In a Funk

I'm in a bit of a funk this week.

Dave took - and passed - his Indonesian exam last week, during the girls' Spring Break.  We spent last week relaxing together, eating well and traveling and generally living a relaxing lifestyle, very present here in Virginia.

With the return to school and to work, with the completion of language training, and with our weekly countdown entering the single digits, it is now time to put my head into Indonesia.  We pack out in 8 weeks, and we'll drive away from Virginia the day after. 

But I'm having trouble becoming pro-active about our move.  Annika and I lead a very slow life right now, where I don't accomplish and we just explore.  We go to the gym and to music class and to soccer practice, we spend some mornings in coffee shops and some mornings at museums.  This morning we've been playing games at home.  This is the life I chose when kept her out of preschool this year.  I don't really have a lot that I need to do for this move, and so this luxurious lifestyle can remain for probably the next 4 weeks or so.

But that may be a problem.  Because now that my head is entering into Indonesian mindspace, with little to do I'm simply growing worried.  And unfortunately, there is plenty to worry about right now:

- Our preferred school for Lilly and Sophia has not yet offered us a spot for the upcoming school year.
- This preferred school is currently embroiled in a rather horrendous abuse scandal.
- I'm feeling a bit queasy about any of the preschools I've seen.
- I'm having trouble imagining life in this city, a large Asian city with a tremendous traffic problem and very obvious poverty.

And with those very real worries, I'm beginning to build on some not-so-real worries.  Because I've got lots of time but not a lot of normal conversation going on this week.  So here are some of the second tier worries:

- The church may be lay-led, meaning they don't have a dedicated pastor.  We attended a church like that in Shenzhen, and we found it very challenging.
- We've hired a driver and have a recommendation for a housekeeper.  But how does one go about hiring a housekeeper via Skype?
- We are late in the game to apply to other international elementary schools.  And should we decide to do that, most of the other schools are either very far away or on a southern hemisphere schedule.
- I've begun opening a music center in Jakarta, but don't have good answers to this next round of questions.  Where will we meet?  How much will it cost?
- We don't know what we still own, and what we ought to replace before we leave.
- We don't know...

Lets be realistic here.  The list could go on and on with meaningless things that we don't know.  And realistically, I know that we will be fine.  I keep hearing marvelous things about Indonesia, and that families are very happy in Jakarta.  We have been connecting to a number of people there already, who are friendly and beautifully helpful.  We will continue to connect to more people as we get closer.  Realistically, I'm not worried about Jakarta.  We will be fine.  Its a great post.

But this week I just can't knock this funk.  I can't knock this feeling that I should be gaining more control over our life in Jakarta, and that I need to be more pro-active researching my fears and fixing our problems. 

But, sigh.

Realistically, that's not going to happen either.  I don't have much disposable time, and Jakarta is still on the other side of the world and populated by strangers. 

Its time to come to peace with the unknown.  Sigh.