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