Nervous

This is where I am in my mind

I'm back to listening to my white noise of the beach.  I'm back to taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself with herbal tea.  My schedule has been awful this past week for running and I'm realizing how much I need it now.  I need to run.  It's making a much bigger difference than I realized and I can't handle this stress without it.  And what kills me is that it has nothing to do with my adoption or anything that I can control.

My adoptive family is fantastic.  They are wonderful.  They have my back.  I love them so much.  And some of them are hurting right now.  Badly.  And there's nothing I can do about it except to be there for them.  So I am.  I'm there.  I'm present.  I offer hugs when they want it.  I offer an ear if they need it.  And I back off and disappear if they need that too.  I wish I could wrap my arms around them and make the hurt go away.  I wish for that so badly.  But I can't, so instead I drive an hour to a hockey game and cheer as loudly as I can from the stands and take pictures to remind them of their glory days once we've gotten past this mess.  And I take a deep breath as life continues on.  C'est la vie.

My relationship with Rudy has evened out again.  All relationships have some ups and downs.  We needed to readjust and we did.  We wrote out a list of things that we need to work on and get better at and we're sticking to the list.  I'm really lucky to have found such a great guy who is willing to do things like that for me.  Especially when that means some sacrifices on his part.  I wish he didn't have to sacrifice as much as he does, but it happens.  We grew up two hours apart.  We call two very different places home.  We can't do anything about that.  So we must learn to deal with it and make the best decision we can, realizing that not everyone is going to be happy.  Because that's just how it is.  And other people don't get a say.  As my grandmother would say, "I'm just saying..."

I can't make everyone happy about our decision to live together in Massachusetts in the near future (as in within the next year).  I learned a long time ago that I can't live my life for other people, I can only live it for myself.  I'm tired of making decisions based on what other people think.  It's time to do what's right for me and Rudy, rather than what's right for our parents or grandparents.  It's just a stressful position to be in to feel like I have to defend our decision to live here.  It shouldn't need to be defended.  I shouldn't need to tell people the why.  Rudy and I decided.  End of story.  And the thing is, people know that my mom is sick.  They maybe don't know how sick she is, but I shouldn't have to defend the decision to spend any of her remaining time with her.  People should get it.  They should get that my mom has terminal cancer and so I don't want to move away from her.  It's stressful for me to even think about.

Deep breaths.  Calming sounds.  Warm showers with fancy soap.  Running (lots and lots of running).  I will get through this.