Below is a piece that I wrote in a short three-week “Adoption Writing Experience” class that I have been taking. Today is sadly the last of the series, but it has made me fall in love with writing again. So, thank you, 🙏🏽AP! 💞
“Within two days on my own, I feel as if I’ve let out my breath from holding it for the past 16 months. My husband is lovely. He’s a cheerful labrador, but I prefer to liken him to a poodle on crack. His energy consumes while mine diffuses. As I exhale, he inhales, but I inhale his exhale.
As a couple, the teeter-totter balancing act is what keeps the adventure of life going; sometimes one is up, others times it’s down. However, like being at the bottom while trying to carry something up a flight of stairs, the weight can become heavier and heavier.
I think now, this was me over the last couple of months.
Perhaps Lady Universe heard my sighs and heavily whispered pleas for a break, because I finally have found a way out of the heavy load. My breath can be my own again.
Solitude and quiet recharge me. It’s in the quiet that I can filter the noise and find my own voice. Like sifting through the cereal box to find the special toy, I need space to pour out the box and move the marshmallows and bits that distract from the prize.
When I can write and hear my own voice, I can be what I need to be for others. When this is overridden, I struggle and all the other voices in my head start to make me feel like I’m going crazy.
So, it is nice to say Hello to me again and to let myself know that I’m not losing my mind, but rather finding it again.
My resolution for when my lovely bouncing ball of energy returns is to gently let him know that I need the space and time daily to hear myself so that we can continue to teeter-totter together with joy rather than let the burden get heavy again.”
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I wrote this last week and then M came home. It was a strange feeling having him back as four days was just enough for me to get into my own rhythm and settle into my ways. There was an inner turmoil in me that I had to observe as I think that I had an increased load on my sympathetic nervous system. 💪🏽🏃🏽♀️
Inside, I felt unjustifiably bitter that I was letting go of my newfound routine just because M was back. However, logic and reasoning returned to remind me, “Tara, you’re an adult, nothing is stopping you from doing what you want. Just be reasonable.”
So, I did.
My yoga and meditation time returned easily. My writing time, though, still needs some work to compromise on the head/energy space. We both like to be outside in the sun when we can, but he likes/needs to talk or have noise and I do not. Therefore, a schedule is probably needed on my part so that I can find that quiet space, whether in the sun or not, and still have time to enjoy the extroverted lifestyle each day.
In any case, I’ve been given another couple of days of quiet to keep working on the balance and defining the priorities. So, thank you Universe! 😇☀️🙏🏽
~T 😀
