#Microblog Mondays: Happy for You, Sad for Me (Again)

I was supposed to have lunch with a friend today, who is waiting in adoption with the same agency, and who I saw the other day as she stopped by to chat. We talked about how my announcement threw her for a loop, but that she understood, and it's so hard to be in that space of limbo, and how my health situations were scary, how hard everything can be when you are wearing that mask, what her difficulties have been in the past six months or so in particular.

I got a text over the weekend that maybe we'd need to reschedule our lunch, something had come up that needed working out. A part of me knew what that something was, in all likelihood.

Today she very sensitively told me that they were matched with a birthfamily over the weekend and they are going to pick up the baby who will be their son today, and that's why we can't have lunch.

I am a whirlwind of emotions. How many times can I be happy for someone else and sad for myself? AN INFINITE NUMBER OF TIMES.

The timing of this one is beyond everyone's control, obviously, but also particularly difficult, as I just had a heartfelt conversation about how we'd decided to leave adoption, I just announced our decision and accompanying loss to the electronic masses, and now someone who waited in adoption (at least the homestudy ready part) pretty much exactly the same amount of time as we did is ostensibly bringing their baby home today.

Logically I know to tell that nasty little voice in my head to shut the fuck up:
You didn't try hard enough
That could have been you if you just stayed in the game longer
Everyone is going to compare the success that comes when you accept that "waiting is the hardest part" and stick with it to you just crapping out and leaving before you had a chance to be successful, and you're going to look like a quitter
You simply weren't up for the task

But that voice is there, and while I know so much is bullshit, because every situation is different, every facet of our separate journeys that may look similar to an untrained eye made our roads fork in this way, it's still hard. I may have cried a fair amount this morning. I cried for my insecurities. I cried for the future I wanted so badly but will never be. I cried for the lost opportunity to parent, to have the life we keep seeing everywhere we go but that won't be for us, ever.

I am legitimately excited for my friend, and hope everything goes smoothly. I know that there are complexities and difficulties ahead for both of us in our separate journeys, and joys, too. While she is navigating relationships with birth parents and sleep deprivation and poopy diapers, we will be tasting wine in Napa and hiking Big Sur. I am choosing to think about that part more than the fact that she will be using her glider/rocker to snuggle with a sleepy, milk-scented baby boy while I use mine to escape through my summer reading list and snuggle with my...fish-smelling cat.

It's a hard balance, this happy-sad dichotomy. I am not any less confident in our decision, and I know that the little voice is the most unhelpful bitch ever. I know we did what was right for us. It's just so hard to see (and feel) this contrast at this particular moment in time.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!