Uncertainty, Limbo & Flux

Uncertainty, limbo and flux are quite possibly the worst words in my vocabulary. No, they aren't curse words, no Grasshopper will not get in trouble for repeating them at school. They are simply the words that I hate most when applied to my life.

If I could possibly exert control over everything in my life, and the lives of the people I love, I would. The irony here is that I don't consider myself a "control freak". Self-delusion? Quite possibly, but in my defense when I had to manage people in my pre-mom life, I did not micromanage and was quite good at delegation. I just can't handle not knowing what is going to happen next, when it is going to happen and how I can affect it.

Currently, the state of the economy and the state of my family are completely interrelated and I'm drowning in fear, anxiety and a bad case of the "what ifs." JR's business is going through a REALLY rough time right now (as many businesses are) and we're not sure that we can make out the light at the end of the tunnel just now. Starting in January (the beginning of the "season" in his line of work) things should get better. But there are no guarantees, of course. Our house is still on the market, and although our Realtor and several of the Realtors who have shown our home to clients believe that it's lovely, in a great location and priced right so it should sell, it hasn't. This all translates into uncertainty as to how we're going to pay the bills, where we're going to live and a constant state of limbo. I hate it. I feel like the tiniest push in the wrong place, at the wrong time could cause me to shatter into a million tiny pieces because I am so rigid and brittle from the strain being exerted to hold myself together.

What it comes down to, even beyond my innate need to make things happen how I want, when I want, is my infertility. As I have mentioned before, I want another child with a desperation so pure and powerful I sometimes doubt my own sanity. I grew up an only child, and remember quite clearly telling my parents that I would rather have no children at all when I grew up than to have only one. I realize that many only children don't feel the way that I do, and that for many families, one child is the perfect number. For me, for my family, it's not. But I find myself parenting an only child and it hurts. I would not change the experience of being Grasshopper's mother for anything, and OF COURSE now that he is here and he is mine I would not change things so that I was childless instead of raising only him. But I want more.

We have suffered through two failed adoptions (a term I hate, it sounds like we failed a test rather than losing a child who we loved very much but had no legal claim to when the birthmother changed her mind) since we adopted Grasshopper and it cost us a lot. It cost us a lot of time, a lot of emotion and what is currently most important, a lot of money. So much money, in fact that we cannot try to adopt again until the house sells, the economy gets back on track and JR's business feels stable and solvent again.

It cannot happen quickly enough, even if it happened tomorrow. Which it won't.

I didn't intend to write a doom and gloom post today, but that's what came out when I sat down to write. As I read back over my words, I wonder at what has precipitated this outpouring. But now I remember. There are two emaisl in my in-box waiting for me to respond. Two emails that require a "Congratulations! I'm sooo happy for you!" to two friends who have just announced their second and third pregnancies. And I am happy for them. They are good women, good mothers and good friends. I'm just glad that they told me via email, because face to face? There would be a lot of little pieces of me to clean up.