I hate this whole concept of acceptance. I hate giving up. And it’s been very, very hard for me to learn the difference between giving up trying, and gracefully surrendering to something you can’t control.
Oh, hell. Honestly, I still haven’t learned it. I really, truly can’t usually tell the difference at all. It makes me sick with misery to not have any control over the the things that are important to me. I remember when E was little she used to try so hard to be the grownup in her family, to control what all the crazy, scary adults did and didn’t do, and she couldn’t – how could she? – and I used to tell her, over and over: “You are not in charge of them. You are in charge of you. Do a good job being in charge of you. That’s the most anybody can do.”
I tell myself this, over and over.
Here’s a lovely article on this theme: Shonda Rimes, of Grey’s Anatomy, etc., on adoption
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