Going With The Gut

I had the most fabulous, stress-free vacation of my life. It was filled with lazy contentment, warm air, good friends, and vibrant colors. I kept thinking that I would want to blournal the heck out of it, but I find now that I simply don't have the words and am okay with that. Jamaica, no problem, mon. I know I won't forget the way I felt, even without writing it down.

Instead, I want to publish a post I wrote a couple days before we left (there are quite a few that I have written but couldn't publish at the time). We headed out for our vacation still very much up in the air as to what my gut feeling was telling me regarding our "big decision."

I'll say this. In that place that will forever hold a special place in my heart, everything became as clear as the electric teal blue water. Gut feelings don't care about external factors like money or businesses or ease. Gut feelings only deal with the big things...the ones that matter. Once we has removed ourselves temporarily from reality, it was obvious to us that only one gut feeling remained.

So we went with it. The sense of peace when I think about those things that really matter is proof that we made the right choice.

I wish I could go back to April 12 and give myself a hug.

-----------------------------
April 12, 2010
I had a good cry last night about something a situation that turned out to be different that what I thought it was. As Appa comforted me, he kept asking why I was crying. In his mind, the situation was a bummer, but not anything more than that. Our most important goal was still attainable.

So why was I crying?

Besides anxiety (and perhaps because of it), I hate change. I use the word hate deliberately. As young as I can remember, when my mother would rearrange furniture in our living room I would lay on the floor sick to my stomach. (Needless to say, I don't rearrange furniture in my own home.) When we have moved from each apartment, I've been nauseous and weepy for days leading up to the move. Granted, I put on a good face and push through it and am fine in a few days, but change is something I will go out of my way to avoid, especially if it is something important. Part of the reason I am so loyal to things (big and small) is simply because I don't want to change my comfortable status quo. I wear the same clothes from the same stores and use the same services from the same companies because that is comforting to me. It takes an awful lot to get me to switch.

Lately we've been considering an decision that would result in some change. Not dramatic change to those around us or to those who know us, but dramatic change for us internally (to use a business term). My knee-jerk reaction to this is to avoid the change. Indeed, this would be the easy route and the one that logically makes sense. It causes me anxiety to think about making a change and I find myself subconsiouly trying to convince myself to huddle back into my warm status quo and just forget all about it.

But my gut is telling me to be brave and stay open to the possibility of change. So, I am trying to be brave, but it's making my nervous and making me second guess my gut feelings. Then I second guess my second guessing and get dizzy from my spinning, ridiculous mind.

I'm not always sure why I get the gut feelings I do. Some people would call it divine and some would call it coincidence and some would call it intuition. Me, I'm sitting on the fence and just calling it something I know I should be listening to. I certainly do know that it isn't always as clear cut as I think. A couple months ago I got a gut feeling to act on something that ended up causing Appa and I some heartache. I wondered later why I would have felt so strongly about something for such a short period of time, only to feel equally as strongly about it the other way later on. My answer came earlier this month when the things I learned about myself from the last situation clicked into place allow us to explore this new opportunity.
--------------------
That decision was to drop out of our agency and accept a referral for a little boy we found on a waiting child list. I cried this morning when I pushed send on the final e-mail that would remove us from what we had clung to for so long, but the sense of peace I feel reminds me that my love for the little boy who is going to be my son is much stronger than the love for my former agency.

Little Bro has arrived.