Great Expectations

Email to Haley, from Linda; March 22, 2011

Dear Haley,

To begin, I want to tell you how relieved I am that you are feeling better. On Sunday, I spent an hour and a half writing you an e-mail only to have Kevin tell me not to send it! E-mails are really tough for me since we interpret them through our own lenses. So what I thought would be a warm and comforting letter for you, Kevin thought differently and said it may be too much! Oh well, soon we’ll have a face-to-face visit which I am really looking forward to! (...)

Kevin keeps telling me to keep the e-mails simple so I will follow his advice. I thought it would be nice to phone you and ask about the kinds of foods you and Nick like to eat. It would give us a chance to talk and to feel more comfortable with each other! (...) I love heart to heart, one-on-one talks! I certainly look forward to these talks with you (if you are willing) I can’t wait to hear all about you...every little detail!

In Christ,
Linda

PS In regards to one of your e-mails to Kev...Kevin is right...you can’t screw anything up! Haley we don’t have any expectations! It’s hard to disappoint people when they don’t expect anything...really :) We are grateful that we can get to know you and we will take things one step at a time!

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She's so sweet. I am completely impressed by this woman. I still can't get over how she could welcome me into her family, without even knowing who I am. "I can't wait to hear all about you...every little detail!" Am I ready for that? I guess I'm going to have to be!

Can you believe this thing about no expectations? No expectations? As much as I have tried to keep my expectations low, to protect myself from disappointment, I still have expectations. I don't think I could define what they are, but there are definitely hopes and they are growing rapidly. 

It's sort of impossible not to have expectations, don't you think? 

Planning a Visit

I feel like I haven't written in so long that I forgot where I was in the story!

Quick re-set; had our first Skype call, I had a little meltdown, then Kevin and I talked on the phone and I calmed down a bit, Nick and I discussed and decided to do a visit.

Email to Haley, from Kevin; March 21, 2011 

Hi Haley,

I enjoyed the call as well, it isn't often I don't have something to say, and at times I was at a loss for words!

Great to hear you're going to jump in and come visit, in my calendar the 16-17 is better, and Linda is going to check her outlook and let me know this morning, and I'll ph you this afternoon. (...)

I'm glad to hear you're doing better, e-mail is a double edged sword for sure, more time to think writing, more time to misinterpret reading! (...)

I'll talk to you later Haley, I know once the arrangements are made, the kids will be excited, and Sarah can begin prepping her long golden hair! (ha ha)

Kevin
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Kevin called me in the afternoon, and we tried to pick a weekend. Who knew it would be so complicated? There was Easter weekend in there, Nick and I already had plans to go to Invermere, another weekend we had volunteer commitments, I think Daniel had a scout camp one weekend, and Amy had a birthday date with her Mom another weekend. It looked like June would be the earliest date. *sigh* How on earth could I wait three more months?

Later that day, and after 3 or 4 calls we finally picked a date that was nearly perfect. Can you believe that my dear sister Amy willingly gave up a birthday night out with her Mom, just to meet me? What a treasure that girl is. She had already emailed me that she was going to a concert in Seattle by one of her favourite artists, and that it was going to be a special evening out, topped off with a night spent in a hotel! I knew she was really looking forward to it, and I didn't want to be associated with taking away a treat like that. But Amy was so gracious, and seemed to be more excited about meeting me than a night out. They still planned to attend the concert, but would only miss a few hours with Nick and I, not a whole day.

Just over 5 weeks from today, Nick and I will meet them all face-to-face! I don't want to sell him out here, but Kevin sounded so excited on the phone, it was kind of like talking to an eager child a few days before Christmas. I was also looking forward to a visit, but had enough anxiety to temper the excitement down to a more palatable level. I hope that didn't come across on the phone as ambivalence...

It's all about me.

When I started to share my story through this blog, I mistakenly thought it was all about me. I needed to write to process all my feelings, to keep them from swirling around in my head. Big life change, lengthy mental processing needed.

At the beginning of the reunion, I used up all my free time with my husband talking on and on about my new family. At dinner, on date night, during hockey games. Note to self: Don't talk to your husband during a hockey game unless your sentence has the word 'wings' or 'pizza', preceded by, "do you want more ______"? He's not interested in hearing about the latest email from my little sister when the game is in overtime. Trust me, that email was way more interesting that the overtime period.

My friends, surprisingly, were not all interested in every moment of my reunion tale. One even interrupted me in the middle of my story, and said, "oh no, I didn't mean I wanted to hear all of that, I just wanted to know it was going well." Oh. So you don't want me to ramble on for hours at a time? I listen to you talk about your kids for hours, I guess it doesn't go both ways.

I needed another outlet, and a blog seemed to be a good choice. It helped me untangle weeks of pent up thoughts and emotions. Unpacking story by story was incredibly helpful to my mental health.

I haven't felt the compulsion to write every day for a while; *spoiler warning* I do have a post saved up about Father's Day, but with the mail strike in Canada, I didn't want to post it until my Dad actually got his Father's Day card, since the post is all about choosing Father's Day cards.

Since I stopped writing for a few weeks, I've been getting bombarded with advice as to how to 'cure writer's block' or 'just jump ahead to the present story'. I was told that a certain member of my new family now sleeps in again, because she used to get up early to see what I had written, and now doesn't bother. Ouch.

Ok, I can take the hint! It's important to them to meet me here at the blog every morning. They get a glimpse of me, of my heart, answers to questions they might be too shy to ask, something extra that helps them process this reunion thing too.

And here I thought the blog was all about me...

The real question is, when will they read the new post! Since they're not in the habit of checking every day... :)

Writer's Block

Last week I was explaining to someone (whose name I'll kindly neglect to include) that it was often challenging to write the blog. This person affectionately teased me saying, 'you're not even writing anything, you're just using other people's emails anyway'. Yep. That's what I'm doing, and yet I'm stuck. Now I know what it feels like to not know what to say next; what writer's block feels like.

I spent an entire day today reading through old emails and struggling with what part of our story to share next. I'm still getting nowhere. So much for just copying other people's emails to me; if that's all I was doing, then I shouldn't be stuck...

If I'm a bit more erratic with posting, now you know why. I'm going to try and muddle through, but it might be more sporadic than I'm used to.

A day in my time-travelling shoes

I suppose I'll be shifting around a bit more through time with the blog for the next while, as I'm opting for keeping conversations together rather than keeping to the exact timeline. We'll see how this goes :)

Email to Haley, from Linda; March 19, 2011 

Dear Haley,

I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to speak with you and Nick today! You are so beautiful...and that smile!!!  (...)

I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to be in your shoes...and it is difficult to know what you may be feeling/thinking. I just want you to know that we are glad that you made that first call. I am so grateful that you are such a “good” girl and will be a great role model for the girls. I think God has a great future for us all and I trust completely in His plans.

Today, a Skype call....next, a real visit!!! How exciting!

In Christ,

Linda

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Email to Linda, from Haley; March 19, 2011 

Dear Linda,

I loved seeing you all in 'real life'. It's so much better than just a picture! It was hard for me to concentrate on talking I was so busy taking it all in! Sorry I didn't have much to say, I think I was a bit in shock. (...)

Emotional doesn't begin to describe me today. I'm a wreck. Happy sad nervous anxious scared excited all at once. I smile reading through the emails and then I'm bawling because I'm afraid of messing this up. Overall just a wreck. I spent the rest of the evening trying to write an email to Kevin. Nick is still working on the truck, so I used a half a box of Kleenex on my own :)

I want to get to know everyone and I don't want to slow things down with you all, but it's definitely an emotional time!

Blessings,
Haley

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Half a box of kleenex, home alone with the keyboard and the dog...if I drank much, I think tonight would be the night to get out a bottle of (insert your favourite drink here). But I don't, so it was just me, the kleenex, the keyboard and the dog. I can't call anyone because I don't know what I'd say. I looked so forward to the Skype call, and then had this terrible breakdown immediately afterward. Where's the DSM-IV TR when you need it? Perhaps I'm not quite the 'great role model' Linda has in mind.

The Phone Call

My last entry left me napping on the couch with a phone, wondering if Kevin was going to call me.

He did!

We talked for about an hour, and it was amazing. I know I didn’t hold up my end of the conversation as well as I would have liked, but it was a lot better than skype...no question. It’s been so long since the call, I am struggling to remember everything we talked about, but I do remember that it was so good.

Kevin was friendly and open to learning more about me. He engaged me with many questions (which is essential when talking to someone who can be as shy as I can). He answered some of my burning questions about when I was born. I don’t know how many turning points my story will require, but this was another major one for me.

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Email to Haley, from Kevin; March 20, 2011 

Hi Haley, 

I really enjoyed talking to you today, e-mail is good, talking is better, as you said, tough to read emotion in an e-mail. 

I just put the old salmon on the bbq, and Linda and I were talking and I wanted to clarify something about the kids. When I said that Linda asked the kids to slow down with the e-mail, what we are after is to not overwhelm you, but we are not asking the kids to stop. You need to know that as of when we told our kids about you, we would not cut you or them off. There will always be ebbs and flows, but they are natural and I don't want you to think you have to walk on eggshells or anything like that.

We're very happy to get to know you and welcome you however much you want to be welcomed.

Kevin 
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Email to Kevin, from Haley; March 20, 2011 

Hi Kevin,

So our phone call today is my favourite interaction so far. It was so nice to talk with you and get to know you better. I am astounded at how genuine and caring you are. I never expected to be that lucky! I guess what I'm trying to say is let's do that again :)

I talked with Nick and we decided that we should just jump in and do a visit! (...) Let me know what you think, and we can plan from there. (...) 

I'm feeling a lot better since our chat. I think I just needed to get past the 'this is always going to be extremely awkward' to 'this is natural' stage. Thank you for spending that time with me today, I really appreciate it.

Blessings,
Haley

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Asking for something I want

Email to Kevin, from Haley; March 20, 2011

Hi Kevin,

(...)

If I'm honest, I checked my email about every 10 minutes last night until I finally fell asleep (and then again when I was up very early this morning...I'm turning into a real junkie!). I was very concerned about what you might say, but as always you're very kind and understanding; thank you.

I don't mind when you tell me about who I look like or sound like, I just don't know who you're talking about! I'm used to years and years of, wow you look so much like your mom or dad, and laughing it off because I'm adopted... I'll have to show you a picture of them sometime, we do look pretty similar, it's kind of funny :)

I love watching Dragon's Den. I never watch the news anymore. I read it all online. We try and go to a couple Eskimos games every year, but I'm not as interested in sports as I used to be. Nick loves watching cfl and hockey. I got him tix to the Oilers vs Flames next Sunday for his birthday. I can't believe he's turning 28. That means I'm not far behind...

Visits...I wish I had someone to tell me what to do! My heart's desire is to meet you in person, I would love to do that and I've been checking out WestJet flights since I found out where you live. We're going to Invermere at Easter and I thought you guys could come out and we could meet on neutral ground. I was excited when Amy told me you usually come to Edmonton once a year. I'm confused. You say it's up to me about timing...but I'd like to know what you want. I need some help on this one.

Nick would like to add something...

"You have been very gracious about how you've dealt with the whole situation and very sensitive to Haley's feelings. I appreciate that you've been willing to share about yourselves freely. Your thoughtfulness and way you've handled the emails, skype etc. has been beyond what I would have ever expected."

We're going to be home all afternoon today, if you're not busy, why don't you call me and we could try and talk about what to do next? And I want to hear about what you were thinking when you got my first message on facebook!

Blessings, Haley
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As awkward as Skype was, I still was craving contact with Kevin. I don't know why I wrote that I wanted him to call me, because I am terrible at asking for things that I need or want. Terrible! But I did, and as soon as I hit send, I became completely worried again. Too much too soon; How could I be so desperate; It's going to push him away. I wrote earlier about 'the irony of being needy' and here I am again.

The worst part of this email? Putting it out there that I hoped he would call, but not knowing if he would. I went downstairs and napped on the couch with a phone. How sad to admit that! I'm pretty sure it's things like this that make my husband think I'm a tad crazy...