Perspective {just mine}

This has been a hard week.  I've had a pit in my stomach for days over the sheer sadness and pain and fear people are experiencing right now.  I've not really known how to move on from these feelings.

Then I saw a video of the national anthem at the Boston Bruins game.  The entire audience belted that tune out in a moving show of unity and strength and resilience. 

And it clicked for me.

The best, the ONLY, thing we can do is chose hope and reject fear and anger.  Anything less and we've let them win, let something be taken from us. Let our lives be minimized in some way.

This isn't just about the bombing, the plant explosion, the flooding and sink holes for me, because the pain in my heart for those horrors and the people who are living them is still raw.  I have no real words for that. For them.  Just sadness and solidarity.

But this is about my life in general, too.  My outlook on adoption and the adoption communities I follow.  My complacency to let others who can or will only respond with negativity drive MY adoption process, affect MY life and emotions.

I refuse to let them be my voice anymore.

No news?  Long waits? No updates?  Yes, all those things suck.  A lot.  But instead of wallowing about it, fighting about it, refusing to accept it, we should try to help where we can in a positive way, and above all else, join hands and sing. Loud. Proud. Defiant. HOPEFUL.  Because at the end of the day, it's going to be okay.

Our kids will come home.  Older, yes, but don't fall into the hype that the transition will be SO much harder at 3 than it will be at 2.5.  They are not being harmed.  Not in the sense of the word that really counts. Our kids will come home, and we will live our lives filled with joy, watching milestones and taking all the pictures we want.  Many people don't have that chance anymore.

I choose hope. I choose kindness.  I choose faith.