After spending the best part of the last two years climbing a seemingly never ending hill towards a very abstract goal - “being allowed to adopt children”, we reached the end of the climb on Friday (as I wrote about here).
The journey had not been easy. It had been long. The journey had forced us to look inside ourselves and really ask why we wanted children - why we wanted a family. What could we provide? Who were we really, as people? What are our values? What are our hopes, our experiences? How do we see the future?
We have reached the flat at the end of the climb, and suddenly find ourselves lost. What now?
The question was answered immediately after leaving the Adoption Review Panel. Throughout the approval process we had been questioned on all manner of subjects, but in recent weeks W had begun to suspect there was an agenda behind some of the questions.
Her suspicions, it turns out were absolutely right.
Obviously I cannot divulge exactly what was disclosed to us because it would betray too many confidences. I can say that the future may no longer be an unknown. Early next year our lives may well be turned upside down - our big old empty house will no longer be so. We knew this was the end goal of setting out on the adoption road, but never really prepared mentally for the end result.
Suddenly we are filled with further questions of ourselves. Will we be good parents? Do we really know what we are doing?
Of course these questions are fleeting - for the most part of the time we are now not able to think straight. We walk into town to buy groceries, hand in hand, huge grins on our faces. We prepare for this Christmas - perhaps our last on our own - but we find ourselves thinking past it to future christmases, birthdays, and any number of memories yet to come.
Somebody famous once said that the future will be an awfully big adventure. I understand that now.