Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Balancing Hopes and Realities in Adoption
On this episode we'll share personal insights on maintaining the delicate balance between accepting our children for who they are and the natural urge to shape their world.
The heart of our discussion lies in the emotional tug-of-war between hopes and reality. Feelings of loss and sadness come into play when all the love and effort poured into creating nurturing spaces aren't always met with the enthusiasm we'd hoped for. Through candid stories, we uncover the tension between the desire to be a supportive, loving parent and the need to shield ourselves from potential rejection. We ponder the idea that good parenting is akin to revealing a masterpiece within a block of marble, allowing children to flourish naturally, without undue influence.
In our conversation we confront life's inevitable compromises and how to find peace amidst them. Sharing tools for managing emotions, we embrace the chaos while celebrating small victories, and learn to coexist with conflicting emotions. The complexities of adoption and personal growth become a tapestry woven with moments of beauty and acceptance, demonstrating that sometimes, simply being present for our loved ones, despite the mess, is the greatest achievement.
Thanks for joining us today on Behind the microphone and I wanted to say come on camera, but there's not cameras here today and help me process something that's happening in my life in real time. So we're just going to jump right in. This is even an abnormal introduction and that is probably what today's podcast is going to jump right in. This is even an abnormal introduction and that is probably what today's podcast is going to be. But I walked into our office this morning and I said I have a podcast inside of me today and Courtney was like all right, let's do it, let's see where this goes. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to see where this goes and I'm going to process adoption and what that feels like. Live on the air Should be fun. Might not be.
Speaker 2:Oh, it'll be fun, it'll be something it will be something, it'll be something.
Speaker 1:Oh, it'll be fun, it'll be something. It'll be something, it'll be something. So what is happening currently in my world is that yesterday I showed up to this like my city group and my friend there said how was today with the kids? Was it a good day? And I was like no, it wasn't. And Brad immediately was like no, it wasn't. And they're like oh man, did you get any phone calls from the school? And it took us a second. We were like no behavior wise. The kids were totally fine. What wasn't fine was internal, as is maybe sometimes the case, and so we are currently in the process of replacing flooring in our house, because one room at a time, because our kids have created biohazards in their space Courtney.
Speaker 2:I'm not going in. I won't go in. No, I won't go in.
Speaker 1:Well, I have to.
Speaker 2:You do have to go in today. Yes, actually.
Speaker 1:But in general, because of the way that this room is, I stand at the doorway and I don't go into their room. I can reach their lamp to say goodnight If they have not, like hugged or kissed me goodnight before they go into sleep. Um, I say you can come to your doorway Like I can't. I cannot go into this room because it's a level that my brain can't wrap itself around. And that's not to say that Brad and I have not tried a thousand different ways to keep this room functional and hygienic. It fails every time. And so we're ripping up the carpet and in the process of this is an opportunity to create a space for my kids, and I have a lot of feelings, and I have a lot of feelings. I have a lot of feelings about this. So yesterday I called Danielle, who you guys met in the episode about friendship, and processed this with her. We had some other stuff going on with another one of our kids.
Speaker 2:Shocker, I mean when is there not something going on right? Another one of our kids, Shocker, I mean there's. When is there not something going on Right?
Speaker 1:When is there not Um and that particular one? I was texting Courtney and Sarah um at night like, hey, I just I need to. I need to process some things. I have a lot of feelings about what it looks like to show up and love my kids where they are. To show up and love my kids where they are and each kid in my house needs that in a different way and for one of my kids right now, showing up for them reflects priorities that I have as a mom. So when I became a mom, I knew I wanted to be a certain type of mom.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be a mom who accepted her kids as they were, who didn't put any pressure on my kids to live like for me to live vicariously through them, that whatever they wanted to do and whoever they wanted to, however they wanted to be, then they could be that, and I would not. I would not change it, and it's a direct reflection of what I was not offered as a kid, yeah, and so I care deeply about this.
Speaker 2:Well, and you're very good at this, you do this. Well, I do, you do.
Speaker 1:Because it matters to me. And so one of my kids. I'm getting to do this for right now, right, I'm getting to show up in a way that reflects who I want to be as a mom, even when it's hard, it's really hard, it's really really hard.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I would want a different thing. Yeah, but because I'm dedicated to this idea of allowing my children to be who they are, I get to show up in this way and it's scary, it's not. It doesn't come without cost, it doesn't come with all of that stuff, and you and Sarah have been texting me and checking in and like, hey, how's this going today, at the same time, meeting my other kids who share this room, that we're doing, showing up in a way for them where they are, does not reflect who I want to be as a mom, and that is really hard.
Speaker 2:In what way does it not reflect?
Speaker 1:So part of what I love as a mom, and what I've done consistently for 14 years now, is create spaces for kids, starting with Zoe's nursery right. Like, I'm pregnant with Zoe and it was hard side note. It was hard for me to wrap my brain around being pregnant with Zoe because everything in my life happened so fast that year that, um, I did not know what to do with having a baby.
Speaker 1:Um, I had just gotten married. We found out two months later. We were like I was living in the on a friend's couch and then, in the span of a year, had a mortgage and a husband and now a baby, and it was the baby part that I didn't know what to do with, and so I didn't know how to like. I didn't want to do like a pink frilly nursery, but I wanted to create this beautiful space that I could be in with my daughter and rock her and read her books and kiss her goodnight. And it ended up being this really lovely, soft, inviting space, and it was my first time that I got to experience creating a space as an act of love for my child.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that a lot of us can relate to that, because I think that, as moms, it's like the first opportunity you have to like, give your kids good gifts. It's like this like I love you and I'm giving you this space and it's yours and you belong here.
Speaker 1:You belong here and you are loved and you are cherished and you are anticipated.
Speaker 2:And I think again as I get older, like I, at least, for me it's always been exciting Like, oh, you want to change your room, All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1:This is I can love you in this way. Yeah, Like, oh, you want to change your room?
Speaker 2:All right, let's do it. This is I can love you in this way, yeah.
Speaker 1:And what reflects you.
Speaker 2:Right, right. Who are you? Who are you? And?
Speaker 1:how can I put more of who you are into this space and how do we do this together? And it's a joy, like it is. And moms do this at every financial aspect, right at every financial aspect, right Like moms who have nothing, are strapped, are like doing strips of fabric and and tying up curtains. And I've just seen it. I've done it at every financial point in our life. Yeah, we had. You get creative. You get so creative, so creative. And then you know, we've changed houses so many times and I remember putting together, like Zoe and Slade's room that they were sharing.
Speaker 1:Right when we, when Slade was born and I just I remember how delighted I was to be in that room and how precious that room felt to me set of kids came to us. We were living on a campus in a former group home. That was our home. But when we moved into that place, into that house, we got a kid. Three days later we still had boxes everywhere. I mean, it was wild.
Speaker 1:It was wild and what ended up happening is I was able to create a cozy space in our living area, but when the first kid came, he was part of a sibling set of three. Slade also got sick at the same time and we already had a different sibling set of three in our house. So we moved houses, got a kid school, started Slade got sick, got two more kids at the same time. I never made it to the back of the house, like I never made it to their bedrooms. It was like a bed, a rug, a nightstand, a dresser, and then, as kids came in, everything shifts so much in foster care that the rooms were never done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were never like individualized. They were never for that.
Speaker 1:For this one kid, right, it's just a room right, and so then the the end of us living there is. When we got these kids my four that I have now we ended up having to move off of campus very quickly. We moved into a house that we lived in for nine months, moved again, adopted in the same year, and did not have any money whatsoever to put into creating a space for the kids, and so this year, one of the things that we wanted to do was like make their spaces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because this home that you're in now is it's it. This is our forever home. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so also they've destroyed their rooms. Yeah, so it is even more. Like two weeks ago I was like I cannot take the smell in this room for another second. But what we've learned in the last four years of having them is that one the two that share this room destroy one, them in particular like not kind of destroy.
Speaker 1:We're on our fifth dresser yeah these kids have ripped curtains out of walls. They're on their like third bunk bed set. Yeah, um, I have lost count of the number of mattresses that we've gone through, the number of sheet sets that we've gone through in four years. One of the things that we have to do in this room is go in and repair holes in walls that have been meticulously placed there by one of my kids.
Speaker 1:There's marker and pen all over every surface and pin all over every surface, and so I'm in this spot as a mom of wanting to create a space. It kind of hit me yesterday I never got to make their nurseries.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you didn't have them, I didn't have them. I've never been able to create a space that conveys you're wanted, you are loved, you are cherished. And I have a chance to now and I still feel like I can't, because they'll destroy it. Right when one of my kids in this room will destroy it because they don't really have full control over their body.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Which I can wrap my brain around now. Right, yeah, now.
Speaker 2:Now yeah.
Speaker 1:I haven't always been able to, but the other one in this room will destroy it simply because I did it out of love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's hard.
Speaker 1:It is so hard.
Speaker 2:I think, like in talking through this with you earlier, the thing that came to mind was like it's kind of the gospel, though Like you, you're doing this out of love. You you're doing this, show this child. Like I see you, I love you, I care about you, I don't care what you do to this space, I'm going to do it anyways.
Speaker 1:And that's where I've come to, and that's what God does for us, right?
Speaker 2:It's like how many gifts has he given me that I've just been like I'm going to throw it away, destroy it? But he does it over and over and over again and I feel like that's what you're doing for them right now. Is you're showing up and you're just saying I don't care, I don't care what you do with this space. I love you enough that I know, because God knows. He knows what we're going to do after he gives us the gift. He knows we're going to throw it away. He knows what we're going to do after he gives us the gift. He knows we're going to throw it away. He knows we're going to destroy it. You know this. You know your kids are going to destroy it.
Speaker 1:They're going to destroy it.
Speaker 2:But you're doing it anyways.
Speaker 1:I am doing it kind of. Anyways, I'll count it.
Speaker 1:Because part of what so, part of this process and part of what I wanted to do in like live time is say how has this happened over the last 24 hours? I think I've. I think I started to put words to this somewhere around yesterday or maybe the evening of the day before, where I said to Brad I'm really sad, I'm really. This is, I'm sad about this. I want to be excited and I'm not excited at all, and I started being able to put a little bit of words. Sarah and I have been. Sarah has a decorating eye that is just unbelievable, and so I've been texting her and she's like what's your budget?
Speaker 2:And the question what's your budget is I want I can feel vomit in my throat Because you feel like you were going to put all this money into it and it's just going to be for nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like take dollar bills and just rip them. Yeah, that's what it feels like Just pull dollar bills out of your wallet If we still use dollar bills these days and just light it on fire. Or, better yet, because it's what's going to happen take a sharpie and just destroy it.
Speaker 2:Um maybe write your name, I didn't know.
Speaker 1:I truly, I didn't know that you could put sharpies or pens or pencils in all of the places that I have found it in the emptying of this room yeah um, what I was able to put words to yesterday was this feels like a loss, not a huge one, it's like a micro loss. It's like one of those things where it doesn't really make sense outside of this community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it is a hard thing to kind of wrap your head around.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you're not in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I'm sitting there and I'm trying to share with people like I feel this sense of loss, like true sense of loss over not being able to show love in the way that I want to, in the way that I know to as a mom.
Speaker 2:Because it's not being received.
Speaker 1:Because it will be rejected Right and in the rejection. That is dangerous territory for my heart. Yeah, for a child that already lives in dangerous territory in my heart. So it's also not like this is easy for me, Like it's an act of love that takes. That is also an act of will. I choose to love this one of my children. It's a.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is another way of showing that. This is another way of showing that I'm going to choose to love you, even though I know you are going to reject it and you're going to destroy it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and so in real time, processing this was first, okay, acknowledging I feel a sense of loss. Why do I feel a sense of loss? Oh, I feel a sense of loss because there's something about being a good mom to me that's tied into creating spaces for my kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not, I don't feel like a good mom, but there is something about being a good mom that I have tied into.
Speaker 2:I create spaces where you feel loved, cherished, wanted, seen, seen is a big one, but I think we all do this in maybe different ways right Totally different ways. So many different ways we can do this with our kids, where?
Speaker 1:we're like.
Speaker 2:I am trying to show up for you and show you that I love you and you're just like turning around and walking the other way and I don't. I don't know what to do and I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:And so then I spent another huge portion of yesterday. I mean, I went down, I went through the whole, like the whole spectrum of well shit, like I'm not going to do shit in this.
Speaker 2:Right, Like the anger came out and you're like forget this Glass of water, crust of bread.
Speaker 1:It's like where do I go back to? Because truly meeting them where they are would be to have a very austere room, because it's what they can handle yeah.
Speaker 1:It's meeting them in. Just here's a bed, the bare minimum, the bare minimum. And when I tell you like the lamp is just, it's like shredded, yeah, but that doesn't reflect who I want to be. So then it was like, okay, where's the line? So I started looking at where's the line. Where is this intersection of me showing up as the mom that I want to be for my kids and also protecting my heart from the rejection that is to come?
Speaker 1:yeah how do I do that? Because there is something tied for me about being a like yeah that, right, creating a space is being a good mom. I'm not saying that that is the definition of being like. Yeah, that right, creating a space is being a good mom. I'm not saying that that is the definition of being like I want people to hear me, but we all have our own definition.
Speaker 2:We all have our own definition.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so for one of my kids I get to show up, because for me, being a good mom means accepting and loving and and creating room to flourish making space for you to be you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like somewhere around the beginning of motherhood, I read this thing about Michelangelo who said David was already in the marble. It was my job to uncover him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah, and it was attached to parenting. And the person said like your child is already inside of your child, it's your job to help them uncover.
Speaker 2:I like that. It's what I go to. That's a cool way of looking at it, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so you know, if I have a kid that's into baseball, that's my job. My job is to put him in those environments and so on and so forth. Right, you know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:I mean, if I had a kid who was like, hey, I want to play lacrosse, I'd be, like I guess I learn what lacrosse is we got to figure out the rules and what kind of gear you need.
Speaker 1:I have a theater kid, it's like all right. Well, let's figure out what my job is. To learn about Broadway musicals now, because this is where you are and it's just to meet my kids. Zoe, easy, Taylor Swift yeah, like I speak fluent, taylor.
Speaker 2:Swift, you do, you're a Swifty now.
Speaker 1:I am, but it's, and part of it is because why not?
Speaker 2:And the other part, is because Part of it is because you kind of actually like it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I 100% do. But also my job is to show up for my teenager. Yeah, and all of that, to say really that in one aspect right now, in this showing up as a good mom my definition of a good mom it feels so easy and complicated with one kid but it feels like a loss with others and so find going okay, this isn't a reflection of me and, yeah, it's not Letting it feel like a loss, acknowledging that the deeper loss of I didn't get to do their nurseries- and you get this opportunity to do it now.
Speaker 1:Finally.
Speaker 2:But as infants.
Speaker 1:There's no way for them to destroy their space right so you get this opportunity to do it now four years into knowing them, and now I know what happens yeah and it's a little bit like knowing the end of the story, which we don't get very often. And I have said like I've said when we were talking off air, like my therapist would say, you're predicting a future that you don't know exists. And I would be like well history does repeat itself.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I kind of do know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I am very certain that there's a rule that you can't even have. I know that I'm harping on the pins, but that's because that is the easiest level to talk about in this room.
Speaker 2:It's probably the least disgusting thing we can talk about.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely the least disgusting and most protective to my children. So when I say that there's pin everywhere, they are not actually allowed to have pens in their room anymore because of the destruction that happens. And that doesn't matter. We like to sneak things we like to hide things we like to.
Speaker 2:It's going to find its way in there.
Speaker 1:It's going to find its way in there. But my therapist or a mindfulness coach would say you're creating like, you're anticipating this future. And I would say, yes, I am.
Speaker 2:You are. I think this one feels predictable. But she's right, you are predicting a future and I think the danger in that is when we try and predict the future, it really messes up what we're doing right now, right. So if you are too far into the future predicting what's going to happen, it's going to prevent you from doing what you feel like you should do right now.
Speaker 1:Right, I would stay. Glass of water, crust of bread, yeah, you would stick with bare minimum.
Speaker 2:You get a bed, you get a mattress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't have a rug.
Speaker 2:That's for dang sure, right you can't have a rug.
Speaker 1:We're not doing dressers anymore In the process of changing around their room, we've been asking questions of what can they do, what is good for them? And we've moved now to plastic like dorm things. It looks like I mean college students have these in their dorms. We haven't had one in our house in years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then I'm like the dresser is not what communicates. I love you, though. It's not it's making the space something that reflects them.
Speaker 1:Right, and so my compromise is I'm going to get it from the thrift store.
Speaker 2:Spend less money on it. Yeah, yeah, like I'm going to, so that I'm willing to take out a $50 bill and light it on fire. If it conveys to me, yeah, that I'm a good mom who's showing up for my kids and it conveys for a second, I'm a good mom showing up for my kids to them?
Speaker 1:yeah, and I think like it'll convey, it, can it'll convey now.
Speaker 2:Conveys because that's what's rejected.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yes yes, so the message comes across right because that is the message that is being rejected by my child the I love you, the I love you see you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that child is like. That doesn't work for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I say maybe I sound really like a smart ass when I say it like that.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I think like you just know your child and you're like this is exactly why it's being rejected.
Speaker 1:It's the.
Speaker 2:I love you, I see you. That's what you're rejecting every time. Which I think, if you really like, dig into their story, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Makes total sense, of course. Why wouldn't you be rejecting? Same child tells me I don't think you love me enough. I don't. I want you to love me more than anybody else in the house. Yeah, like, ah, so confusing. You're so confusing to me, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know what to do, but I think that it definitely conveys now. But I think, bigger than that, the hope is that down the road one day it's not something that's being rejected anymore, yeah, and it is something that this child will look back on and be like oh man, my mom really loved me, she really saw me, she really did everything she could to let me know that to show up for me. I mean, I think that's that's gotta be the hope.
Speaker 1:That is the hope that one day love will flow between us naturally. Yeah, you won't have to work so hard for it. I won't have to work so hard for it, I won't have to work so hard for it, and that interactions like this will happen where it's fun. Yeah, I just got to do this with Zoe and it was so fun.
Speaker 2:Which I think is part of why that makes this feel even more sad to you.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because you want it to be fun, like it was with Zoe.
Speaker 1:Yes, Because you want it to be fun, like it was with Zoe. Yes, yeah, I. I my like one of my passions in life is to for people to be seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's honestly. It's why we're we're we're recording this today is because I really think that somebody listening is like, oh, I know what a micro losses. I Listening is like, oh, I know what a micro loss is. I know what it feels like to have these losses.
Speaker 2:That's really hard to put words around, even it's hard to put words around and it's also hard to like, feel, like it's okay to express because it's a micro loss. Yeah, so when you're just telling the story to one person, they're like that feels like nothing.
Speaker 1:Why?
Speaker 2:is this such a big deal, but you're not looking at all the things that are adding up to that like together with this micro loss.
Speaker 1:Is the realization, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it. And it's not just the one loss, it's not. There are so many losses that have built up and you add them all together and it's a really big deal.
Speaker 1:Right Over a room. Over a room, over paint and flooring and the lack of a dresser.
Speaker 2:But it's not really about the room. No, it's not really about the room, it's not. It's the grief of the rejection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Inside of it it feels unseen yeah, inside of it it feels unseen.
Speaker 1:Um, I think it's because, again, it's not really about this one, yeah, micro loss, yeah, and so then you start talking about the thing that triggers it and it doesn't make any sense. I just I was driving in today and I was like man, I bet you anything that this is experienced more often. I know it is I just from my own life, but like from everybody else, I just it's experienced so many times of it's not a huge loss, there's nothing big happening in my house.
Speaker 1:When somebody asked me yesterday how was the day? On the surface, everything was fine, Miraculously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you're like, actually, compared to other days, this one was pretty good.
Speaker 1:This one, like when you sit down and you're like, oh okay. Well, there was a dance at school and we all made it through the dance. We made it through aftercare after the dance. I did not think that was going to happen. We had. We were able to go to our city group like their.
Speaker 2:Their consistent babysitter was back on, like it ended up being, which any one of those things felt like a miracle and you had them all together and you're like, oh, yeah, functionally.
Speaker 1:yeah, this was a good day. And yet all I felt was and today I woke up with, like an emotional hangover, a headache. My eyes felt like I had been crying for hours. I didn't cry for hours. Yesterday I woke up chipping away at the room and planning you know how to do this over the course of the weekend, where there's things going on, and also confident that I've found the intersection like that I've found where me showing up in a way that I'm okay with going to sleep at night and where they are can coincide.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that is such an important place to come to. Danielle and I talk about this a lot. How do we show up as the person that we're okay with, regardless of what is thrown at us?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Literally or figuratively? Yeah, literally or figuratively yeah. Like how do we not succumb to the chaos around us and we still keep showing up in a way that best represents who we are and who we want to be? And that whole journey in the last 24 hours has been a thing.
Speaker 2:It's been a process man, I think it's been a process, though, because it's always in the back of your mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of things that piled onto each other in 24 hours, like a lot of emotional things that piled up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's like no. So what do we do with that? Talking about it is a good start, yeah, and our temptation is to hold that in because, like you said, it didn't feel like a big thing. The day felt good. So I think for you to be willing to show up last night thinking well, for the most part the day was good, but I feel lost and being willing to like verbalize that and say it out loud.
Speaker 1:I mean, I did get in my car afterwards and said, I should have shut my mouth, I should have not said anything.
Speaker 2:But you said it and you came in here this morning and you processed it again, and we're processing it now, and I think it gives people the space to feel like they can do that in their lives too.
Speaker 1:I hope so. Yeah, I hope it's encouraging, honestly, for somebody to listen to this and go.
Speaker 2:oh, there's nothing wrong with me, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm normal.
Speaker 1:Somebody else also struggles with showing up consistently in the way that you want to, or even going through the whole process, having names for the parts of the process and going okay, this is where I am. Having names for the parts of the process and going okay, this is where I am. This is what's happening, and not spinning out of control. I think that that was a success in this last 24 hours was.
Speaker 1:at no point did I feel spun out of control. There were times when I could feel the loss deeper or I could feel I had more access to the loss side of this. It really hit and I'm talking about it in a very neutral voice right now, but it really hit when I realized like, oh, I have a loss of not getting to do their nursery.
Speaker 2:It's the loss of things you can't get back. You can never get it back.
Speaker 1:I can never get it back. It's a part of their story that is not mine. Right and truly, I'm okay that it wasn't mine. In the grand scheme of things, yeah. I love that. They got to experience their first handful of years with their biological mother. Yeah, it's their story. It's their story and there's no changing it. And it's their story and there's no changing it and it's our story and there's no changing it, and so part of the process is falling in love with reality.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right. Which is so hard it's when the reality doesn't look that good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, their room is not going to be the final product of their room is going to be something that I may or may not take a picture of and put on social media as opposed to the before and afters that people do, or that you know, maybe I will, maybe I won't, but I will feel a sense of pride at the end of the day, knowing that I was able to show up in the way that I could in this moment for them, in their moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's the part you have to hold on to when the rejection comes. You have to hold on as best you can to that feeling of pride of when it's done and you did what you needed to do to be a good mom to love the kids kids to show up to make them feel seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hold on to that because like I think it's so tempting when we get these like glimpses of, like joy and beauty. It's like, once it fades, it's so tempting to then be disappointed like what the heck? Well, instead, when it's destroyed, yeah, and you're like why?
Speaker 1:when I was getting, when we had to redo the island because the stove broke and I had to pick the countertop and the guy was like trying to get us to get the um, like marble or granite or whatever right and I was like, yeah, that's not gonna work and we have to go with butcher block because it's the cheapest option, like the laminate option wasn't available and blah blah because we're only redoing one section of our counter and do you remember I was like I had to go with the cheapest option that I was willing to be destroyed, yeah, to be okay with it when it did get destroyed later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think that's it, like it's like hopefully you and your mind already know like this rejection's coming.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do, and so it's like hopefully.
Speaker 2:Then, instead of being disappointed when it comes, you can just be like grateful that you've got this moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'm. I'm there now in my brain of knowing, finding my compromise in the process Right, Like that was huge going. Okay, how do I do this? I feel this. This is true, this is reality, coming to terms with reality, not trying to control reality, not trying to make my kids somebody that they aren't right now make them at a different part in their story than they are right now.
Speaker 1:I can't do any of that and coming to terms with that yesterday and experiencing additional loss like a feeling of additional loss because of that, acknowledging the layers right and then going, okay, this is reality. Where do I stand? Yeah where's my intersection? And then, knowing Sarah loves a thrift store yeah, sarah has more time than I do and is at the thrift store all the time right now she's constantly buying things for other people. I was like I can give Sarah this mission.
Speaker 2:Sarah can go find Well and she loves it.
Speaker 1:She loves decorating and she has such an eye for it, I can give her a budget that I'm willing to spend. It's $50. Yeah, that is okay. That's a date night. I won't be buying even things from Target, but that's okay, it'll still be beautiful, it'll still reflect them. Yes, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:But it's knowing, okay, even Target's not in the budget for this I'm kind of looking at all of the cards on the table and going okay, no, no. Okay, there, it is Right, there's my line. You're taking all of the information you have.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And you're like this is what the compromise is.
Speaker 1:This is my compromise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is how we move forward I think it'll still make me feel like I created a space for them.
Speaker 1:Yep Totally. And they do need new sheets and blankets, so they're going to get that. And when those sheets cost $8. So when, when they're destroyed?
Speaker 2:they're destroyed. They're destroyed a week or less.
Speaker 1:It's possible. Yeah, it's truly, and it's like it is. Finding the compromise helped me remove myself from the outcome. Because it was also this I get to show up in my own integrity. And so whatever else happens after that, that's not my business and that's how I stand now.
Speaker 2:That's how you prevent the disappointment later. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I got to show up. I am showing up in an authentic way to how I want to be a mom. What happens after this is not my business. No, you can't control it, and I have boundaries around myself to protect my own heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it sucks that that's from my kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:To protect my own heart from my kids, and I'm letting the suck stay there. Part of showing up authentically is allowing different, conflicting things to be existing at the same time, and so it's.
Speaker 2:Because they always exist at the same time.
Speaker 1:I don't like it, though I don't like it either. Who does If?
Speaker 2:you like it, I would like to talk to you. I don't like it, though I don't like it either. Who does? If you like it, I would like to talk to you. If you're out there and you like conflicting feelings, I mean, no, it's not. It's so confusing, but I think, allowing them to just exist and acknowledging both not trying to push one to the side and be like I'm going to focus on this one. I think we have to acknowledge that both of those feelings are there and that's okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's where we are today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, like the other important thing then is if the disappointment does sneak up.
Speaker 1:I'll take a picture and send it to you.
Speaker 2:Take a picture and also Well it took exactly 48 hours. Yeah, but also like you're ready Like you're ready, you're aware that it could and being willing to talk about it when it does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then my game plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's huge. Like I know, I have a plan. I have tools to use when it comes. Yeah, so that's what processing this looks like in real time. Micro losses that's what adoption looks like in real time. That's how I live inside the complications. Thanks for being here and listening to me process, and if me processing this on air helped you, let me know. I'd love to hear from you.