doing life | the only way we know how

Yea.  So It’s September and the start of another new year.  Zoey is 14 now.  She just started 8^th grade.  Livy just started 6^th grade and Drew is creeping out of elementary school one year at a time. Like we all do - or did.   He’s in 3^rd grade. Weird.  I don’t know what it is about the start and the end that feels like it needs documenting.  I can write a letter to my kids on their given birthdays like any good mom and I am a superstar blogger in June.  And September.  And nowhere in between.  What happens in between?  I don’t know.  I guess dinners get made, lessons get taught, homework gets done, teeth fall out (not mine…yet), and we all keep moving along and doing that thing we do.  What maybe was originally about certain nonsense became about living abroad.  Then living abroad became life.  And then I guess I lost my purpose.  Or my audience.  Or maybe both.

Truman pooped on Drew’s bed today. I’m not sure when.  But we all, well four of us, had a good fight about it.  The laundry didn’t get done.  Someone doesn’t have a uniform to wear tomorrow.  And, let’s be honest, after a summer in Italy and America, my pants are too tight.  Blog worthy?  Probably not.  But, what is anymore.  We live between two worlds.  Our summer world.  Our school year world.  A world where, on Facebook, we watch all our American friends in their American clothes with their little American backpacks, head off to their first day of school. Our first day of school is a chaotic shuffle of uniform pants being thrown up and down the stair case, unsure of who wears the 7s and who wears the 5s, realizing we didn’t replace Drew’s shirts that we gave away to the neighbors, and morning arguments that include words like, “you can make your own darn breakfast!”  Who puts that in their blog?  And, maybe ‘darn’ wasn’t the adjective that was used to describe breakfast on this first day of school. That’s okay.  Right?

Our abroad world isn’t like our summer America world.  But it isn’t entirely different. We can’t keep up with laundry. I think I’ve created and abandoned at least as many chore charts and after school homework plans as I am years old.  Our kids are latch key kids.  In a foreign country, does that make them, I don’t know, pick lock kids?  It seems harsh enough in America to come home and raise yourself.  In the Middle East?  Geez.  Who does that to their kids?  We do.  We struggle to keep food in the fridge that the kids will actually eat.  We can’t seem to keep the plants alive; my plans for teaching tomorrow include…a math packet and some posters.  That should last 7 hours.  Or not.  I haven’t called either of my parents since we landed.  And, that, that is the difference between our worlds. 

The pace over here, it’s exhausting.  Exhausting and exhilarating can be interchangeable in my world.  Which may be part of the problem.  I don’t know if it’s the 4:30am mornings or the 6:30pm sunset.  Or both.  All I know is that I feel like time moves faster and everyone grows older. I can’t keep up with it all.  I try to share, to the best of my ability, via Facebook and Instagram, and Zolirew.  I try.  And I fail.  I post and I text and I know.  I know it would be nice to hear about our lives one on one.  I know a phone call would be nice.  A hot cup of hot coffee on a couch would be nice.  My heart does ache for the connections that I can’t have between hemispheres.  I also know I love to share.  Perhaps, overshare, and sometimes that leaves those closest to me wondering…why you gotta blog that mess?  Just call me!  I would.  If I could.  You see, the problem is your 11am is my 9pm, my Friday is your Thursday, and your Sunday is my Monday. Did I mention the 4:30am part?  This is certain nonsense.  It’s also living abroad.  And in my own crazy little way, I love it.  I just want all of it: the cup of hot coffee, the lingering morning couch talks, the American first day of school with new backpacks that smell like a mix of formaldehyde and sweet tarts.  

But I also want the adventure.