I always have the best of intentions regarding this blog. I really do. I want to keep all of my friends and family up to date on our happenings, I want you all to know every single amazing thing my little clown does. But sometimes... well sometimes its hard to put a happy face on things when I am not feeling so happy. I don't want this to be about whining, I don't want it to make everyone worry, I want it to be a simple window into our lives without anything too hard to swallow. And sometimes, when things are rough, its nigh on impossible to combine words on a page in a way that sounds like anything but whining. And so I skip it.
So many of you have told me how brave I am for moving so far away and trying to build a life on the other side of the world. I'm not brave. I've done what I had to do for my family. So many of you have told me, "I could never do that!" But if it was what was best for your child and you could come up with no other solution, you would do it to. I am just a mama bear protecting her cub, I am not a world traveller, I am not doing anything deserving of pride... I am not brave. I am frequently terrified, I am frequently miserable, and I am frequently isolated.
There's a flip side, too. I've heard plenty of comments to suggest that this life is no big deal. Life as usual, but on foreign soil. And to those of you who have thought that when I've admitted how much I am struggling, I say, "Walk a mile in my shoes." Living abroad is nothing like I always imagined it. Its not about visiting thousand year old castles on the weekends and expanding my horizons, its about getting used to milk that is shelf stable and trying to read the instructions on a box of frozen veggies when they're not in your language. Its about a million little things I've always taken for granted either not existing or being so completely different here that I am the freak for having expected them. Its about being different, being so exhaustingly different every single minute of the day that all you want in all the world is to just become invisible.
It IS getting easier, as everyone told me it would. One day at a time, one new word at a time, one "aha" moment at a time. But there are still a lot of challenges, and there are many more to come. I wish I could explain in words what it feels like to be me so that you would neither pity or revere me, but simply understand. Most days that is all I need, someone who understands.
We're about to start a new chapter in our lives. Beginning September 6th, I will be in school four days a week, completing my Imburgering classes and a basic level Dutch course. Miss Luna will be in daycare, and for the first time in her life will spend her first day away from us. Yes, these are good things! It will be a relief to finally learn the language, and it will be good for Luna to be around other children and to get a jump start on her Dutch, as well. But these are also extremely stressful things for all of us. Its going to be a rough fall, I suspect.
Luna continues to amaze us, she's got probably 45 words now, most of which are English. She sings and dances like a little Shirley Temple. She has eleven or so teeth, and she loves to clomp around the house wearing our shoes. She has come to love the water, so apparently the swimming lessons were worth it! She recently got a bad haircut... We've revoked our own scissor privileges, and will be taking her to a salon for future cuts. I think that's a lesson every parent has to learn the hard way! This past week she's been eating enough for three babies (frequently more than me!), and sleeping a lot, so I suspect a growth spurt is happening. She looks more and more like a little girl every day!
I apologize for the more intimate nature of this post. I went back and forth on whether or not to even publish this, but in the end I decided that if you're very own blog isn't the place for a meme, where is, exactly?
