Written October 20, 2010
Last night I began an 8 week writing workshop. I must admit that before the class I googled a few of the names of the 7 participants and the first 3 alone had already been published, some in major magazines, some books. I thought I was out of my league. Likely I am. But just as in yoga, when you are in a class you can be with people who are just beginning and who have been yogis for years, but it doesn’t matter. You work at your own pace, stretch yourself to your own limits, look within. I almost quit before I began but thought that is not the me that I want to be. I am thinking back on this seminar I went to two weeks ago called “Living a Life with Purpose” when the leader of the presentation asked us what is it that makes us sing, makes us feel alive? What is it that people our whole lives through have consistently told us we should be doing? And what is it that I have been avoiding lately? Writing.
In class, going around the room, I told everyone that I have this blog and it is my desire to just flesh it out a little more so that I have more of a story for Major one day, perhaps with information about his country, the land, the political climate and also the adoption laws that were changed, halted, in limbo during the 2 years we went through our adoption which led us to the time and place where we were united. It is my goal to simply work on a few pieces of his story during this time, going back to my videos, photos, journal bits trying to piece it all together so I have something more comprehensive for him. As we have so little in regards to his own past, I want him to have so very much about the beginnings of his life as a Karp. I want him to know how loved he is, how very much a part of this family he is and how very much we arduously forged on to make him a part of our family and to bring him home.
Will this actually happen? I can’t be sure. I am someone who doesn’t have photo albums, who has yet to make an album for Emma and Eden yet, let alone Major. I do not scrapbook, though I have scrapbook envy. I do not use Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery or Picasa. I am so glad I have this blog, however. And I do make a nice montage video, admittedly. They say one photo says a thousand words so it has satisfied me in many ways.
In short, Major often drives me crazy because he is a typical two year old, wild wild boy who can’t stop moving, jumping and touching everything in sight, stealing pencils and crayons and slamming his hands down in defiance when I am trying to do homework and study with Emma and Eden. But oh, the mischievous grin and the squinty coy eyes when he knows he is being bad. Or even when he’s just being funny. But oh the tight embraces and smacking kisses he gifts us with each day. His laughter, hearty and deep, infects us all. And the miracle of his language acquisition — I am impressed and in awe of him daily. I love him more than I could express. In a nutshell, he makes my heart feel whole. He makes us all HAPPY.
There is not a day that goes by that I am not blown away by the miracle that brought us together. Just yesterday, picking him up from school, the kid greeted me as if I was a long lost lover, running to me from across the little school hallway as if we were on a meadow in the Sound of Music and music was beginning to swell in the background. The joy that spread across his face when I entered the school to pick him up … what a gift he gave to me with just his smile and wide spread arms. I scooped him up and silently thanked him with hard kisses pressed onto his squishy cool cheeks.
Corny and cliche, but true. This boy has fulfilled my life in so many ways and has filled my life with joy in the deepest level that I have known.
