Hellos and goodbyes

Saying hello almost always means saying goodbye.  In life things change and the older I get the more it seems to happen in hyper speed.  Its a concept we grow accustomed to but never used to.  It starts early to say hello to school means learning to say goodbye to mom, saying hello to each new grade means saying goodbye to the your current teacher.  Saying hello to a new city means saying goodbye to the old and so we are stretched in our growth as every hello seems to be ever shadowed by a goodbye.  So it is in our adoption experiences.  We often focus on the side of adoption that says this child gets their forever family and this family gets their forever child.  This should be the focus as this is the beautiful part.  However we cannot ignore the shadow and pain that follows this of the goodbye.  For some it is the goodbye to a birth parent who for whatever reason has made this choice.  To a child the reason does not matter, it is still a goodbye.  For some it is the orphanage worker or friends that they say goodbye too.  Again the reason is good, they have a family, but the memories, traditions and routines are hard to forget. In all hello and goodbyes, time is a double edged sword. On one side you see a new routine and new tradition form and the hello becomes more comfortable and normal and settling, but at the same time the goodbye becomes like photographs.  You know the ones you pull out and say ohhh those were the good old days because you remember the good times and forget the sleepless nights. You remember the sweet moments and forget the hassles,  everyone seems kinder, gentler or more fun then reality actually supports.  Anytime a struggle comes up in the hello, you are drawn to over paint the past as some sort of strange perfection you gave up.  Its a temptation too great becuase the fear is the hello will not compare to the goodbye.  Yet somehow when a new hello comes along we see the current as our greatest days.  And so it goes and will continue to go, we will welcome the hellos, say the goodbyes and press on.