Releasing the past: Washington DC - Part II

Moving forward requires that we loosen our hold on the past.

Two years ago when J lost his job we left behind our home, our friends, and our city.

Starting over but never really putting the past behind us.

In September we finally went back together.
We said goodbye to a house that is no longer our home on a street that is no longer our neighborhood.

We said goodbye to Congressional Cemetery - no longer our daily walk.

We said goodbye to the monuments that were our landmarks each time we flew home.

We ate with our old neighbors,




in a yard surrounded by a fence that J built one hot summer.

During dinner I looked up at our old back window bathed now in a baby's night light glow. The window that would have been our nursery.

And we walked our city of memories, reliving the night we rode our bikes to the Lincoln Memorial and sat on its ledge watching a lightning storm.

We reminisced about our 9th anniversary kayak trip on the Potomac.

We laughed at the spot we once witnessed a huge Segway tour tourist collision in front of the Whitehouse.

We strolled through the Renway to pay homage to Wendell Castle's Ghost Clock. The one that tricked me the first time I saw it.

We rolled our eyes over the traffic between Union Station and Dupont Circle on a Friday night.
We inhaled the familiar scent of the Metro and the watched the reflecting pool.

We dunked Ariam's feet in the fountain in the park next to the Capitol where our dogs swam and where we hid Easter Eggs one fabulous Sunday.

We rode the carousel. The one I avoided looking at for many years.

There have been days of doubt. Days when I longed for the sanctuary of my bedroom there. Days when regret for things we had no power to change was so sharp I could almost taste it. Days of homesickness and sadness.

One week after we returned from DC we bought a home here. It is not as big. It is not in the heart of importance. It does not come with a DC price tag or hold a prestigious location.

But it is real. It is ours. It is the home we should have started with in the first place. We are working a bit backwards but it is moving us forward.

We are starting over.
It is still painful but every day less so.

Some days I am amazed at how quickly we expect an adopted child to loosen her hold on the past and move forward. I have measured her transition in days and weeks and months while giving myself years. Amazed at how I lost a home and still mope and whine about it while my child lost everything she was born with and somehow is this brilliant happy being. Learning a lot from my 16 month old.

~A