Been there, done that

There is an interesting phenomenon that occurs when your life moves on from one phase to the next...you forget.  For instance, I sometimes forget what it was like to not have children and to desire that so much that it hurt.  I forget what it was like to be in the midst of the transition and newness of bringing Levi home and the gushing joy and pride that came with that that made me want to share every new thing he was doing with anybody who would listen.  On the flip side, I also forget about the difficulty of being a new mom and the total depletion of your mental and physical resources as you walk around in your sleep-deprived state trying to figure out how to make sense of your life with a little one.  But it also happens in other life phases, too - the all-encompassing drama that can come with being in high school, the desire for marriage when you are single, the crazy days of managing a house with toddlers...the list goes on and on.

We get caught up in the life-phase that we are in, and we are quick to forget what it's like to be in those moments, and sometimes when we meet someone who is in the moments we have already been through, we can easily dismiss them and their experience. It's a "been there, done that" attitude that can be a little off-putting and minimizing to the one who is in that moment.  I know I am guilty of this, and I have had the experience of being the one who was minimized.  The other day, I was speaking with another older adoptive mom and was sharing about our Gotcha day (oops, still haven't blogged about that...)  She kind of rained on my parade and said something like, "Well, when they get older, you'll stop doing those types of things.  You'll get the dates confused and you will have too many days to try to remember and you just won't be making that big of a deal about them."  Ok....that may very well be the case, but I am not there yet and my intentions at this moment are to continue with our plan to make a family day out of their Gotcha day.  This was not that big of a deal, but it did get me thinking about all of this.

 I realize that it's an easy thing to do -forgetting and minimizing- and I am guilty of it myself.  It's a lesson for me to try to remember what it was like to be in those moments when a certain phase of life just kind of sucks you in and its all you can think about and talk about...to slow down for others, to reassure and encourage, to enter their joy or their pain...because I've been there, too, and just because it's something I've already been through doesn't make their joy any less joyful or the pain hurt any less.  It's a reminder to slow down and walk with others and be willing to share the moment they are experiencing regardless of where I am in my journey.