The mountains are calling and I must go

I'm typing this entry from my phone, so please forgive grammatical errors. As I type this I'm looking out over the mountains of Appalachia, from a one bedroom cabin off a long gravel road. Pete and I decided to come when I started to feel this year taking its toll on my spirit. We have been blessed, a lot this year, and when I was having trouble seeing that, I knew I had to reconnect with the earth, and with my creator. Pete is my strength and being the amazing husband he is, would stop at nothing to make sure I'm at peace. I'm pretty sure this year was taking its toll on him as well, but he remains centered. In may we found out our ethiopian adoption would take nearly as long as it took for me to get my masters degree, in June my uncle, who I loved as a second father passed away unexpectedly, in July we were matched for twin boys through domestic adoption and in September we had them. For five beautiful days we cared for them, for five days I felt like the Mother I have always wanted to be. Maybe this is hard to understand, because they aren't mine, but for those five days, they felt like they were. My first sons. Even in the chaos surrounding that time, the uncertainty and fear, even when we could see that it was going to come crashing down one way or another I made myself love them. Because for whatever reason, we were there in that situation and I didn't see any other choice. No, I was never their mother, and I never will be, but I got to feel like one and that has changed me. I'm not ready to tell the whole story of our failed adoption, I'm not sure if and when that day will come, but the moment we gave them back to their mother I felt I was standing on the edge of a precipice. I knew I had a choice, this is going to crush me or its going to build me up. It felt crushing. So much loss in such a few short months. I needed time, I needed to re-evaluate how much pain I was willing to endure, how much was I really willing to say yes. Of course I knew where I would end up, it's just hard to get there when life remains so busy, when your job requires you to help others heal their brokenness when your own darkness is deep, when you have amazing family and friends that helped you keep your head above water (whether they know it or not) and you want to see them, to enjoy life with them, but you really want to pull the covers over your head for a dozen years and hide.  So, yes, I needed time a way. I needed to process everything and. let. It. Go. I needed to be still and catch my breath. I needed to see the beauty of the earth and remember this is not about me, it, in fact, has very little to do with me. We took a three mile hike up mount leconte yesterday. We were both mostly quiet and to ourselves. I won't speak for Pete, but every step I took I was thinking. I thought about the last hike my family took when my uncle was there ( the trip we found out I was going to be an aunt!) I thought about conversations I had with him and plans we made that were never fulfilled, like getting tattoos. I thought about holding those sweet sweet babies and watching my husband do the same. I thought about the birth mom, remembered the pain in her eyes the last time we saw her at the hospital and the pain in her eyes when she came to get her sons. Never was I angry. But she feared I was. I love her. I love her sons. I pray for them everyday. I thought about all these things as we were hiking and it began to melt away. I'm sitting here, tears streaming down my face as I write this, because it all still hurts like hell, but it's okay. It's beautiful really. We live in an absolutely beautiful world, and ill be damned if I ever forget that. We are blessed. We are sitting in a small cabin, I have the most amazing man to walk this road with me, and we have a future. I'm glad it's uncertain, because I wouldn't want to know. The view at the top is amazing, but the hike is really why we do it. So I'm going to remain hopeful, I'm quieting down, and I'm going to enjoy the hike.