Adaptation

Sometimes things don’t go as planned.

Sometimes, even though you’ve planned on having to wait at least nine months to successfully adopt a little girl, you hear the good news four months earlier. Sometimes, you end up going to get that little girl faster than expected, with just a few days notice. Sometimes, you forget your luggage and have to spend a week in Texas (why is it so hot and boring?) with the few extras you bought from Target stored in a plastic bag. Sometimes, Texas surprises you by allowing you to go home a day sooner than you planned. And wow, this little girl is amazing.

Or perhaps, your son is six months old and you’re celebrating your second wedding anniversary the day you learn that your husband will be deployed in a few months, and you feel like your entire world is falling apart. You end up moving halfway across the country, back to your childhood home where you feel trapped by snow and ice and no public transport, and your favorite shampoo FROZE in the back of the moving truck, so you can’t even relax properly. And then you eventually decide to stay, anyways, and you really like your house, even when there’s way too much snow.

Sometimes, you have big plans for a perfect Holistic Moms Open House at the library, complete with guest tables, door prizes, and other fancy, joyful things, and then you show up and wow, the library has summer hours, and you can’t even get in, and it seems like all of your plans have been destroyed. So then, you end up going to a park and meeting a bunch of old and new and wonderful people, and you’re thankful that the Holistic Mom meeting is outside this month, because it’s just so nice outside, and KASH park is pretty fun… oh, and there are brownies!

If there’s one thing being a mother has taught me, it’s not only the power of adapting and making the best of situations, but also, I’ve learned that so many times, when we think there’s no way things could get worse, those incredibly stressful situations lead us to new, fantastic things.

If I hadn’t let go of everything else to take a trip to Texas, I wouldn’t have met my daughter. If I hadn’t accepted that moving back to Wisconsin was the best choice for our family, I wouldn’t have the life that I have now. If we hadn’t come up with our new plan for the Open House, we would have been stuck with feeling defeated, instead of finding renewed energy, conversation, and great ideas for future activities.

Always know, no matter how terrible things seem today, it will get better. And if you need someone to remind you of that, join us for a meeting or two and surround yourself with like-minded, supportive parents!