Today we are leaving for our summer in New Jersey.
I have packed my kids’ suitcases.
I have packed my suitcase. Shoes, underwear, makeup. Wait? Did I pack underwear? Ok, yes. Check. Don’t laugh, I’ve left underwear before.
Our dogs are groomed and health certified to travel.
Olive’s tranquiler is cut in half.
Their doggy confirmation numbers are written down with my ticket reservation.
We have printed our tickets.
I have triple checked that we have ALL passports to avoid this.
We have paid our nanny for the summer.
We have cleaned out our refrigerator.
We have charged our iPad, our Nook, our Kindle, our laptop, and our Blackberries.
We have downloaded Caillou (that silly little bald Canadian), Rosita Fresita (Strawberry Shortcake), and The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to give us about 3 hours of TV time on the plane for (hopefully) at least one child.
We have wrapped up, checked off, and settled all matter that need settling before we leave.
We have done everything we could do to prepare for our journey ahead.
We have said goodbye to friends.
We have said goodbye to friends.
We have said goodbye to friends.
We have said goodbye to friends.
Somehow no matter how much I’ve tried to “prepare” for that one it doesn’t get easier. I can’t pack it, charge it, or download it. I can’t groom it, certify it, or give it a tranquilizer. Saying goodbye isn’t like preparing for the rest, it isn’t something I could check off and move on from. There is no preparation for it.
I realized quickly in this life we’ve chosen that goodbyes become as much a part of the fabric as the new beginnings and the culture shock but the goodbyes are twice as hard and three times as painful.
You never get used to it and what many people will never understand is that these people you learn to love in such a short time have rooted themselves into your life. Their kids are your kids. Their pains – your pains. Their struggles and joys and heartbreaks and hopes are yours to share because that is what a family does. A family shares in it all. A family is a witness to your life and these people that we’ve grown to love here have been the witnesses to mine.
They all met me pregnant. They have witnessed my daughter grow, going from a tiny infant to a walking, talking sassy-like-her-mother toddler. They have watched my son learn to walk, literally watching him crawl at the playground one day and walk the next. They have taken care of my dogs, Olive and Jersey, who are getting older and blinder but are still as warm and snuggly as the day I brought them home from the shelter. They have encouraged my writing, supported my craft and embraced it.
In the last few days of saying goodbye, it hasn’t been the large moments that have brought me to tears but the small, everyday ones that have left me speechless.
Last night, old friends came back to visit and asked what I had been up to. My response was so run-of-the-mill that I never anticipated the sadness that was seeded in it until I said it, “Oh you know… still hanging out at the Andersons.” I fumbled over those last three words, tripped over them like a huge boulder I should have seen in front of me but that apparently I did a good job of avoiding up until now. Those last words caught me off balance because I wouldn’t be saying that anymore. The Andersons were leaving.
The other night, I went to text message my “hella cool” buddy. But his phone number was no longer there. It had just disappeared from my address book. Gone. No way to reach him. It happens that fast I thought. And even scarier was the thought that followed I might never see him again. I hoped that wasn’t true. I hope life has different plans for us and that we will meet again but I also know that this was the price you pay for living a fabulous life abroad and that I might just have to settle for ever having had these people in my life at all.
This is the simple truth that no one ever warned me about: You will grow to love people in unimaginable ways, to depths you never knew possible with people you’ve known for only a short while and you will have to say goodbye to all of them… but it will all be worth it.
I will leave this island tomorrow with my two toddlers, my two dogs, my three suitcases, my one and only Husband, and a broken-heart. The iPad is charged and full of videos for the kids to watch. The dogs’ carriers are clean and the tranquilizer for Olive is ready to go. My suitcases are packed. The passports have been triple-checked. My heart is longing for the open arms of my mother and father and sister and nephews that I will embrace but it will also long for the all of the open arms I am letting go of this year. Open arms that make saying goodbye not a final scene but rather another chance to say hello again.
~Pack light. Live well. Move often. Repeat.~