**I wrote this before I read all of your kind comments about the earrings – you all make me smile more than you know!  Thank you.  

I’m a little concerned.  I’m in a funk and I can’t shake it.  I am leaving in 27 days to visit Sabrina and I can’t get excited.  All I can think about is how hard it will be to leave her knowing I might not see her again until May.  Yes, I know I need to focus on the good and enjoy my time with her – I ‘m saying at this point I can’t.  I don’t know why but my brain won’t focus on anything except the fact that when I hand her back in February, it might be 3 months until I can hold my sweet girl again.  And it makes me cry every single time I think about it.  Seriously – crying as I type this.  I need to switch to waterproof mascara until this whole thing is over. 

I am normally very emotionally aware and in control.  But I feel really out of sorts this week and to be honest it makes me uncomfortable because it isn’t familiar territory.  I don’t know what to do with my feelings about Sabrina not coming home for months.  I can’t intellectualize and compartmentalize them like I can most things.  I can’t change it.  I can’t do anything but wait for it to end so that grief and pain will go away.  I also haven’t been able to truly deal with losing my dad.  I am in big denial about that.  My sister gave me a box of some things from his office and every time we talk she asks if I have gone through it yet.  I brought it inside and put it on a shelf in the basement and have been ignoring its existence ever since.  My step-mom wants to talk about what of his I want every time we speak on the phone.  I can’t do it.  I don’t want mementos right now – they just bring pain.  I know someday they will make me smile and be important to me but that day isn’t here yet.  I’m usually the strong one in the family so no one is quite sure how to deal with my hiding from all of this.  

Please don’t worry about me…I am not falling into depression – not trying to send out an alarm.  I am just someone who is used to being able to handle most anything that comes my way without too much effort.  This is all just beyond my normal bag of defense mechanisms.  I know there are people out there who are dealing with much more than we are…I am just sharing where I am at right now.  

I tell you this, dear blogworld friends, not because I expect anyone to offer sage advice (although I always welcome input) or solve my problems.  I put this out there because writing sometimes helps me think things through and because I am trying to offer an honest record of my experience with international adoption for those readers out there who are just beginning as well as for myself.