I got some clarification on the adoption front. As we followed through with Jaclyn’s adoption, our file has been closed as successful. If we want to adopt again we have to start from square one and gather the paperwork: notarized declarations, with a translator’s input for conrad and stamp as legally informed, medical evaluations, police records, friends and coworkers endorsements, apartment proof of ownership, income proof… the whole nine yards. All this being said, having the timeline clarified puts my mind at ease. I’m not missing any window of opportunity. As we’ve chased many offices two years ago, now it seems that we need to run the same trail again to obtain practically duplicate papers.
Jaclyn is so smooth and ever maturing. It takes me by surprise as from one day to another she seems to go through mental, physical and emotional growth spurts. It cracks me up when I tell her to do something and she says: “but…” and does what she wants. This morning we stopped to have breakfast at Panemar in Iris and right behind us walked Liviu and Camilla. We shared a lovely 20 minutes of stories and fun and yummy food. As we were ready to pull out of the parking lot a car stops behind us and blocks our car. I go and tell the passenger “excuse me! we’re about to leave!” she didn’t even acknowledge me, just pointed to the driver who was unbuckling to get out of the car. “excuse me! we’re about to leave!” he didn’t even look me in the eye, a short older man, just left and said: “I’m just going in to get bread!”. I thought to myself: “are you my daughter – are you four?” so we had to wait 5-7 minutes for him to run in …slowly, come back out, put the bread in the trunk, go in and buckle, start the car… Ai-ai! Had he backed up a bit when I told him we are about to leave he would have left us enough room to get out.
We were in a valid parking spot. I was telling Conrad: I believe we as a society don’t listen anymore. We assume we know better or we run our lives based on fear, preconceptions and self-centeredness.
No, it wasn’t the end of the world that we had to wait 7 minutes though I must say it’s odd. This is the story of our driving lives in Romania.
And I have two cents to spend on the word Pathetic. Romanians miss-use it because English has become more popular in the last two decades. We often use it with the negative connotation of Pitiful. But the word is rooted in the french pathetique – with intense feeling, and PATOS in romania means passionate, with enthusiasm. The root of the word is greek pathos meaning the same passion, liveliness. A friend said to me (probably in passing and she has already forgotten it) that what she dreads the most in this world is to be / come across as pathetic. Those words stuck with me.
In this frozen grey winter I sense a frozen and grey society, and spirituality. It’s possible I feel this in introspection, but I despise the good excuses we have, we make for ourselves, and how we choose the comfort of our loneliness, apartness. Social media is the junk food that keeps our bellies quiet but not filled. Being social including spouses and kids is inconvenient, awkward, exhausting …but it beats the alternative. I sense a deep lack of motivation and respect for time.
I get fed spiritually going to a nearby humble but very enriching church. None of my old friends go there. Most don’t go to any church anymore. But this creates a predicament. It’s hard to keep up with friendships, and build new ones, when so much is going on (work, family, neighbors, moving) and very few friendships overlap.
I may be wrong but looking back at my early years (adolescence even) the glue that kept us together was church, and how (what) we filled ourselves (with) when we did meet. With the risk of sounding *pathetique, I’ll quote here a verse from Acts 2:42 “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” The rest is just details.
I think being genuinely passionate is not “cool” these days, so maybe the miss-interpretation of pathos in english is sadly but accurately viewed pathetic. My heart’s prayer is to never be ashamed to associate myself with Jesus, especially among friends, because in front of enemies I learned a long time ago to not care.