Freaking out

The last few weeks I have had a very hard time not getting super wrapped up in my head. I have been kind of freaking out about this whole foster parent thing and it’s subsequently caused me to go reeling off in all these random directions. Sometimes I think about what I’m trying to do this year and just get totally overwhelmed by the whole thing. I mean what am I thinking that I might just one day have this kid that I have to be responsible for and nurture and love and feed and pay attention too. I mean what the hell am I thinking about getting into. And honestly during these freak out moments I realize just how not ready I might be for that kind of responsibility.

The other day as I was relaxing and watching a movie when I wasn’t feeling so great I suddenly thought “what if I had a 6 year old in the house, what would I be doing for it?” I figured that at that time of night I would be making it dinner, some kind of kid friendly food like chicken nuggets or something, and trying to find some sort of veggie that it wants to eat. After dinner we would probably play a game or color together until it was time for me to get it into the bath, and do bath time routine. Then we would get dressed for bed and probably read a few stories then it would sleep. At that point I would have to feed all the other critters in the house, and maybe take the dog for a walk. Wait can I take the dog out for a walk anymore if that means leaving the sleeping kid alone? hmmm I'm going to have to look into that. Anyways back to my imaginary foster child... The next morning I would have to wake up early enough to not just get myself ready for work, but also wake the kid up, feed it breakfast, dress it, make it lunch, and drop it off wherever it needs to go to spend the day (daycare or school) all before I have to leave for work myself. Oh and somewhere still fit in the whole walking the dog again stuff. Just thinking about those 12 hours made me kind of freaked. I mean that’s a huge life change and maybe I’m not really all the ready to do it. I mean I have a hard enough time sometimes making sure I eat three meals a day!

I think part of what started me thinking about this more was that I had recently joined a online foster parent organization and have spent the last few weeks really trying to get a feel for what fostering is. Its hard cause I mean when you are not directly involved in something, all you really can get a sense of is whatever parts they want to put out, and in most cases those parts are more the hard parts or the frustrating parts. A lot of these forums are about trying to get answers to the tough questions or situations; and where as I think these places are awesome and very much needed, I do think that until you have these situations in front of yourself, they are not very useful. So what it’s done instead for me is really highlight the challenges that foster parents face every day and how important having a strong support system is. My issue is that I don’t know if I really have all that in place. I mean I am single,  I live alone, I have work full time in order to live my sad alone life. I can pretty but bet that dating is going to be out the window as soon as I get a foster kid, cause where the heck am I going to find the time to do that.  I am thinking pretty seriously about needed to have a house to live in, so that I have a yard to throw the dog out to, so I don’t have to take it for the walks all the time. I also think that I need to have an extra room for all the crazy turtles, so that my foster kid doesn't drown in the huge pond they live in. But ya know moving is expensive, and I don’t make a ton of money. And honestly all the extra I make I want to have go into being a foster parent, because you have to get a bunch of random junk for kids even for those kids that aren’t even really yours.

So yeah see here I am thinking about all these huge life changing things I have to try to do in the next months and all I am reading about are these tough cases and kids and freaking out.  I figure  most people get to have 9 months to get ready for parenthood. At the bare minimum you have that whole pregnancy period  for your life to start changing and those sacrifices you make for your kids stuff to start. I mean for most people I know its at that point that they suddenly stop the bad vices, eat right, exercise, save money, get rid off all the junk in the spare room that’s going to be the baby’s room, buy a bunch of random stuff. All in this nine month period. Its like nine months of just pure preparation.  And yeah I get it its not like that’s a ton of time or anything and yeah you can never be fully prepared bla bla bla I get it.  But still you do have this ticking time bomb telling you exactly how long you have to make these necessary changes until that baby pops out.  I guess I feel like its going to be this huge sudden change for me like I'm going to have to suddenly go from sometimes skipping a meal or two, to having to make three meals a day 24/7.

Maybe its really just going to be way too much work for me to even try to take on right now. I mean part of me feels like I should just scrap the whole thing and just remain the crazy pet girl.  I could substitute foster kids for turtles or something.  I wish I knew someone who could just send me there kid for like a week and let me really see what raising a kid is all about. I wish that I could get a feeling for it. So I know what I’m getting into. But I guess like being pregnant you never really get to be fully prepared for kids weather you pop em out yourself or the state send them to you temporarily. I have to try to take it all just one step at a time. I mean I knew that this was going to be really super hard, but I have to try to remember why I want to do it in the first place. I know that it’s going to be a huge life changing decision, and that a lot of my life is going to modify. And that this luxury of coming home, and just sitting around doing nothing, is going to be a thing of the past. But I have to remember how taking those classes made me feel. That this was the only thing I was meant to be doing with my life, and that this was the path that was right for me. I have to remember that you will never really know what the future is going to bring, and all you can do is take baby steps towards a goal and hope for the best.  I mean if this is what I want to do, I just have to take the random steps and have a little faith in the universe that I’ll get it.  So I am going to take a deep breath, then un-join that crazy forum (because I really do think that until I have the foster kids, I do not need to spend my time just randomly reading all those crazy stories) and just continue to live, I guess that's really all I can do.  This month I am going to work really really hard to save as much money as I can to add to my "moving into a kid friendly house" by next January fund.  I just really want this to be something I thrive at and I guess part of me is scared that it may be too much, and then I won’t know what my path is. But being scared is part of life. It’s a raw human emotion that I honestly think means that you’re doing something right. I am going to accept this fear as a sign that this is indeed something I'm passionate about and want  more then anything, and  I'm going to live it and feel it and let it make me work my ass of to get it.  And hopefully, with time I'll be less freaked out by the whole thought.