I’ve been asked to put it into words over dinner tables, across seats at a conference, at brunch, while I’m holding in a bucket of diarrhea: what is it like living across the world? And what’s it like coming back?
It’s impossible to put into words, is what it is. So that’s exactly what I’m going to try to do.
It is this: that, just as you get adjusted to one life in one time zone with one routine and one set of people, you are jerked–by your own choosing, or eventual assent (see: me two and a half years ago)–into another hemisphere, another day, another weather pattern, another culture, another set of people. And, once you are adjusted to that one, toggling back and forth between them–either bodily or mentally–for the rest of your natural life.
It is this: that you arrive in the city where you’ve lived before, where you’ve spoken before, where you’ve gotten sick before, and you do it all again. To prove, yet again, that you’re not the one in charge but that the one who is? Is real, and unchanging, and difficult, and good.
It is this: knowing that your kids are asleep while you’re awake, and awake while you’re asleep, and that other hands are leading them and dressing them and picking them up. It is letting these hands do that in their own way. It is feeling relief and guilt and yearning at not being those hands, and counting down the minutes–but also not–until you are.
It is replacing one duo of kids with another, girls this time, the big one who leads you down trails and serves you the ball and makes you stop to feel the cool creek water. Who makes you slow down and (NO!) say hello to people on the street. Who melds into you at bedtime and past it so you can read together on your last night here. Who demands from you all that you thought you were having a break from, thereby reminding you that hearts, they are always on. It is the little one who, last visit, didn’t know who you are and now gets your name mostly right, who runs to you know and lets you dance with her. It is wondering if this many goodbyes can be okay for one’s health.
It is getting a text from your son’s therapist: a photo of him at the starting block for his school carnival’s 200-metre race. This is the first year he’s run it. Coincidence? It is hearing that, when The Husband told him how proud we are, he, The Kid, said, “But I wasn’t the fastest.” It is hearing that his Little Brother responded, “That’s okay, James! Remember from Muppet Babies: Every champion loses a lot before winning.” It is feeling pride and joy and love stretch over ten thousand miles, unbreakable.
It is running into, and meeting up with, friends from past lives and present: on the street, at the airport, over dinner, across a bowl of chips, at Chick-Fil-A with glowing toddlers, with biscuits at a halfway point between the two of you. (It is biscuits meaning two different things.) It is picking up where you left off, over and over.
It is saying “I love you” more than you ever thought possible, or comfortable, and if you hadn’t ever left? You wouldn’t be saying it as much.
It is beauty, and home, everywhere.
LB’s favourite song used to be “The Other Side” from The Greatest Showman. His best friend O’s used to be Imagine Dragons’ “Believer.” Now, on Thursdays, LB asks for Imagine Dragons and O, when it’s his turn, shouts “The Other Side!” from the backseat.
Things switch up sometimes.
Midday meetings that become spiritual touchstones. Three-hour movies that shape a day…or longer. Embraces, moments spent on the couch, feet pounding old terrain, back and forth. It is everything.
And today, it is heading west. Going home. Again.
