That Hateful Law and My Distractionary Measures

If life is but a dream,
you should be coming
to the merrily, merrily
downstream part of it
any day now…

There’s this scientific or mathematical term (I consider myself neither a scientist nor a mathematician…shudder) called the law of averages. It’s a pretty innocuous concept overall, but with adoption this expression takes on an insidious and diabolical Dr. Jekyll meaning. It threatens to plunge the sanest of individuals into stark raving insanity because for those of us waiting for, say, a Letter of Acceptance or Travel Permission, we unintentionally lock on to that “average” never to return (i.e., our agent innocently says, “Well, on average, people have been getting their LOA in 90-120 days” or “On average, Travel Permission has been coming about 3 weeks from when China receives your LOA”).

So naturally those of us formerly rational individuals who hear the numerical figure, lock onto that number, white knuckled, like a fighter jet pilot with missiles on target.

Tomorrow is officially 3 weeks since China received our Letter of Acceptance back. So, yes, we’ve hit that magical mark. After we reach this point we crumble into less-than-sentient beings whose neurological systems are completely SHOT. We jump at any jangling phone, we stare absentmindedly and zone to the point we sometimes drool. We get twitchy like our miniature canine counterparts.

I’ve mentioned in a previous post that Jason and I have a good friend Connie who has been dutifully sending us cards in the mail ever since we've started hiting these pivotal points that I like to call “you think you're almost there, you poor, poor soul.” Maybe she has some internalized sixth sense and can intuit the fragility of our emotional life force or something.

On the front of her most recent card is a picture of a drowned rat with the quote “Hang in there.” Or maybe it was supposed to be a dog. If it’s a dog, it was a shivering little Mexican twitchy thing like what my folks own. You know, one of those Taco Bell doppelgangers. On the inside was that Row, Row, Row Your Boat allusion I opened with. I think Connie realizes just how awful it is to be on pins and needles the way we are right now and is desperately trying to slow our descent into madness.

So because I can’t concentrate on any of the bigger household projects that languish, I am procrastinating and writing about waiting and how hard it is. Which totally does not make any sense, because whenever we actually do get the call from Aisha, whether it be tomorrow or sometime next week, we will go into demolition derby overdrive trying to book flights, make travel plans, figure out for sure where we want to go tour ahead of time, start organize packing lists, cry, freak out, forget to sleep or eat, etc, etc.

So I really should be doing all the other things around the house that I could be doing, but I’m not.

I’m making a book for Jesse Yong. My blogger friend Amy just adopted a 6-year-old from China, so it really was her idea, but I thought it made total sense. I’m working on a miniature scrapbook called “Jesse Yong’s Big Trip!” So I figured if I’m going to slack, I’m going all-out, in style, and I’m going to show you what I've been up to.

Inside it tells – pictorially – the stages of his adoption: it shows the first picture we saw of him; some pictures of him at the orphanage; pictures of us; a map of China and a map of the U.S. with a plane flying from the one to the other. It shows a caricature of a Dad, Mom and boy holding hands and getting on a plane, then a car and driving to our house. Then there are pictures of the inside of the house, pictures of Ronin, etc.

The last page is a collage of emoticons, lots of different smiley faces except each one shows a different emotion – crying, scared, happy, sad, angry, nervous, etc. I figure this will help him realize that he has “permission” to feel these emotions, that we sort of expect it from him. I’m hoping it will help him feel freedom to express his grief, his anxiety, etc., and not try to hide his emotions from us out of fear that if he’s angry or sad we will send him back to the orphanage.

So that's what I've been doing instead of doing things like clear out my kitchen or organize the spare room or any number of other productive things. Oh well. Yo Quiero, Taco Bell!