It is those moments in-between which are important right now. Maintaining some normalcy of our life here by the sea. I’m thinking about it as I go through the morning ritual of making breakfast for the children. As I drink my water and lemon juice to kick start my day – don’t worry the coffee comes soon….real soon…The familiar scrape of the knife against the freshly cooked toast…
This week has been a whirlwind of busy. My list of things to do gets bigger yet with the chaos from this pending move surrounding me, it is important to keep going with familiar rituals, fun things and normal life.
An outing on the train with friends brings the children enormous pleasure.
Playing on the Slip ‘n Slide on a hot afternoon.
Baking biscuits for SB’s work colleagues.
The familiarity of my Thursday Sheets and Towels turnover routine. I do like my neatly folded towels.
There is something innately grounding about our routines. It keeps a level of control which for me anyway, helps me feel calm. I can breath better.
This week was busy for a few reasons. It was the busy end of planning a garage sale. I am sure I have developed a new level of multi-tasking by baking my famous white choc and macadamia biscuits whilst making signs for our garage sale.
Well, BB was helping with the gluing which is always interesting – gluing the signs, not the biscuits. He was certainly helping make the biscuits too. BB acts as the Chief Quality Controller of all delicious ingredients. Very thorough too, he insists on tasting everything!
After a lovely night out with friends, I drove around the neighbourhood at 11pm putting out my garage sale signs much to the ire of my exhausted body and mind.
Amongst this week of in-between time, contacting people, making lunch, dinner and drinks dates, I found myself one day holding two stapled pages in my hands.
This was it. At last SB handed me confirmation in writing from his work that this was real, no it is not a joke. This is going to happen, we are leaving this country.
As he handed me this precious long awaited token, I felt a ball of emotion being bowled towards me. Now I had become the pin, standing, feeling somewhat helpless in knowing that soon this ball was going to hit me and explode.
The calm I have been experiencing with this decision was about to make way for a very real, very painful sensation. It had started with my last post. The words appeared for me and with them, sadness. This was more.
Later in the day I found an email sent by a professional colleague of mine. Her words were so unexpected, so touching. With the greatest compliment came the moment of impact. BAM. The sobs started tentatively sliding down my cheeks. Starting small, they spread down my shoulders which began to shake. The force of my tears became more compelling until they hit my stomach and my sobs became guttural. The kind you find hard to climb back from, you just have to let them take over in that moment. Reality had come home to me. This is it, we are leaving, really soon.
2 Comments
My tickets for UAE arrived 10 days before the scheduled flight and those days were the heaviest. I stopped talking to my family and just braced myself for the inevitable. I chose to stop talking because I knew it would make me cry. I didn't even say a proper goodbye to each and every one of the people I will be leaving behind. I know it's hard and I can't promise you that Philippines will be better as there's no place like home but let your friends say goodbye. It's good that you allow yourself to cry. It's going to be a lot different than where you are now. Just blog every hard feeling. 🙂
Tip: Move out of the busy city of Manila once in a while.
Thanks for that Sandy Bee. It is such an odd place to be, in this parallel of emotion with one extreme on each side. I am looking forward to experiencing the differences but I'm under no illusions of how homesick I will get at times. I really believe though that it is all about your attitude. I'm going there, not to compare it to home, what would be the point? There is no comparison. I'm going there with an open heart, open mind and excitement about the opportunities that are waiting. Travelling out side of the city on a regular basis is one of our priorities, and at the end of the day this experience will be what we make of it. 🙂