Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a foster mom. Of course, I always thought I’d be a foster parent. I wanted to adopt before Angelina went around the world collecting kids and Madonna fought for her baby from Africa. There are so many kids out there that just need love. Love I have to give. And, I didn’t really think I’d adopt a baby. Babies are wanted, sought after. A woman I ran with in FL told me it was really really difficult to adopt a baby. A one year old on the other hand? Much easier. But I wasn’t thinking one year old either, I was thinking elementary school age. Skip the potty training and diaper changing bit altogether. When I first moved to SC I knew of a single woman who’d adopted and was really happy. I didn’t know her personally, just heard about her. People seemed to be in a little bit of disbelief that she’d do that… “it must be so difficult“ they said. I thought, “wow, that’s amazing.” I think she was close to 40, I was close to 30.
Now I’m close to 40 and single. All my friends are getting married and having babies. There was never a moment in my life that I didn’t think I’d have a family – married with kids. Yet now I’m starting to believe that my biggest dream isn’t going to come true. Heck, I even told all my friends (and even a number of acquaintances) that I’d go out with anyone they wanted me to go out with this month. October. Or, as I decided to call it (thank you Jill for helping with the name) Optober -A month of opportunity and new options. I have been told I try to hard, I need to stop and love will find me. When I don’t do anything I’m told I have to put myself out there. I’m pretty sure I’ve been on every on-line dating site that exists with at least 5 people in my area. For close to 10 years I have put myself out there, in a line-up with other women trying to achieve the same thing – love.
I’ve gone out with some great guys and some odd ones. A few I even went out with for more than a month. Not many, though. “You can’t have a list,” I’m told “you are missing out on some great people because they don’t fall under your checklist.” Most of the people who tell me this have not done online dating. In fact, many of them are happily married. At “close to 40” I have become comfortable in some habits. I exercise. I like it. I like me when I do it. I’ve gone out with people who don’t and I find that eventually I don’t either. And then I don’t like me. So, one of the things on my “list” is for a guy to be fit/care about health (that goes for healthy eating too. If there is a bag of chips in my cabinet, I’ll eat it. I won’t go out and buy them, however, so I prefer not to have them available). I also prefer someone with higher education. I have a master’s degree. I know there are smart, motivated high school graduates out there. In fact I’ve even gone out with some to prove I wasn’t being picky. You know what? It didn’t work. I decided I could be picky about that – BS/BA or higher is now on my list. I thought travel would be on my list – but I found some amazing friends who travel like I do. Would I love to share an experience in an exotic part of the world with my partner? Absolutely. Is it a “must have”? No. I like thin guys. Triathlete/Runner/Basketball athletic build is my idea of super sexy. I’m OK if we wear the same size pants. I try to be OK with bigger guys. I never want to kiss them. Do I feel shallow? Absolutely. Does it change when I try really hard? Nope. So, it’s not officially on the list, because I feel superficial, but it’s kind of a silent item.
In an effort to throw my list out the window, I told people I’d go out with whoever they suggested. I did ask that they don’t just pick the one single guy in the office that lives with his mother because, you know, he’s single. Rather that I think I’m a good catch, and they, being my friends, should think I’m a good catch too and therefore try to introduce me to men that are good catches. Want to know how many I’ve met this way? None. It’s the 18th. One friend did send a guy my way. It just so happened that her friend send out a similar request to find dates for her brother, so my friend said “oh, I have a friend…” The thing is, she knew the sister, not the actual guy. He has this horrible mustache in his pictures and when she asked I told her that in November I wouldn’t even give him a shot, but this was Optober. Bring It. He send me very enthusiastic emails. I was pretty sure he’d never gone out with someone as awesome as me before (his sister said he dated crazies) and was so excited about this opportunity he couldn’t wait to talk to me. He was nice enough when we spoke on the phone. And I think he’s a motivated high school graduate. I like to talk, though. We spoke for an hour. I think I maybe got the floor for 15min. He texted me today, 2 days later, to see how I was. I answered that I was fine, the weekend was starting after all. I don’t think I’m being good with this “open minded” thing.
I did initiate a conversation with someone on line (I usually wait for them to contact me) but when after 2 exchanges –neither of which included his name – he asked me if I’d rather text, I was put off. I haven’t responded. Another guy who lives almost 2 hours away wrote to me too… and I responded to him. Usually anyone outside of a 1 hour radius gets ignored. See, I’m doing my best. Well, at least I’m taking a few risks that are outside my comfort zone.
Yesterday I had a tough day at work and I was thinking about how Optober hasn’t been very successful and I started getting down. I needed a purpose. All year I’d trained for my Ironman. This was a HUGE undertaking and it consumed my life for at least 6 months. Then it was over. They say people often go into depression afterwards because they don’t know what to do with themselves. I’m there. I get it. I don’t want to work out to the same intensity because I did it for so long. Yet working out at that intensity gave me a lot of pride – not to mention I started liking my body for the first time. It didn’t help that I fell, twice, while running in the morning and my knee has been healing for over 3 weeks. The sun goes down earlier. This summer it seemed to rain every day. I missed the summer sun and now the fall sun is slipping away so quickly.
My job isn’t what I want it to be. It’s a good job. I’m learning. I work with amazing people. It’s just the main part of my job is not exciting to me. In fact, I kind of loathe it. The good thing is it’s not really that hard and it doesn’t really take that much time – if I actually focus and do what I’m supposed to do. My boss is fine with my hours as long as I get stuff done, so I am able to keep my morning workout schedule and come in a little later than most – but I stay a little later as well. And on my lunch break I play candy crush while I eat the leftovers I prepared on Sunday or a salad that I made that morning. There was a time when I loved working. I was challenged, inspired and I felt like I was making a difference. Now? I really think my job is insignificant. I don’t know that anyone is better off because I’m there. Yesterday I felt like my boss didn’t really care for any suggestion I made – he had his own ideas anyway. I don’t know why I bothered thinking up some on my own. So I looked at Facebook to see if anything interesting was going on (it is, afterall, where I get all my news-or at least alerts that I should check out something that is going on.) As usual, there were some funny posts, inspiring posts, shares from Upworthy and the Huffington Post. And then I saw it.
Florida teen asks church congregation to adopt him.
”My name is Davion and I’ve been in foster care since I was born … I know God hasn’t given up on me. So I’m not giving up either.”
”I’ll take anyone,” Davion added. “Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don’t care. And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be.”
After reading that, I wrote to my friend who works with foster care and asked her how to get involved. I decided it was time. Having no more luck during Optober than I have for the past 20 years, I decided waiting until I had a partner shouldn’t hold me back. I can do amazing things that other people never try because of the risk involved. I needed to stop talking about it, accept where I am in my life, and make part of my dream happen. Become a mother figure for a child that needs love.
Being as patient as I am, when I got home and hadn’t heard from her, I looked up the department of social services DSS to find out what I needed to do. Then I called the number – which referred me to Heart Felt Calling. They had a “contact us” section, so I filled it out. They sent me a short form to fill out and said they’d send me a packet shortly after receiving the complete form. I filled it out immediately and sent it back. There was a part of the form that made me nervous. It asked if I wanted to foster or adopt. I felt bad saying foster. I might decide that I can adopt on my own, but I’m not ready for that just yet. I know there are many single moms who do just fine and I could probably get by. It’s a huge life change, though, and I’m not sure how to handle it. I wrote that I wanted to just foster for now. I needed to take baby steps. I said I’d take any age and either gender. The videos on the site broke my heart. One statistic was that there were over 4000 kids needing foster care in SC. Hearing that I wish I had all the money in the world and a house with 20 rooms so I could take them all in. For now, though, I’ve gotta focus on cleaning up the 2nd bedroom, buying a bed and figuring out to take care of one child.
When my phone rang from an unknown number this morning at 8:30 I was so excited they were calling me so quickly. I answered with enthusiasm (which I rarely do for unknown numbers) and the person on the other line said they were from the blah blah blah hospital… I started to realize it wasn’t heart felt calling. Instead it was my vet. They wanted to run a follow up test on my cat, Diego, who just finished his antibiotic for a UTI. This made much more sense than the foster folks calling so quickly, but what can I say, I was excited.
I know it isn’t much, but I’ve taken the first step. I feel like I have purpose once again. It scares the living daylights out of me and gets me crazy excited all at the same time. Can I do it? We shall see. As with any adventure, it wouldn’t be as awesome if there was no risk involved and no chance to stretch myself to new limits that I didn’t know I had.
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