James makes a guest appearance
Well, hello everyone!
I have fully enjoyed Molly’s blogging and history keeping as this adoption process continues, but I felt it was time for me to throw my hat in the ring. At long last. You know, because I have been a part of all this too. My name is James, nice to meet you, and while I am not nearly the same type of writer my incredible wife is, I will do my best to speak to some things that have been percolating in me for a while.
Why has it taken so long for me to write, you ask? Isn’t this the James and Molly Bass Blog, our shared method of creative expression and deeply personal updates etched in the stone of the internet? To be frank, many times have I pulled up this page and tried to put my thoughts down, but I haven’t had a lot to say. Whereas the emotional up and down of this process seems to yield a fount of wisdom, clarity, and ideas for Molly; for me the emotional intensity caused me to draw more inward, not necessarily isolating myself, but diminishing in a way to better find stability. For one, I’m now off of social media and journaling a heck of a lot more.
At my best I have sought to make meaning of this season, striving to depend on God more, to savor moments with friends and my family, and to pour myself into the ministry of my therapy practice. At my worst I have sunk into something like a depression, a mid-life crisis asking non-threatening questions like “What is the point?”, reaching for any passing obsession (like say, photography) to distract me from how I am feeling and give me a small sense of progress or accomplishment. While this adoption process is something I want and I very much believe we are called to as a family, I have felt powerless, angry, melancholic, and confused just as much if not more than joy, hope, and anticipation.
Molly has never pressured me to write, she knows me too well for that. It is not that I don’t love writing, I really do, but (and this sounds horrible) only on my own terms when I feel inspired. Pretty juvenile, I know, but here we are. When we talk about the blog she just says, “It is there when you’re ready, I love when you write,” and left it at that. She’s playing the long game, folks.
So here it is. Lately, I have been journaling and sketching out what it is like to wait. Now that is a jarring four-letter word that feels like a fastball to the chest. While is it hard to imagine an action that embodies waiting, it helps me to think of it like a location or season in life. It feels like waking up in the middle of a desert, barren landscape all around me in every direction I look. The stifling heat filling my lungs, the desperation to leave, the powerlessness to create water or shade, and the knowledge if I keep on in any direction I will either reach its end or die trying (a bit melodramatic, but stay with me). Waiting often feels like awaking to a personal wasteland carrying a weight that no one sees.
And in this wasteland I have discovered three avenues that I would do best to avoid:
The first we’ll call Control, borne of panic and rage, which entices that if I only had a tighter grip on my work, family, and resources; then I could push my way out of the desert in no time. So what if I end up a burned out shell of a man?
The second is Vice, which supposes since I may be stuck here for a while, why not enjoy the stay? It offers all kinds of entertainment, past-times, and addictions to best anesthetize me from my discomfort, but will also leave me underdeveloped once the waiting is over.
The third is Despair, a heavy weight that drags down, which suggests if I can’t recant whatever decision brought to wait in the first place, then I should recognize that there actually is no way out, no escape, and nothing will ever change.
Yet I am discovering and beginning to experiment with the other meaning for wait.
This other meaning is the act of waiting on or looking for an opportunity to serve and host others, which may represent the only coherent way through this desert.
To accept waiting as a role, not just a season, to embrace it as a service to others for as long as it lasts. To notice my pain and then share it with others, even lean into helping other people, and to see their relief as a promise of the relief I will eventually recieve. All the constant time under tension is held with patience knowing it will develop and grow me into a more grateful and kind person. Learning to practice losing myself in the satisfaction of doing even the smallest of tasks well.
I am gradually discovering that I am content. Maybe not in every way or every moment, but I find it there some days, sprouting in the desert all the same. I am beginning to realize that I do not need what I am waiting for to have a good life. The good life is all around me if I have eyes to notice. I can take a breath, look up, and whisper that life is good enough right now as it is. If I slow down, contentedness is there for the taking. If I defer joy until I have what I am waiting for, I will always end up disappointed with my life. For now, I can do without what I am waiting for and still be happy.
Then comes the thrill of hope, which at this point feels less like triumphant trumpets announcing its arrival, and more like a gentle swell of violins from a long ways off. It is there, just barely, but it is there. If I am still, I can feel the ancipation that what I long for will eventually happen. We will eventually match with a birth mom, we will one day travel to finally meet her, and I will hold my baby, who we have prayed for hundreds of times, and our baby will come to live with us. In order to hold onto this future hope I have to remind myself to trust that God will take care of me. To then step past my fears and dare to dream again. Far beyond what I feel and can see, it will eventually happen.
Those are my thoughts for now about waiting, not as definitive as I would like yet more solid than I had dared hope. Maybe you can relate to some of these feelings about waiting, and if so, you are not alone in this. This season is incredibly exposing, humbling, and it does mature us faster than most, if we let it. We can hope together, knowing this period of waiting will always come to an end, however quickly or slowly.
The major choice is who we choose to be while we are in the waiting.
Until next time,
James