Overwhelming Feeling

This phase of the adoption process makes me feel like I'm an overstretched guitar string, being pulled in 20 different directions, trying to keep work, home, family, church, career, and adoption balls all in the air at once (to mix a metaphor). I'm able to look at my watch and say, "We should be boarding a plane in 13 days, and Rachael's first birthday is in 10." Knowing how the last month has flown by, particularly with the loss of my mother and the grieving process, I know those days will evaporate like alcohol in the sun. Before I know it, I'll be kissing my kids goodbye, standing at the United ticket window in Columbus, and feel shock at the journey I'll be starting. How do you prepare for something like this, for the journey of a lifetime? It's overwhelming, and piles that overwhelming sense of something far outside myself on top of my already swamped psyche. 13 little days, just 310 hours from now... tick, tock... -dan