When I look at this picture from 2010, I can’t help but think “she has no idea what she’s in for.” At the time of this photo, I had finally legally adopted Jafta, after 3 years of ambiguity and stress. I’d given birth to two girls, in the midst of 8 miscarriages. Kembe’s adoption was finally moving forward. I was training for a half-marathon and raising 3 kids under 4. I was tired but also hoping that life was about to calm down.
The thing about life, though . . . does it ever really calm down? Two weeks after this photo I ran that half marathon and then found myself in Haiti during a massive natural disaster. I had to come home without Kembe, but with a crippling case of PTSD from the earthquake.
Over the next decade, I would bring Kembe home and finally adopt him. I would renovate 3 houses. I would leave my job teaching pysch at a local university in order to pursue writing full-time. I would leave my church. I would get a divorce. I would write a book. I would start a Beer and Hymns chapter. I would watch my kids grown from toddlers to teenagers. I would battle anxiety. I would learn a new normal as a single mom.
The thing I’m taking with me into this next decade: life is never calm. There will be losses and stressors and health bullshit and kid drama. I can’t control the outcomes. The only thing I can do . . . the best thing I can do . . . is to stop trying to control the outcomes. To let life come as it does. To live and love with an open hand because some of the things I want to hold tightly will not stay, and some of the blessings I would never expect are things I would never have reached for.
