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Being Joyful – Being Content – Being Grateful
You choose these things. There’s no perfect life. Perfect Job. Perfect spouse. Perfect family. We are all imperfect people. You have to wake up every morning and choose.
I would like to clarify for all the people who have asked if I am okay after my last post. I am more than ok. I am not sad. On the contrary, I am the happiest I have been in the past 8 years. I am at peace. I am healing myself and my family. I am moving forward instead of stuck in the same unwinnable cycle that I have been living. I’ve been a smaller version of myself; afraid to be too happy because I had children who were upset by my happiness. One child has told me that their life will be complete when they steal all of my joy. I’ve been afraid to be content when they were sad. Apparently, if I love my life it means I do not appreciate their pain and how horrible their life is. Not was…is.
I am not blaming them for me not being who I am. I am owning it. I walked around on eggshells, afraid to be myself, because other people were sad. I am not going to discuss mental health issues in depth or say that it’s easy to pull yourself out of depression. I am not. But what I will say is that if a therapist is telling you to move, and get out bed, exercise, go outside, journal, work through things, eat right, drink water, be nice to people, talk about your feelings, etc., and you refuse to do any of those things… what do you expect to happen? It took many long years of work for me to get to where I am with being content. It is not an over night thing. It’s a constant waking up in the morning deciding how my day is going to go. EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!!! Not just when I feel like it.
You can say, “well, you live in a huge house and have money, of course you are content.” But that’s not it. I have had nothing and was content. I have had plenty and have been content. I’ve been so sad I could barely get out of bed and still I was content.
I can choose which version of my life I want to see. Right now, it is 4:30 in the morning. I am awake with a child who does not like to sleep for long periods of time. She thinks sleeping at night is optional. I am 61 years old and I’m caring for a child that sleeps like a baby. I’m tired most days. I wash 3 loads of clothes at the start of almost every day because I have children who are incontinent. I am not a morning person. Waking up early does not thrill me. BUT I can wake up thankful that those children have a safe place to be. I can be thankful for the quietness where I can write. I can be thankful that I have a washing machine and running water and I’m not washing those clothes in a creek. I can be thankful for all the arms that hug me in the morning and at night. I can look around this home and feel so incredibly thankful that God brought me here… OR I can be miserable. I can say they ruined my whole day. I can be angry and frustrated and take it out on everyone else. I can say that life sucks and it’s unfair and when will it be easy? It’s my choice. Both versions above are true. It’s up to me to decide whether I take a “grateful/thankful heart” view or a “poor, pitiful me” view.
What I do know for an absolute fact is that I love the Lord my God with all my heart. I can not contain it. I want to smile and hug and love with my whole heart. If you don’t want that, then you can go and live your life and I will love you unconditionally from afar. I can still pray for you. I can still love you. I can still celebrate you and your life, but if me being “content in all things” is too much for you, then so be it. That’s peace. That’s something I am not willing to give away anymore.
Recently Dan said it all when he looked at me and said, “It’s good to have YOU be you again.”
The children I have talked about think that, because I am content, it means I don’t care about their pain. That’s not true. I just love a God who can take bad things and use it for good. It doesn’t mean that “all things are good”. It means God can use bad things for good for those who love HIM! It does not mean bad things don’t matter. It does not mean that you have to just get over it. It doesn’t mean that life is always happy, but it does mean you can be content looking for the lessons that are being taught and move forward. It does not mean being abandoned as a child was a good thing, it is truly a horrible thing, but having a family now is a good thing. They are not mutually exclusive. It’s not one or the other. They can both be true.
I don’t believe I am their savior. I don’t believe that adoption means everything is just peachy now. I do believe that it is good to not be left in an orphanage. I do believe that family is good. I believe not being alone is good. I believe having people in your corner is good. I don’t believe that being adopted erases what happened before. It doesn’t. It does mean that a heart of gratefulness can bring joy to every day. Not grateful to me for adopting them, but grateful to not be in an orphanage. Grateful to be alive. Grateful to have people who love you. Grateful to have a chance to become whatever you want to. Joy and sorrow can exist at the same time. There is real sorrow in being left alone, but there can be joy in being chosen. One does not cancel out the other. No one day is all bad or all good. There’s always a coexisting of the two. You choose what you take away from life. You choose whether the bad wins or loses. You choose. You and only YOU.
Lord knows I can’t make anyone do anything. I get told by everyone…Lisa, you’ve taken the horse to water. You’ve brought the horse there time and time again. You’ve made the water look as inviting as you can. You’ve shown them how to drink. You’ve lovingly sat there with them for hours asking them to please drink. You’ve told them how important it is to drink. They will not drink the water until they are ready to drink the water and you have to accept that they may never be ready to drink the water.
The hardest part for me has been grieving the loss of what I thought my family would look like. I didn’t think we would be perfect- as I said before – imperfect people live imperfect lives, but I did think that children that grew up in an orphanage would buy into my idea of a family.
My idea of family is this – imperfect people communicating their needs and wants, while acknowledging wrongdoings, and apologizing when necessary so that you can live peacefully together while supporting each other through hard times and celebrating with each other during good times appreciating the beautiful uniqueness of each person.
I wanted my children to have someone to count on forever, to never have to go through anything alone again. Our adopted children all have medical needs that will have lifetime issues. They will require surgeries and hospital stays. I wanted our family to be there for each other forever. Dan and I believe in this so much that we made the dumbest financial decision of our lives (on paper). We bought a huge house and went into more debt, so they would all always have a place to call their own. We set up a trust. We provided for their future. We did all of this so there would be a central gathering place large enough for everyone to come home too. A place to come to in times of need. A place where no one would ever have to go to a group home. A place that you could return to if you ever needed to – a safety net.
I did not expect children to say, “If me going to a group home makes you miserable for the rest of your life, then I win.” How do you fight that? How do you fight against “If me leaving makes everyone believe you are a horrible mother, then I win”? I’ve written out fact sheets. I’ve shown them other people’s posts, reels, and articles about the behavior they are showing. I’ve explained it’s a learned behavior. It’s the lack of coping mechanisms. I’ve talked until I’m blue in the face. If someone believes a thought, truly believes it in their hearts, you can not change it, no matter how much you want to. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Repeat something enough times in your brain and it will be your truth. I truly believe having family that never leaves is a good thing, but I can not make someone else believe that. All I can do is state that I will always be here just in case some day they change their minds. But I can not guarantee that the other people that they have hurt will be there.
In our home, we talk about starting each day anew. New morning mercies every day. Every day is a new day to make things right. You shouldn’t be criticized constantly for your past mistakes, IF you are trying to do better, but that’s the necessary thing – you have to be moving forward. You have to make the choices to do things that will make your relationships better and heal the damage. You can’t pretend nothing happened, do the same mean things, and blame everyone else for everything and ask for a restart again.
When we moved, we told them that this was their final chance. They were getting one final reset. They were not allowed to do the old behaviors that made our old house unsafe for the rest of the children. We would provide therapy and anything else that they felt they needed – space, quiet time, their own room but they could not act out in anger and do things that harm others. They could be mad, angry, frustrated, etc. They just couldn’t do the same things that made our home feel unsafe. When they did it again, and the free pass didn’t happen (and it did happen many, many times before at the old house), they decided freedom was what they wanted. No amount of fact telling would discourage them. To them, life would be easier when they lived alone and no one told them what to do. Life would be easier when they didn’t have to feel bad for what they did to their family. Life would be easier with people who don’t know they can be mean. Life will be easier when they only have to care about themselves. Just to be clear those are their exact words.
Now I know most of us do this as teens, it’s why we leave home and become an adult. We want to be responsible only for ourselves and choose what we do, what we eat, and where we go. It’s a normal life transition, but this is more than that. It’s a total turning away from family, letting everyone know you don’t want to work on anything or heal anything, BUT still expecting that you get all the benefits of family. This has been hard for the children who truly love family and don’t want to deal with the drama any more.
It’s the “You have to forgive me” and “You have to be my friend no matter what I do to you” mentality. Life doesn’t work that way. I taught them Brene Brown’s idea of trust. You trust people because they show up; every time they tell the truth, comfort you, or are there for you, that’s a marble in the jar. A full jar of marbles means that they are trustworthy. You have to be trustworthy to be trusted. You can not be the kind of person who lies and never takes responsibility. You can not be the kind of person who weaponizes information and uses it against someone else and expect them to trust you. You can’t demand that they be your friend. You have to do the work to be a trustworthy friend, but some people demand the benefits without doing any of the work.
I am writing all of this because the rest of my children are hurting. They are tired of pretending that things are okay. They are tired of other people looking at them like they’re terrible people for thinking that the 3 are rude when the 3 are excellent at hiding it around people. If you don’t live this, I guarantee you that you will not understand. There is no logic. There is no explaining this. Heck, even I don’t get it most days.
For years I’ve been walking a tight rope, trying to keep both sides happy. It’s not that I’m choosing one side over the other. I’m just choosing to live in my house and take care of my kids that need lifetime care. I can’t NOT do that. I am refusing to put them in a group home. I need to take care of me to be able to do that. They are unable to care for themselves. I’m going to appointments, trying to keep my house clean, trying to rebuild relationships, trying to lose weight and take care of me, and I just don’t have the energy any more for the drama while trying to convince someone that family is a good thing. I’m not giving up on anyone. I’m just moving out of the way so they can find what it is that they want.
And while they figure out what it is that they want, I’m going to find me. I’m going to finally publish that children’s book that I wrote 25 years ago and have been talking about publishing forever. I’m going to lose my weight. I’m going to enjoy this amazing life that I GET to live. Because I am truly Seriously Blessed and I never, ever want to lose sight of that fact.
