Carefully worded thoughts piling up in my head

I fear I have been away too long.


Following the old adage of if you've nothing good to say..., I was saying nothing at all.


Not to imply that I am miserable, by any means. But it has been a difficult week.


By the end of the day on Saturday, we had most of the boxes unpacked. Within a few days, we had all of our furniture constructed. And I love our new home - within our walls, I feel entirely comfortable and at home. This is a blessing I do not take lightly.


But we moved outside of the center of town. Whereas before, we were living within a 5 minute walk of Dave's office, loads of great restaurants - both Western and Chinese, the grocery store, the book shop, and plenty of interesting places to walk.


We've traded those things for a complex with lawns for playing, playgrounds for climbing and fountains for splashing. These things I appreciate, and will provide my girls' with a fuller life. But the grocery store is now a 20 minute walk. And the bookstore is now a 35 minute walk. And meeting Dave at a restaurant for dinner means that we eat at 7:00 - way too late for our little ones. We're still in a downtown area, but across the river from the center of town. It's not the suburbs by a long shot - like American suburbs, there we would rely upon a car to go anywhere, and Dave's commute would be well over 1 hour each way. Here it is 30-45 minutes, unless he gets lost.

Here, I expected to meet many other mothers in my situation. We'd quickly become friends, and our children would enjoy each other's company while we were able to chat calmly behind them.

So far, every trip to the playground has netted zero other English speakers. My Chinese doesn't get much more complex than I would like a glad of red wine, so those intimate relationships on the playground have yet to develop.

The no-friends nowhere-to-go combo left me feeling pretty isolated. What's more, Dave had to work all day Sunday. All day meaning he left home around 7am and returned home around 11pm. I learned to appreciate cable tv that day... which only made me feel more isolated.

That was the low point.

Since then, we've reaffirmed that this is where we want to live and I've connected to some moms within walking distance. I've heard about good restaurants close by, and I have some leads on some interesting shopping. It's not Puxi, but it may not be bad, either.