On Reading Blogs

I was asked once, "Why blog?" I found that an answer to that question was easily forthcoming. I keep this blog so that I may remember. I also have it public because it started as a way to just keep my family up to date on the cuteness that was (is) my daughter (and son), but now it's a journal, a touch stone.
 Over the past few years, I have learned a couple of things about myself. I have learned that I am a true extrovert and thus must have me feelings linked to language to gain any insight. Heck I don't even know how I feel about a movie until I TALK about it. I have also learned that I NEED to have a coherent language for my experiences or I tend to drift through life, not focusing on anything. Blogging helps me.

A question that I find much more difficult to answer is, "Why read the blogs of others?" I think I have finally found the answer: Because it makes me feel less alone.
There aren't many people in my personal life that have a deep understanding of adoption and it's impact on your life, your heart, your head. I have many people who love me and have the ability to lend a sympathetic ear. I have people in my life who read up on the subject to be better prepared to help me in tough moments. But really, it's just me and Les who have this deep understanding of adoption in this small circle that is my life.

So I read the blogs of folks who know about the pain of waiting, because then we are waiting together and it doesn't feel quite as bad. I read the blogs so that when I have a bad day and I think, " I can not do this again", I can read the blog of a mother who has done it 7 or 8 times and lived to tell the tale. I read these blogs because there is a sense of community offered and some days you just need to see that someone else is struggling too, or that someone else gets, really gets, what that first unsolicited affection means. I read them because this a tough gig and if I thought that I was in it alone, I would not be able to make it.
I remember struggling terribly with Post-Adoption Depression when we first cam home with Ev. I remember how I had never even heard that term before I found a blog of an adoptive Mom who put it all on the line. I remember the sense of relief that I had when I realized that, My GOD, we are normal, this is ok, we will get through.
But also? I am addicted to seeing these kids come home and grow and thrive. It does my heart and soul good to see families come together in the way that mine did.