Joy in the pursuit

It's been a year since our daughter quite literally appeared out of nowhere and we were parents overnight.  After we adopted our son, I said never again, only to repent of my hastiness and try the whole thing over again, and this time it was nearly three years of waiting and we were about to give up for good, when BAM!, there she was.  I've spent eight years at some stage of waiting in the adoption process, but with the finalization of our daughter's adoption a few months ago, we are done for good (unless something really weird happens), and it feels really odd, to tell you the truth.

The waiting was extremely difficult at times, time seemed to drag by whenever you stopped to wonder if the phone would ever ring.  Your heart ached with a longing impossible to describe.  Your life felt like it was on hold, that you were 'person interrupted,' as if things just paused there until something or nothing happened.  But there was something taunting, intoxicating, exciting in it too.  Every day might be The Day, every phone call might be The Call, what would happen, how would it go, what would it be like?  A million unanswered questions dancing in tantalizing fascination just beyond reach.  Amid all the heart-rending ache and dread and ennui there was this exciting, mysterious inexplicable Hope.  Then it happens and you have a rush of euphoria, joy, and excitement, and then things settle back down to 'life as usual.'

You've felt it, or something like it, be it waiting to find out if you got into that school or you won the raffle or you got the job or if you've ever saved up for a house or a car or a big trip or if you've waited for him to pop the question or are waiting to fall in love or get pregnant or whatever.  It's the same rush that drives people to gamble and stay up until three in the morning because they just have to finish the book.  And then you finish the book, now what?  Here's an article that gives each of us thrill junkies an eternal hope, no matter how many books or weddings or adoptions you've look forward to, there's something even bigger, and far better, in the wings.