150 Steps...In the Present Moment

It's been 70+ days since we found out that the adoption fell through. In that time I've: wept, blogged, withdrawn from the world, come back out into the world, exercised, not exercised, gained and lost 6 pounds, gone back to therapy, attended a conference for work, decided that I'm going to have a nervous breakdown if I continue my work, tendered my resignation (effective July 1), started looking into new careers and returning to school, cleaned my house, let my house become a complete wreck, avoided the subject of adoption, talked incessantly about adoption, got weepy when I would see little babies out with their moms, came down with The Plague, missed a week of work, started revamping my novel. And... At least over the course of the past week, I stopped thinking about the fact that I am still not a mom. Until today. It just kind of hit me. And I don't know why. I walk into the house after my trip to the gym and there it is loud and clear in my head: I. Am.

"Did you take anything for that?" my husband asks me a few days ago during the height of what I am now calling "The Plague." The "that" he's referring to is me practically hacking up a lung every twenty minutes or so. "No [ coughs ]," I reply in a deep scratchy voice through a stuffed up head and chest. "I'm waiting until I go to bed for the night [ coughs ] to take any cold meds [ sneezes and blows nose twice ] so I can at least breathe a little better while I sleep. [ coughs ] During the day I'm just trying to let [ sneezes ] this thing make its way [ coughs ] through my system." He looks at me as if I have lost my mind. "Yeah...umm...OK." A few hours after this conversation I still cannot breathe. I'm huddled in my nest of blankets on the living room couch and still hacking away. Our elderly cat is enjoying the warmth I'm emitting as a result of my fever. She lays snoozing on top of me, opening h

I open the plastic storage bin in search of a specific journal that I've used in the past to record notes and thoughts about a particular self-help book. And there they all are. My collection. I've had to move them because we turned what was the guest room/my studio into the baby's room. My studio is now down in our finished basement. And I haven't taken the time to pull out and shelve my self-help book collection in the new space. Until I look at them in their bin this evening, I had forgotten how many self-help books that I actually own. Holy buckets, Batman. That's a whole lot of advice from a whole bunch of experts staring me in the face from inside that bin. That's a whole lotta books. Books rife with meditations and affirmations. Buddhist books. Art therapy guides. Zen books. Writing therapy guides. Mystical books. Practical self-help books filled with strategies that I can easily incorporate into my everyday life! Authors who promise the

Being present is challenging when you're waiting for something. Especially when you're waiting for a  big  something. Like becoming a mom. And you have no idea when it's going to happen.  Or even  if  it's going to happen. As hard as I try to be in the present moment, to be in the here and now, to enjoy this moment and the next, to live...somehow it just feels like my life is on hold.  I hang out with my husband, go to work, go to the gym, see friends, write, make art, do all of the things that I once did before we decided to adopt, but now I do these things with a sense that I'm missing something.  Something essential. Every part of me is just aching everyday for that missing piece. Still...everyday I try to smile, try to be a good wife/daughter/friend, try to do my job, try to take care of my body. And everyday I feel it down to my core. The missing piece. How can I miss something so much that I've never had?