Nostalgic

I've spent the day feeling nostalgic for some reason. I called Elizabeth today to tell her I was feeling this way. Elizabeth was my travel mate (along with Jennifer and Elizabeth's mom) when we went to pick up Ellie and Aidai.

The air is starting to get cooler, the month has changed on the calendar and I remember so vividly all the emotions that were coursing through me last year around this time.

I believe I'm correct in saying I had started my "number" countdown for the number of days before I travelled. I was giddy, anxious and scared out of my mind pretty much every day. I remember waking up each day, thinking how many days were left until we left and wondering what might happen that day to delay the process a bit further.

We were in a mad dash around our house to get everything done and ready and we were frantically trying to figure out where the last of the funds were going to come from to pay for the return trip. Josh was deeply into football and we were enjoying what would be our last year as a family of three at the football field.

Somehow it doesn't seem possible that almost a year has passed since we travelled around the world. I'm certain this last month before "Gotcha" Day will be filled with more emotions. I spent today working and remembering so many details and emotions from the trip. It was certainly a two week period where I experienced the high of highs and the low of lows -- all crammed into a very short period of time. I plan to take the time this month to read back through my [very detailed] posts about my time leading up to and during my time there picking up Ellie.

I am such a different person in a short year's time. Good changes and probably some that are not so good, but certainly different. I will never have the same outlook as I once did.

I saw a friend today that I have not seen in about 17 years. He told me that he and his wife didn't have children, that it "just didn't work out". I asked had he ever considered adoption. He responded that "if we had it to do over, we probably would, but we are just too old now." He's the same age as my husband. I pointed out that I knew how old he was and that it was certainly not too late. We talked about my trip to Kyrgyzstan (me showing pix of Ellie from my camera) and telling him how age and money and the size of your house just don't matter when you see babies lying in an orphanage in a third world country. Sadly, though, some people just don't get it or just aren't called to adopt. I will never see things that way again. I will always have burned into my mind the visions of the children at that orphanage. I am so thankful that they were there to take in and care for the children, but it's no place for children. It's not a place to play and belly laugh and for hugs and rolling in the grass with brothers. It's not a place where food is abundant and clean water is always available. It's not a place to always be warm in the winter and cool in the summer or a place where clothes are anything more than functional. It's a sad place, honestly, and if I had one wish, I'm certain it would be that all the orphans in the world would have forever families and there would be no more orphans. One day, I'm certain there will be no more -- but not in this world.

So, bear with my nostalgia over the next month.

I will tell you, there is a surprise coming in the next week -- "The List" will be posted. For those of you who are not "constant readers" (I love Stephen King's term of endearment he uses for his readers, so I took some liberties here), I recently wrote a post about a book I read and have created a list of things I'd like to do -- well, I don't want to say before I die or anything, just things I'd like to do. You can read the post here.

I will also tell you that in search of that link, I went back and re-read my posts from September 2008 -- and I cried. It was just all so real all over again -- the emotions, the fears, the absolute panic in some of the posts. And, I know how it ends and yet I can still get emotional reading through it again. I am such a wimp!! *smile* I love reading back through my blog. I really NEED to get it put in a book.