Out of Vacation and Into Moving

This summer continues to be a time of transition.  During the last week of school, we packed up the house and sent our things on their way to Indonesia.  We picked up the girls on that last Friday,  crammed them into the car alongside everything we would need for the next three months, and headed west.

We stopped in West Virginia for a day of family relaxation before the whirlwind summer began.  There was rain hiking, skinny dipping in a quiet creek, authentic Venezuelan food and an indoor swimming pool before we set out west again.

We spent Movie Night in the car that weekend, planning to stop for pizza in Indiana and to watch a movie on an iPad crossing Illinois.  The movie did not download and we found zero pizza places in all of southern Indiana.  We crossed the Mississippi River after finally finding a small town pizzeria many miles off the highway, and watching old home movies on the computer.

From that point on, the summer has been non-stop.  My entire family gathered in St. Louis for a family photo session with a real photographer (the photos are stunning - worth every penny) and plenty of business and silliness.  Dave's entire family gathered in Chicago for loads of parties and plenty of late nights. 

After an exhausting two weeks of fabulous family time, we saw Dave off at the airport and a new stage of life began.  Dave is now in Jakarta, carving out his new normal.  The girls and I are back in St Louis for a few weeks of simple American summer.  They'll begin daycamps tomorrow and spend their afternoons reading and pool hopping.  The next two weeks promise to be just as relaxing as the past few weeks were exhausting - and its about time.

Dave's first few days in Jakarta, we benefited from jet lag and found plenty of times to talk to him.  Now that he is sleeping in regularly scheduled intervals and has begun work in earnest, we're having a harder time touching base with him.  FaceTime has proven invaluable, though.  Yesterday, he had lunch with our future neighbors and messaged us photos of the neighborhood, the house, the yard and the pool.  The girls were fascinated.

The photos provided some needed comfort to me.  Although this summer has been lovely, and although I am excited about Jakarta, the closer we get to the move date the more my apprehension builds.  I don't mind living out of a suitcase, but this was a difficult trip to pack for.  I keep finding myself needing something that I am quite sure I packed... but with no idea where I packed it.  And in my head, the end of these transitions was nearing.  Dave moved into temporary housing, but we hoped to be there only for a few weeks.  In that temporary mindset, I told myself and the girls that we would live in an hotel when we first arrive in Jakarta and have a few exciting weeks of vacation in our new city.  I was not fooling myself here - we will have 2 weeks between our arrival and the start of school, and we will live near the embassy but far from our home.  A perfect time to explore what will be a foreign neighborhood, and to have lunch with Daddy and get to know the embassy and their staff.

The plan sticks, but the hotel concept hasn't really played out.  Dave has begun to settle into our temporary digs, and has learned that we will likely stay there until the end of September.  The apartment is large, and I'm sure it will be very nice when someone moves in.  But with its gatherings of furniture and cold, blank white walls it looks very sterile, leaving Dave feeling lonely and my hotel conception stuck in the dust.  Lucky for me, I have another two and a half weeks to build a new conception of our next stage in life.  And Dave has that same amount of time to leave his things strewn about the apartment to give it a warm, lived in feel.

I mentioned before that he sent photo that provided comfort.  After a FaceTime tour of our apartment, I felt pretty nervous about this move.  But after the photo tour of our eventual neighborhood, I'm feeling much better.  It looks lovely!  A preschool with a strong reputation is right outside our complex, as well as a bright supermarket and a colorful flower stand.  The house looks comfortable and the neighborhood looks friendly, with swings and a basketball hoop clearly meant to be shared.

Sophia sat down with a workbook on moving this afternoon.  One page asked what worries you about your move?  She looked stuck for quite a while.  Here is what she came up with:

I'm sorta worried about going on the plane.  because if we landed on water, we'd have to leave our things on the plane and jump out.

I'm happy she is feeling good.  And her fear illustrates how meaningless my fear is as well.