what the right thing to do or say is.

My prayer for this New Year is that I will have healing in my heart from my loss and fear and that I will have great connections and strides with my Little R.  One thing I do know is that no matter what this New Year brings my God will be walking each day right beside me.