Sunday Night With John: Beautifully Ordinary

Beautifully Ordinary

John Paul Derryberry

I once had a person chase after me with poop in their hands. They intended to angrily wipe it all over me. This is usually my go-to story to explain to people why I do not get nervous in social settings. During my 16 years in the mental health, social service fields, I've participated in, or witnessed, every awkward social interaction imaginable. After all these years in social settings I never imagined I would experience, I know two things for sure. I never move faster in my life than when someone has poop in their hands and I'm the target. And two, when I'm nervous in social settings, it's weird.
 
I had this feeling about 8 months ago when we had the first visit with our daughter's birth mom, making it also her daughter. I had no idea how to act, what to do with my hands, or what to talk about. The entire drive I was trying to figure out in my head how this was going to work.  We wanted an open adoption. We knew this day would arrive, and yet I was utterly befuddled about how to conduct myself. We got through the first visit and breathed more comfortably; the second visit went even smoother; and the third visit felt beautifully ordinary. 

We forget how amazing the ordinary can feel. How, when a person, place, or activity becomes routine, we lose sight of the beauty of it until it is no longer with us. We do this as humans over and over again. We forget the everyday beauty of the people in front of us, of the unique social situation we have now normalized. We lose the tingling feeling that comes with unfamiliar but memorable settings.  I do not want this to happen with the trek to take our adoptive daughter to meet with her biological mom.
 
The fact that a mom trusted us to raise her daughter is the biggest compliment I could ever have been given. It's the most selfless, courageous, and beautiful act I have participated in. This gift has given us a life I could only dream of before. It's a trip that reminds me, I would not have the privilege of being called, Dad, without a lot of help. Most importantly, a person whom I had never met decided to trust my wife and me with her daughter. Life doesn't get more wonderful than this interaction. No matter how many times we meet, I want it to be tied to the first flutters I had in the hospital, as I held our daughter.  As always, I hope you realize that you too deserve to not let the beautiful slip into the mundane just because it happens often.