I was definitely feeling more compelled to pursue this dream, but it wasn't until May of 2011 that I finally decided to move forward with it, with the intention to adopt a child from foster care. By January of 2012, I was contacted about two children who soon moved into my home and who, by June, had moved out again. By October, two more had come and gone.

Now, I'm not sure I can explain how this whole experience has affected me. I think I'm still processing. I can't quite make heads or tails of it. Whether I think about it from the kids' perspective (Did I help them or do more harm than good?) or from my own (Would I do this again, if I had it to do over? Has this made me too fearful to move forward with another child?), I can't decide how I feel about it.

I once feared that my heart had become too guarded for me to be able to open it to a new child, but after the last two children, I know this isn't true. A heart, I've discovered, has the ability to love in spite of fear. The part I still question, is how many times a heart can break before a soul dies. I cannot be sure. Maybe the soul will prove just as resilient.

But, as I've waited for these kinds of answers, my life has waited as well. I've found myself in a holding pattern — too afraid to continue on the current path, but even more afraid to venture away from it.

So, What of This New Year?

I know I cannot move forward with adoption right now. If I'm honest, I question whether I ever will. People will tell you, "Sure, you can," or, "Sure, you should," but that's too personal a decision for someone else to answer, and every answer is both the right one and the wrong one.

For now, I cannot personally move forward on that path, which was a hard enough reality to face, but once I did, I wasn't sure where else to go. Well, that's not entirely true. I had 99 other dreams at one time. I just didn't know if I could or should go anywhere else.

If I went down another road, pursued other dreams, would I ever come back? If I didn't, would I be okay with that?

If I abandoned this path, did that somehow make me a bad person? I'd be lying if I said I didn't care if other people thought so, but I was more concerned about the judgment I might face when I looked in the mirror.

And, how could I move on with other goals and dreams that now seemed so trivial? No, not all of them were as arguably inconsequential as, say, going without TV for a month, but would everything now seem silly and self-indulgent?

I sat in the middle of the road, still not knowing where to go.

I think it's easy to get hung up sometimes at points along our journeys. Maybe we fail at something in a big and public way, maybe life beats us up a little, or maybe we feel like we've let someone down. I'm not sure redemption is what we need necessarily, but we do need peace in our hearts and minds around those "hang ups." The question is, what do we do in the meantime, while we're waiting for healing or answers or redemption or peace? Do we just sit and wait in the middle of some road we no longer can or want to go down, or do we pick up and start walking again? And, if we do, does it matter the direction?

For the start of the new year, I had hoped (like all others before it) that I would have resolutions, answers, a plan. Instead, I only have questions. My only possible marker comes in the form of a quote from Simple Abundance: There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

This must be one of those years.

I can’t begin to describe everything that has happened this week, mostly because neither of us has that kind of time, but also because part of the story is deeply personal and part of it has to do with foster children who deserve their privacy. Let’s just say it was a whirlwind, roller coaster of a week, filled with emotion, high highs, low lows, and very little sleep. I’m just going along, minding my own business, moving my life in one general direction, and then, out of nowhere, I’m spun around and walking down some side road to who knows where.

I found myself several times throughout the week pausing in amazement, thinking how surreal it all seemed. It was messy and imperfect, but magical and exciting, too. It was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. At one point, at 4:30 in the morning, after sleeping only three hours and while stroking the hair of a restless 10-month-old baby girl entrusted to my care, I sat in the darkness and thought about how strange my life looked compared to just days before. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Everything was upside down and awe-inspiring. I knew everything that had just come into my life could just as quickly go out of it, but it didn’t matter. For one moment, everything was perfectly imperfect, and I was relishing it.

The next morning, after another restless night, the baby woke up a little earlier than I’d hoped. I stood in the doorway of my bedroom in the dark, refiguring my day now that she was awake, and hoping, by some small chance, that she might go back to sleep. She didn’t. Instead, she saw me standing there and crawled over to me. I picked her up, and she just laid into my chest, wanting to be held. I wondered how long it had been since she’d had someone to hold her, a place where she could just feel safe and loved, so even though I knew we were already running way behind schedule, I stood there and held her in the dark and silence until I knew we just couldn’t stand there anymore. I had just met her, and she had just met me, but somehow we both knew to take this road while it was in front of us.

I’m glad we had that moment, because later that same day, I got a call that she and her brother would be moved. Just like that, things would change again. At the end of it all, I felt short-changed. Having started off the week with so many new opportunities that were curious, unexpected, and filled with promise and potential, I finished out the week empty-handed in the physical sense, and I wasn’t sure why. I was now back on this side of the looking glass, and although my life in the physical sense had been restored to its original state, I knew things weren’t the same.

This morning I sat for four hours in silence, which after the chaos of this week seemed like days, but instead of feeling saddened by everything (which is what I expected), I felt more certain, knowing that the entire experience, however short-lived, had made me into a better and stronger person. It had brought everything into sharper focus. One small turn of a dial, and things that were once blurry were now crystal clear.

Life can change in an instant, if you’re willing to allow yourself to get caught up in something, if you’re willing to go off on those tangents. It can be messy and disruptive. It can be unsettling and unnerving, but you’ll never feel more alive than when you stumble on something that turns your life upside down, and that’s what I was caught up in this week — life and truly living. When I look back on it, sure, my life might not look as perfect and smooth as the lives of those around me, but I know the highlights will be in the tangents I took along the way. They always are.

Unexpected opportunities will come along, if you’re paying attention and if you’re willing to go out on a limb. Stay open. Say ‘yes’ every once in a while. Take those side roads. You might surprise yourself, and you’ll definitely be surprised where your life ends up. Sometimes things will turn out well, and sometimes they might not, but as a 7-year-old foster child told me this week, as tears welled in his eyes from missing his dad and trying so desperately to find a way back to him, "You’ll never know if you don’t try." "You’re right," I told him, knowing full well, in that moment, that he was the teacher, not me.

--

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

— Robert Frost

Over the last year, I've been working on a huge project, one that, if I sat down for too long and thought of all the tasks to be done to get it off the ground, I'd want to hide away and forget the whole thing. Fortunately, I love it too much to quit, and I feel it in my bones that it will work out, one way or another, even if it's the longest shot I've ever made.

People ask me every day specific questions about how I will pull this off. "How will you get [a, b, c] lined out? What do you plan to do about [x, y, z]?" They want answers, because in their eyes, unless I know everything, right now, it can never work. My response, 99% of the time? "I have no idea." I don't have a clue, and that's the truth, but I haven't had a clue this entire last year, yet in that time, I've made major strides, accomplished seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and met a lot of really cool people along the way who I would have never had a snowball's chance in hell of meeting had I not been working on this.

The truth is, I don't have all the answers, but the bigger one is, I never will. It'll never be exactly right, not the timing, not the location, not even the weather (a hurricane came through here last week, if you don't believe me). Nothing will ever be exactly right, but so what?

I have a client who I've grown to respect immensely over the years and who, just this morning, was on a ledge, overwhelmed by a huge undertaking she's been tackling for the last eight or nine months. We're down to the wire, twelve days from showtime, and you know how it goes: Murphy's Law is going to rear its ugly head, because he loves no environment better than one with a deadline and one with ten million balls to keep in the air.

Many times throughout her project we've discussed and accepted that circumstances will never be perfect for this; it's either in or out, and if it's in, then go for it, don't look back, and be okay with less than perfect. There will be times when it's not pretty, times when we have to make sacrifices or compromises so that we can move the vision forward, but being scared of less than perfect is only going to hold you back from progress.

You may have obstacles in front of you as far as you can see, but you won't get over them without taking steps forward. Get used to imperfection. Embrace it. Accept the crazy looks people give you along the way, accept the title even, and if "Crazy Person" doesn't look good on your business cards, go with "Fearless Leader" instead.

I can go into any interiors store and completely love nearly everything I see. Used to, I followed the rule "love it or leave it," but as I've come to understand better over time, that can mean accumulating a lot of things I love that eventually just clutter the space. If I brought home every item in every store I ever love in an attempt to decorate a room, eventually, I would have to start setting them around on the floor, and eventually, there would be no room to even walk. Each piece on its own is lovely, beautiful, and I can say, honestly, that I do love it, but maybe just not enough to keep it. I'm starting to see things in my life and business the same way.

When I think about the things I love, all of them, there are only a few that have the capacity to make me totally content. When they're not around, I miss them. I think about them all the time. Others, sure, I love them, but they're "nice to haves." If they're there, great. I enjoy them. If they're missing, though, I hardly notice, but by trying to force so many of these "nice to haves" into my life, I leave very little room for contentment with the things I love most. I don't want to constantly be thinking, "I need to be doing this" or "I should be doing that," all in an attempt to keep up with the "nice to haves."

Everything we take on is an obligation, even if we love it. Maybe it's better to take on just enough that life is full, but not so full we're left hoarding a bunch of "nice to haves" with no possibility of ever enjoying them all.

I woke up to phones ringing. Terrible news. And, when I checked my email, even more.

I immediately felt compelled to write and to pray, but I couldn't do either. What would I write? Everything seemed inane and trite. I had nothing to say and everything to say. What would I pray for? I didn't know.

I spent the entire day, sixteen hours of it at least, aimless in thought. I wanted to find a way to be hopeful and happy, to concentrate on work until I could shake off the heaviness in my heart. It's 1:30 in the morning now, and I finally just settled on writing it out.

Someone very close to me has cancer. It will be okay. I think. No, it will be okay.

A mass shooting happened at a theater and in a shopping center frequented by my sister, brother-in-law, and two-year-old nephew. It's too close, and I know what it's like to get that phone call at too odd an hour. Something's wrong. They're gone. Life is going along, things are fine, and then it just changes, and nothing's ever the same.

Life's Hurricanes

I live in Louisiana, so hurricanes, while not an everyday occurrence, happen frequently enough to know how to prepare. We spend the days before stocking up on supplies, securing things, and helping those around us get situated before the storm.

But then, in the hours just before it hits, we hunker down with those we love most; we've checked on everyone, friends and extended family, but in those hours and days of darkness and uncertainty, we want to be huddled together with those who mean the most to us.

Today, I felt like a hurricane was barreling through, except this time, we were scattered, and I just wanted my loved ones near, in safety, out of the rain, and as far inland as we could be.

Riding Out the Storm

Yes, I know what it's like to get that call, and all you can do is ride out the storm. Why does life have to be so hard?

Hurricanes are scary and unpredictable. Will a tornado come? Will those trees stand up to the wind? Will the waters rise? Will the levees break?

So many questions, and no answers. No way to know the impact it will have until it's over.

Waiting for the Sun

There's something extra sweet and comforting about the sun that comes just after a hurricane. Even when you look around and see the mess it's made, the pieces you're now left to pick up, it's still reassuring to know that you made it out okay, even if you're a little worse for wear (in some cases, a lot worse for wear).

This Too Shall Pass

We all have storms to weather. Sometimes there's time to prepare. Other times, you're broad-sided. Either way, in the middle of it, you think the world is absolutely going to end.

Somehow, in spite of it, you have to believe the sun is going to rise tomorrow and that, somehow, you'll find a way to rebuild with the pieces that remain when it's over. There may be great loss, or maybe you'll come out unscathed, if you're lucky, and you are lucky.

That's the last post to Twitter made by one of the Aurora, Colorado shooting victims. She was just going about her day, looking forward to a great night with friends, and then, in a moment, she's gone.

Tomorrow is not promised. Make today count. Live your life. Hold your loved ones close. Ride out the storm, and wait for the sun.

Then last week, I promised a friend I would write a piece for an upcoming article series she's doing on her site, and that's where the trouble began.

Since then, I have delayed and avoided and procrastinated until it has gone way passed the point of ridiculous. I haven't even emailed her back, because I hated to admit I'd hit a wall.

But, as I twiddled my thumbs, hoping my lack in responsiveness made me seem so incredibly busy, I couldn't help but notice that all those walls around me were self-imposed and were keeping me from doing all the things I was wishing every day to achieve.

My life was stalling, stagnant, and not because I lacked the ability to do anything about it, but just because of that very reason - I was failing to engage.

When Everything's Broken

We all have hopes of a better version of ourselves taking over one day and making us do all those things we know we need to do, in order to make our lives better:

• Working out or going for that run first thing each morning,
• Eating healthy all day and skipping the late-night binges,
• Getting fully dressed, instead of wearing lounge clothes all day,
• Meeting friends for dinner, instead of staying in so that we don't have to face a closet filled with clothes that are two sizes too small.

On and on it goes, until days turn to weeks and weeks into months, and we're still no better off.

We need to send out those resumes and applications, in order to get that job. "But, really," we say to ourselves, "What's the point?  No one's hiring anyway."

We need to reconnect with old friends and try to get back into the dating scene. "But, then come all the questions," we say, "Where have you been? What have you been up to? What happened with that [job/project/guy] you talked about so much last time?"

No, rather than face it, we resign ourselves to staying in, eating our fifty-seventh container of Reddi-wip, and watching I Love Lucy re-runs. "That's easier," we say.

Problem is, it's not easier. We hate this lackluster version of ourselves. We catch a glimpse in the mirror sometimes and think, "What a waste," and that's the cold, hard truth.

How to Fix It

But, there is good news. We can do something about it, but . . . we have to re-engage.

When I set out to write this article, 433 words ago, everything was coming out all wrong. Granted, this article is not my best work, by far, but it's dang near written, and it's a start.

If you'll get off the sofa - right now - and walk down the street, even for just ten minutes, it's a start.

If you'll send out five resumes - even though it's pointless, I know - and call up five friends to see if they know anyone who's hiring, it's a start.

Join the gym. Clean out your fridge. Ask a friend to go out for drinks. Write the first paragraph. Ask that guy for his number. Whatever it is, do something to re-engage with life.

You have to get out there again, if you ever hope to make things look any different than they do right now. You have to get back out there and try, no matter what the outcome.

Even if you don't get the job.

Even if the guy says no.

Even if the article sucks.