Sucker punched

Do you ever have those days where you feel like you've been sucker punched?  You know the days...you get up and step in cat puke with a bare foot, find out you are out of cereal, are late to work and get yelled at by a co-worker?  Yeah, those days.  I'm having one.

My morning ritual is to get up, pee, turn on my computer and check the CCAA website to see what progress they have made.  Well, guess what?  We can't do that anymore.  They are turning it over the agencies to notify us of the updates.  I emailed my coordinator and she confirmed that they (the CCAA) has indeed turned it over to the agencies.  In the weekly email update they will update if any progress has been made and I was assured that she would notify me personally once I made it through the review room.  Ok.  Part of me just wants to stick my head in the sand and pretend this (the adoption) never happened.  I don't mean that I wish I had never started, I just wish it wasn't constantly in the forefront of my mind all the time.  It's time to move on and entertain myself some other way.  It certainly didn't help that every China blog I checked was quite negative about the whole process and after the first few I just gave up.  The process isn't much happier in other countries either: Guatamala is shut down, S. Korea now has an extra 5/6 month wait tacked on to give Koreans a chance to adopt from within (which I doubt will happen since their views on adoption are the same as China--if you aren't blood, you aren't related and therefore don't receive the same benefits as a bio child), Russia also has a mandatory "cooling off" period like Korea in order to give locals the chance to adopt, Vietnam is having I-600 issues and who the hell knows with the rest of them?  The only stable looking one right now appears to be Ethiopia which on some level makes me wonder if I should become Moesha's Mama.  But my heart is still in China and I know my daughter is there so I will wait.

I'm tired as hell.  I have taken on a boatload of additional responsibilities at work, which is good, but I'm tired.  I will probably get about 50 hrs this week and this is on the heels of my boss tell us to watch our overtime and keep it under 40. 

It gets better.  Although I am feeling some pain from the day, I still have a spring in my step until on my way to lunch I run into a former friend (more on that in a minute) who announces she is 13 weeks pregnant and has to give me the lowdown on everything that has occurred since the last time I avoided her.  You may think I am heartless, but I am not.  She and I were as close as sisters, and it was a relationship that I thought would last forever.  It should have been a clue that I was always her emotional anchor and the one that supported her and not the other way around.  About 6-12 months before I began the adoption process I really evaluated my life and realized that I was emotionally supporting a lot of toxic people. They were sucking me emotionally dry and I didn't have any one to support me after their vampire ways.  Anyway, back to the story.  I thought we would always be friends...until a boy came into the picture. 

I watched my friend, a person I loved dearly, sacrifice all her values and ideals to get this guy that was really a creep and that treated her poorly.  Suddenly she couldn't go out because he might call and he would be jealous if he knew I was with her...what the heck???  He called me names in my presence and when I wasn't present.  That's ok, I didn't miss them because she repeated them to me!  It just went from bad to ugly and since I really don't keep more than one or two close friends it was devastating.  It was also on the heels of the break-up with the only serious adult relationship that I have had.  Guess who wasn't there when I needed her?  Anyway, it was a very painful and lonely year until Fall '06 as I was beginning the adoption process.  She wanted me to be her bridesmaid and I couldn't in good conscience do that---plus at that point I was still pretty angry and didn't want to spend $400 on a dress I'd only wear once for someone who was no longer a friend.  The day she got married I was at a required adoption seminar in order to get my home study.  She was mad and began telling people all over the hospital that we both work at that I was being unkind.  She even told my CEO!  I had strangers coming up and telling me I should give her a break.  Anyway, it was not a "good to see you" moment for me today but I played along.  I so badly wanted to say "I've been paper pregnant longer than you have", but who really cares?  She's so centered on herself it wouldn't have mattered.

I think watching her sacrifice everything to get this guy was a news flash to me.  I realize that even though I am not terribly old, I am older than the median age in my town.  I am 31.  I am also in a town filled with a bunch of gorgeous, loveable and very gay men.  The chances of me meeting someone nice, single and straight are about as good as me returning to a size 6 jeans.  As much as I want love and want to give love, it's probably not going to happen unless I want to go the same route she did.  But I remember how devestated she was by the things she was doing, and his obvious disrespect for her.  He didn't tell her he loved her until they got engaged...a full 18 months after they started living together.  I'm convinced the only reason he asked is because before they began living together she would drive an hour+ to his apartment and buy all his groceries, fix his meals, clean his house and take his clothes to the laundromat to do.  I'm just not willing to do that...it's one thing to give love, but at some point I would want some back.

Ok, so that one really hurt.  Then I come home and I'm ready to put aside the cares of the day, but I can't.  My yard is trashed.  Last week it was -5*, two days ago it was 65* with high winds and tornado warnings, and yesterday it was flooding.  Last night when I was home I remember hearing the wind whip around the house and a lot of racket from the storm but I didn't know it TOOK DOWN AN ENTIRE TREE.  Yeah, I have a huge tree down in my backyard.  The only good/funny thing is that that is one of three trees in a cluster that I have been arguing with my dad about taking down.  It landed only about 20-25 feet from my bedroom.  How did I not hear that coming down??

So my day has sucked.  I even went to the gym hoping the good endorphins would kick me into happy mode but they didn't.  And knowing that the next two work days are going to be loooonnnnggg, does not improve my mood much.  If you have a ray of sunshine to spare, I'd love to have one.