One step at a time

It has been a full on few months in my household.

I would love to tell you all that I have faced all the little hurdles with undying courage and determination…………. but  that would be lying.

To tell you the truth, I acted a bit like a scared little baby, I had a few anxiety attacks, I found myself throwing myself on my bed in tears, those great big sobbing tears that just come from nowhere and take forever to end.

For a little while I was not able to talk to people about the events happening in our family without bursting into tears, not cool in public, or if you are explaining the situation to a stranger.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, sometimes it is a good trait, sometimes it just makes me look unstable.

It all seems like such a long story to tell, so I will keep it to the brief outline.

After years of planning and wishing to carry out major renovations in our house, we finally got bank approval, our dreams were becoming a reality!

Unfortunately it was not going to be as smooth of simple as that.  Building commenced the same time as the late wet season started, so we had the usual dust, dirt and noise, as well as bit wet puddles of thick mud being dragged through the house. I refused to let it upset me, I kept my eye on the bigger picture, until……

We got some unexpected bills that put a bit of a halt in our renovations, leaving us with the building site look and the worry that it would never be finished.

Then we suddenly took on our 15-year-old niece, the extra time and expense of quickly getting a room ready for her to move into, enrolling her into a new school, endless paperwork, hurdles etc, and all on our current family income.

The bank account started to dwindle, as my stress levels started to rise.

Friends were concerned about me, but I just had no more words to use, and shut myself out a bit, exhausted, drained, scared and over it, and when I was brave enough to open my mouth to let them in, it seemed that I had a tirade of verbal diarrhoea, and would apologise afterwards for the excess of words just tumbling out of my mouth.

Some of you may read this and think I over reacted, perhaps I did, but all I can tell you that living it has been  pretty full on.

After being used to raising a 3-year-old and 5-year-old, a 15-year-old is rather different. As I put my 2 to bed at night, I look forward to just sitting down and chilling for the night. It seems that this is the same time of the night that giggly teenagers are getting their second wind and want someone to interact with. It has been a case of getting used to a whole new routine and way of living.

Grocery bills shot up, as with the cost of petrol to get Jazz to and from her current school on the other side of town. Of course in amongst it all, other little hurdles came along.

It has not all been hard times, having a teenager in the house has had it’s fun times as well, more laughter, cheeky moments, and extra set of hands around the house. Jazmine has been so grateful for us giving her a roof over her head, and so willing to help us however she can, it has been a breath of fresh air to have her around.

The real problem was the way in which Jazmine came into our care, the choice between foster care and us was not a hard one, and not one that we even had to think about, or regret for a moment, but the fact that it came to that position has caused a wave of extra emotions for all involved.

All the while my husband assured me “we will be ok, everything will be alright”.

But all I did was stress out, wondering how on earth we were going to do this.

I think that maybe looking at the big picture got a bit daunting, trying to think too far ahead and taking into account all the things that were needing to be done, or the process that was needing to be gone through made it hard.

The only thing to do was to cut the huge mountain down, to look at it in little steps, to think of how we could get through each day as best as we could, to know that this way we will eventually get there.

No one was trying to tell me it was easy, just that it was possible.

I still have days in which I ask myself how we are going to do this, how long it is going to be until things seem “normal”, but slowly I am getting there, getting used to our new household, accepting that this renovation may be a long process that will require time and patience.

I have been reminding myself to slow down, to take a moment to breathe, to be easier on myself that all is not as perfect as I would like it to be – perfection is overated anyhow.

All I can do now is just take it each day as it comes, one step at a time.

We will get there, it will take a while, but we will get there, together, I know we will.

One step at a time