Stomped-On Spirits

I am by nature an optimistic person.  Can't keep me down for too long before some new way of thinking about things crops up, or I find an alternate solution to a problem; whatever.  I usually see that the grass is looking pretty green on my lawn.  But I confess:  I'm really struggling with trying to maintain a positive attitude these days.  As we draw closer and closer to the date (April 23) that marks our adoption file being in Ethiopia for twenty-four months, my spirits are sinking lower and lower.  I can hardly bear the thought of having to surpass the rapidly-approaching marker...and yet, here we go....

Two years is a long, long time.

• It so happens that it comprises exactly 4.65% of my life thus far; if one takes into account the beginning of our adoption journey eight years ago, we have been waiting for 18.7% of my life for these children.  Almost 20% of my life to date has been taken up with waiting for my family to be completed.  That's astonishing!  
• Two years is longer than someone who has been sentenced to a two-years-less-a-day prison sentence for a non-felony offence.  I'm ready to get out of my prison, quite frankly, and start getting on with life...with family complete.  
• Two years is long enough for some families (including a few that I know) to experience two pregnancies and two children.
• Two years is a longer time, even, than the twenty-two month gestational period of an elephant.  While on some days I feel about the same size as that behemoth, I nonetheless never expected to be expecting my children for longer than an elephant.

Others waiting for siblings have survived the passing of the two-year mark...so too shall I...somehow.  I'm just not quite sure how.

* Thanks so much for the supportive comments guys - it helps.  And Shannon, what I would give for you to be right, that we've been matched with children already and are just waiting for paperwork!  If I find out that you're right, I'm going to buy you a gift!!