"So, how's the foster care thing going?"
"Good." "Okay." "We're making it!"
The facial response to my "okay" is always amusing. What? Just okay? You're living out something you've been dreaming of and it's just okay?
I know you are concerned. I know you just want to follow our journey. I know how you want to hear that it's never been better and our family has never been more whole or put together.
I wish I could tell what you want to hear, but dreams aren't easy. I wish I could tell you that a blended family is as smooth as a nuclear one. I wish I could tell you that being a foster parent is like being someone's biological parent.
I can't. It's not.
Dreams are hard.
Loving is hard.
Our family was put into the blender already, and then we've blended it even further. Nobody tells you that when you walk into a blended family, you have to learn to love a child. We want to think that becoming a step-parent or a foster parent is just like having them ourselves. It isn't-it's much, much harder. We didn't bring their life into the world and immediately bond or love these children-
We fought to love them. We chiseled away at chaos, confusion, brokenness, years of lacking and we bled and stretched to love them. I have known this feeling well, as I've been a step mom for nearly five years. For Jarrod, I'm sure fostering is even a little harder than it is for me, as he's always been someone's "real dad". I have spent the last few years navigating the ship of being an "other", the backstage hand. I have known the pain of realizing that you don't step into a child's life and love them the first day, nor vice versa. You will spend time, so much time, so many awkward days, learning and growing to love one another.
Fostering is on the same path, but harder. Not only are you throwing yourself out, totally naked in your vulnerability to love a child you've just met-but someone before you didn't love them properly. My boys have always had parents to love them, to sing over them as they slept soundly, to make them feel safe-TIMES TWO.
My daughter has not had this. Attachment is hard. Relationships are hard. Feeling safe isn't something that comes in a month. Feeling worthy, feeling wanted, feeling like you could get uprooted any day because someone "just didn't feel like dealing" with you anymore-doesn't disappear within a few week's time. The fear is real and it is unfortunately justified.
So, you will not only be fighting to love her, but fighting your way through years of walls, of neglect, of rejection, of all the people who quit on her before you came around. This journey is hard, probably the hardest thing I've ever done.
Fostering is like mile 20 of a marathon for me. I am tired, I am depleted, I am anxious I won't be able to keep running-
but I always do, because I love it that much. I take it one mile at a time, one stride at a time, and I smile because I know what lies at the end.
I want to be able to erase 15 years of pain, of confusion, of abandonment in one hug, one mother-daughter date. I want her to feel safe so badly that I tell her each day that she is worthy, smart, wanted. I want to make up for lost lullabies, so each time she falls asleep on the drive home (always) I sing over her softly. Picture that one.
Think about a blender when you're throwing in a mix of ingredients. It is LOUD-sometimes you have to turn your head to escape slightly from the sound of it.
My family is in a blender right now, so things are going to be a little messy, a little loud, a little "just okay".
Please pardon our sleepiness, our occasional distant stares, our construction zone-
We're currently fighting for love and we aren't quitters.
