Introductions

I've never been good at keeping a journal.  Or rather, I'll write in it for a time, and then I'll get distracted and not come back.  The reason I'm starting this blog, though, is specific, and maybe, because of that, I'll actually manage to do what I've never managed before.  Don't hold your breath.  Okay, maybe for a little bit.  Because this is something near and dear to my heart.  Not literally.  I've recently had some friends and family with heart problems, so I know that this who family/parenthood thing isn't actually near my heart, nor will the health of my heart have any real impact on it.  But that's how the saying goes, right?

So.  A bit about me, in case you somehow stumble across this in your readings and wonder what you stumbled across.

I'm thirty-six.  Female.  And in the process of getting divorced.  I'm also in the process of adopting.  And saying in the process is quite accurate for both.  It's one heck of a long process.  Filled with serious frustrations.  Sometimes I feel like everything in my life is telling me to hurry up, and then to waitwaitwait!  This blog is an attempt to write about the experience of the latter since, even though I've been married since I was twenty-two, this is the first time I've actively sought out and chosen the idea of having a family of my own.  A choice that ultimately has propelled me out of a marriage that had lots of issues (what marriage doesn't?) and down the path that I'm currently on.

Something else you should know about me, I'm a Heathen.  Likely, you don't even know what that means.  Most people don't.  Heathen is, at least for me, a religion and a culture both.  It's an embracing of the values that were held most dear by my ancestors, and putting aside the baggage of the last thousand and more years that came with the conversion to Christianity.  It's giving up the guilt and the shame, and instead embracing the virtues of my Northern European forebears.  Heathenry is a pagan path, the same way that Hinduism is a pagan path.  Needless to say, this complicates the adoption process.  That will be a post.  Maybe even a series of posts.  But it's also a big part of why having  a family means so much to me.  To leave it out of this blog would be a huge mistake.  That said, this isn't, at least at this time, a blog about my religion.  I might explore aspects of my religion that relate to family here, but this isn't a Heathen 101 blog.  Or even a blog about how I found and am traveling my spiritual path.

So, thank you for reading this, no matter how you found it.  I look forward to writing it as I can.  Maybe having my thoughts on this journey out here for the world to read will encourage others like me to take the dive into the adoption pool.  Or maybe it will scare them off.  Maybe it will show people that the values that I have embraced in my spiritual path only strengthen my commitment to family.  But no matter what, know that this is a journey that I'm excited to be on, because in the end, I'll have the most important thing in the world.  A Family.