A week, really?

Yeah, I guess it has been.  Unfortunately the longer I go between talking to someone or to connecting with someone (like this), the less I share.  It's not that nothing is happening, but some of it is too stuck in my head being processed before I write about it or I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.  No, I'm not trying to be cagey.  I honestly haven't heard anything from my agency (although my gut feeling tells me otherwise), but I did do a trial run on the phone tree tonight!  Actually, I tried calling my parents but evidently their phone service is knocked out.  My sister and I are the only ones that call them regularly, but usually they just call us.  So, the first tier of the phone tree has failed!  I left messages on their cell phones and my dad's work number to have someone check their home phone service.  Honestly, if I can't reach them on the big day I'm going to be pissed. 

It's been an interesting couple of weeks.  Anyone that follows my daughter's blog knows that work has been challenging lately.  I'm involved with a huge project and I'm developing major eye strain as a result.  Honestly, I'm looking at a small computer screen for 8-10 hrs of my work day and then I attempt to check my email and blogs at home.  My apologies to my bloggy buddies, but something had to give.  So, please forgive the fact that I have not responded to emails or commented on all the the interesting things in your lives.  I will catch up, I swear! 

I did escape town and the small print of my computer by leaving the state Thursday evening after I finished work.  No amount of telling my co-workers "I'm leaving as soon as I finish this batch" seemed to work.  My intention was to leave just past 3 pm, but in reality I was there until after 4 pm.  I was making good time heading north when my cell phone buzzed.  Work wanted to know if I could do one more thing...  Fortunately they just wanted to buy me dinner after all the hard work we have put in to this project the past few weeks and months. 

While visiting Kristen I was going to do this whole "where in the US is Erica?" thing, but honestly, neither of us really felt like blogging.  We stayed so busy with other things.  Kris had a lot of shopping she needed to get done, but Duc got a couple items too.  I'll try to post pictures of the trip throughout the week.  Even after returning I am busy, busy, busy.  Chennie is coming in from Hong Kong this weekend and has not yet seen my house.  There is major cleaning to be done!  Also, I think it will be time to tell her about Haven Duc.  She does know about my daughter, but I think she was horribly disappointed when I called her nearly two years ago to tell her what I was doing.  I think she thought I was going to tell her I was getting married.  That's what she wants for me.  Actually, I think that's what most of my family wants for me especially now that I am going to be a single mother to two children.  I can understand her confusion--many of the people she knows get married and then have children.  The same is true in my family unless you are my slutty cousin Kathy.  At least she broke that barrier for me (the having children before marriage thing, not the slutty thing). 

While shopping this weekend I couldn't help but remember back a year.  At the time I had only been officially waiting for my daughter for a couple of months, but since the time I was working on my dossier for baby girl, I just knew I had a son out there too.  I just couldn't understand how it could possibly work out.  Only a few people knew how how torn I was by this.  In my mind I thought I had figured out God's plan.  First I would get baby girl home and after a year of adjustment I would submit a dossier to VN.  Kristen even reminded me this weekend that I had sent her a list of little boy names last January!  Although Kristen and I both shopped for our someday daughters last summer, my heart ached for this son that I didn't yet understand.  Until now no one but Kristen and my mother knew that I bought a little boy's outfit.  I kept it close to my bed and every night I would bury my face into the soft cotton and pray and wonder what it all meant.  I held on to that little onesy for months and it wasn't until the end of October that I finally tucked it away in a drawer, my drawer of relics--old school records and diplomas.  Old journals and old dreams all tucked tightly together.  It was only a week or so later that the CCAA reversed their rules on concurrent adoptions/births while waiting for a match from China.  I had given up on the dream only to have it revived again and refashioned into something new.  I'm so thankful God kept banging me upside the head to tell me to step out in faith one more time.  When I look at all the things that have gone wrong in my life, none of those things separately or collectively could have hinted that this would be my future.  It's beyond anything I could have imagined.   

In reviewing my life the past couple of days I realized that there are still some things that I haven't done and things that I would still like to do regardless of when my children come into my life.  About five or six years ago I began writing a novel.  I'm not referring to writing a few pages and giving up because I ran out of things to say, I'm referring to writing 152 pages and giving up out of fear.  I have been reading a lot lately and with nearly every book I read I can't help but think "I can do that" or "I can do that better".  What I write here on my blogs does not in any way compare to what I write privately.  While the blogs I run are dedicated to telling the story of my children, for my children my novel is a reflection of feelings or emotions that I have felt over the years.  It is complete fiction, but I think every writer invests a certain amount of him/herself into the story.  How could they not?  The truly gifted story tellers are those that create a whole new world for the reader to walk in to.  Somehow they make us fall in love with the characters (or hate them) and make us believe that we know these characters, they become real to us. 

Unfortunately, writing has a way of taking over my life.  I can think of nothing else but that perfect sentence to convey all that the character needs to say.  It takes over my sleep, distracts me from driving and makes me daydream at work.  I sleep less, I forget to do basic things and I crave solitude for the story to breathe.   Perhaps this is the perfect time to finish this story.  With all that is going on with both the Chinese and Vietnamese adoptions, maybe it would be best to completely focus on something else. 

Wheww.  If you made it through all that, you are crazy or bored!  Maybe I shouldn't have tried to sort it all out in my head--maybe I should have written it out so I could see everything more clearly.