It’s time to close the curtains

This has been on my mind for so long – saying goodbye.

I have been writing this blog for 2 years and when I first started, I still thought I was going to be matched with a 6 month old baby. Praise the GOOD Lord he had other plans for me.

When we started moving forward with our process to bring Cora home, this was my safe place. My place where I could put out the hard – plunking it out on the keyboard – letting it go with each plunk, plunk, plunk.

This was my place where I could write through tears, write through red-faced anger and when I couldn’t get out of the big funk or fear that I was never going to bring my child home, this was the place I could share just that. And how happy I am that I can look back and see where we’ve gone – how we’ve grown and have each memory that I would have forgotten.

Along the way, we’ve met really great people through this blog.  Amazing kind people living in Korea (Jason) and Koreans living in America (Minna) who offered their love and support and encouragement.  Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.  I pray that one day I can look back and see that while I had made so many mistakes, Cora will know she is Korean-American.

I still struggle with the loss she has suffered and will suffer when she is old enough to see what she has lost. I still struggle with the fact that no matter what we do, how much we do, we will never be what she should have had in her birth country.  No matter how many semesters we sign up for Korean language school or the fact that we have the Korean TV network so she can watch her cartoons (and really? Poong-poong-i?? She loves it!) she will never be the bilingual child we wish for her. How could she be with us as her parents.

I struggle with balancing it all so that she doesn’t miss out on anything all while knowing she’s missing out on everything. It is the reality of adoption. That heart-wrenching yet beautiful thing that I have yet to figure out how to balance emotions.  When you love someone SO much but you know that in a perfect world, she wouldn’t be my daughter. Balancing that reality. Loving her and hating the hurt.  It’s hard! Harder, harder, harder than I ever thought it would be.

But I see her now, almost 1 year home, and I see how much SHE has grown.  She is confident, funny, smart, loving, kind.  She is amazing. She is strong and sweet and truly is going to blow MINDS when she is grown. She is my daughter – my princess, my 딸, my pretty little girl, my love.

Long gone are the days where I learned how to do anything with her on my back.

When we celebrated the hint of letting daddy in – even if it was just for a second.

From when she spent hours playing with playdough our first week home, not for fun, but to shut out her reality. Oh, this kills my heart.

From when her face showed this emotion.

These days, she’s too busy being the mommy. Something she said she didn’t want to be until the past couple of months.  Every time we talked about “when you’re a mommy…” she would said, “I don’t want to be a mommy.”

She does now.

And now, at one year home and will children who are 11, 8 and 6 (in 3 weeks), I feel that we need to close the curtains now. We have classmates and teachers and friends and family who, at this point, don’t really need to know how Cora is adjusting or how Logan and Miles are adjusting or what is hard or what is still lingering from 5 years in an orphanage because they see her in a different light – as just Cora! Sweet, sassy little Cora.

Not Cora who has gone through all of what she has gone through and continues to go through, but Cora who runs down the hallway in school with a smile on her face ready to talk to anyone she can.

Just Cora.

What a blessing.

So thank you for blessing me with listening to my ramblings on orphanage life, English language learning and digging myself out of the ditch.

I’m not in the ditch anymore.  I’m in the car with the windows down and the sun shining in my eyes as I sing along to the music.

Oh sure, life has its moments, but I bet yours does, too.  It is about life’s moments now, and very rarely are they about “adoption moment”s or “orphanage moments” or “attaching moments”.  Of course I know we’re not free from those moments, but they are getting easier to spot before they start, easier to work through once they pop up.

And yes, I’m afraid for Cora sometimes when I think of her medical future, but I know I’m not the only one who has a child they are worried about.  The more days, doctors appointments and life that comes between the diagnosis and where we are now makes it easier to swallow and dare I say, has become our normal. 6 sedations in 10 months will do that to you.

And I hesitate stopping blogging completely because I know there are special people who stop by here – people who knew and cared for Cora in Korea who want to see how she has grown or how she is doing in life, so I ask you, if you are one of those people who care about Cora please send me a message and we will connect in other ways. (Please.)

I’m not saying that I’m never going to post here again, but I’m not planning on it any time soon.  I still have posts that I never got a chance to write, such as the post I had planned where I fully admit to internally mocking mothers of girls who wore jewelry, tiaras and tutu’s with a purse hanging on her arm to the grocery store.  I thought it was YOUR doing.  I made fun of you in my mind.

It’s not you. I know that now.

I’m sorry. 🙂

Or the post where Cora got in trouble at school when the substitute thought she said a naughty word, but actually she was just saying 2:00 in Hangul. (GRRR!!!)

Or the post where I shared her first real birthday pictures, even though our first day as a family was her 5th birthday and completely not a celebratory type of birthday. More of a ‘omg what are we doing!?’ birthday.

And the father-daughter dance that is coming up.

And the post that shares my heartache that Cora now signs her papers at school as just Cora and not Cora 김승주. Boo hoo.

And the fact that I led the high school ministry on Romans 8:15-17 this week and shared how we are all adopted into God’s family. It was powerful and scary and I loved it and would do it again in a second.

And a recap when I go into the school later this spring to share sun-safety to the kids at my kids school and possibly contacting the other schools in my city to talk to their kids, too. (oh poor Logan, my dear. The other two are all, “Will you come to my room!” and he’s all, “Mom, PLEASE don’t come to my room.” Darn tweens!)

But this feeling in my heart tells me that it’s time to pull back.  So, perhaps one day I will share those posts someday. Maybe not.

It’s not an easy decision.  I’m a freelance writer and write every day about things that aren’t my heart.  This is a place where I wrote about my heart. And you listened and encouraged. So thank you.

And though I don’t like to do this kind of “leave a message” request, I would love to hear from you in a comment if you feel led to share one.

We’re doing well.  We’ve crossed the big ocean of the first year and God was our life jacket.  This was the hardest 2 years of my life, but we’ve resurfaced.  I see three kids now.

And if you’ve adopted, or even given birth, you know how things much be juggled when new child comes home because new child needs more.  We’re at that point where new child is just child now and we’re settling in, doing our best to give all three children what they need.

Blessed. So very blessed.