Hello Lovies.

You are now entering Cliché City. You’ve been warned. When the goin’ gets tough, the Doyle/Meltons fling around clichés.

Today I thought I’d try to answer the G, how are you doing? questions. Thank you so much for caring.

About the loss of the adoption- so far, I’m actually fine. It’s funny, you want all of these things, and then you get sick and you realize that the only thing you really want is to be healthy.

It’s true that every once in a while I feel a little flabbergasted, when I consider the hours and days we spent on paperwork and the nights of lost sleep and the thousands of dollars and tears and prayers that we’ve used up on this adoption during the past two years. It’s strange to just - all of a sudden - walk away. It tempts me to wonder if all of it was wasted. But deep down I don’t think that any of our efforts to love or to follow our dreams are wasted.

One time an American visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta and looked around at the hundreds of people dying in the streets and he said to her, “You’ll never save all of them. You’ll never even make a dent. How do you continue this work when you know you won’t be successful?” And Mama T looked at him and smiled and said, “I am not called to be successful. I am called to be faithful.” And I think that’s a good thing for us to remember.

One of my best friends, Jess, sent me a prayer recently about how in the West, we are so focused on goals, on results, on outcomes. But we can’t control outcomes, almost ever, so that’s probably a waste of time. I think we can only be faithful, today, to ourselves and to our families . . . to our friends and our dreams, and at the end of the day, we have to let it all go. We have to quit worrying about what becomes of it all and just be grateful we had the guts to do our little part, as we understood it. And we have to try to remember that it’s better to travel than to arrive, anyway. I think I was faithful for the past two (six) years to what I thought God wanted me to do. I spent my whole mind, soul, and strength on that dream. And so I feel pleased with that effort, and I won’t judge the outcome. It’s okay. I’m a different person than I was when I started this adoption journey, and maybe that’s the point anyway.

It helps me to see stories LIKE THESE: to see my friends who started this adoption journey at the same time I did and are home now, raising their Rwandan angels. And to watch this story unfold...one of our own...a MONKEE.. in Rwanda, picking up her baby right now, as you read this. As I read these stories - through tears of joy and loss - I am reminded that when and if it’s supposed to happen, it does. There are no mistakes. I did not fall through the cracks, it just wasn’t meant to be for me. Not now. If it’s God’s plan, nothing can stop it, and if it’s not God’s plan, there is nothing you can do to make it happen. Trust me. I've tried everything.

And still - The universe is unfolding as it should.

My dad used to say to me: Life is what happens when we’re making other plans.

I’m not sure I really believed that completely. I sort of thought that you could write your own story. Make your own plan, make it happen. Nah- I thought. Life is not what happens to you….life is what you make it.

But now, in the fallout of the adoption and the Lyme and on and on . . . I have come to believe that both are true. I think Life is what you make out of what happens to you.

Lyme is what is happening to me right now….and I am GOING to turn it into something good, something beautiful and helpful. I read this quote recently . . . people can tolerate suffering, but not meaninglessness. That’s how I feel right now. It’s fine . . . I’ll be sick, I’ll heal, I’ll let a few dreams go in the meantime. I’m a big girl and I know that nobody promised me that life would be easy. But I’m not letting any of it go to waste. I am going to make it all mean something. Someday.

Maybe not today, cause I’m too freaking tired.

I’ve never experienced anything like what Lyme’s done to me during the past month. I wake up tired, and I spend my morning tired, and then around 2 o’clock I feel as if someone has placed one of those heavy bibs they use for dental x-rays on top of me, and all I can do is crawl up the stairs to bed. And when I get to bed, sometimes I’m too tired to reach for a pillow, or to roll over. Too tired to roll over. It’s true. A couple of times I actually thought . . . I’m dying, I am definitely dying right now. I have what seems to be out of body experiences. My body feels so heavy that my soul seems to hover above. And during these near death experiences I always have two thoughts: OH GOD. They are going to come to take me away and everyone’s going to see how filthy the bathtub is. And also, if Craig remarries someone who can cook I will be so pissed. I will HAUNT THEM. I will mess up all her casseroles.

I don’t know why these are the deepest thoughts I can muster when I’m near death, I’m just telling the truth.

So anyway, this Lyme Time has sort of brought me back full circle. I feel like a baby sometimes. I am learning how to take care of myself, maybe for the first time ever. I spent the first half of my life tearing apart my body, then the second making and feeding little bodies, and now, for the first time, I’m learning how to help my own body and soul thrive and grow.

So that’s what I’m doing over here these days. I decided to stop saying “I’m sick” and start saying “I’m healing.”

This is how I’m going to make sense of all of this – make it mean something.

Through my own healing process, I plan to learn what people need to heal. Because I believe that all suffering is the same, and that we all suffer from something. Disease, abuse, shame, depression, pride, anger, stress, loss, hopelessness, loneliness and on and on and on forever. And I think we all need healing. Every last one of us.

So I think that if I can heal, if I can unlock the keys to healing for myself, that I’ll be able to help you, too. I don’t really understand that plan completely yet, but that’s my plan nonetheless.

So far: this is what I’ve got. I’ve got a sign in my kitchen that says:

Deep Breaths

Take your medicine

Feed yourself

Water

Fresh Air

Sun

Bath

Friends

Yoga

Pray

That’s all I’ve got so far.

What are you healing from? And what helps you heal? Let’s help each other.