Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Over the last few weeks I have come to understand how quickly time passes.
It is a concept few truly grasp until a scheduled life change approaches. Only major, planned changes can have this effect. I haven't had the same kind of gradual build up since the girls were born. I had nine months, that time. In a peculiar twist of fate, the timelines intersect. It was around this time, five years ago, that April was sent to Edmonton for bedrest. She and I both spent the next month waiting.
Feels similar... for me. I wouldn't dream of speaking for her on that issue.
Five years ago I knew that by the time Christmas rolled around, our lives would be different. I was gleefully optimistic... blissful in the ignorance only a new parent-to-be can have...
I find myself in a similar scenario. Again, three other lives depend on me to provide for them, though that is nothing new. Again, a world of new experiences await us... though this time the girls are old enough for it to effect them on a conscious level. Again our lives will shift, and nothing will ever be quite the same again.
And it excites me, just as it did five years ago...
... and 10 years before that, when we moved here...
... and 5 years before that, when I left my life behind and moved to Japan.
... and...
It is so easy to forget, in the daily rush, that we are only truly ennervated, only truly alive, when we challenge ourselves. That challenge might come in a classroom or on a new continent, but it is the challenge (not the location) that shapes who we are into who we will become.
I won't deny that I am nervous. I would be a fool if I wasn't. But I also know that everything I have done in my life has brought me to this point. If I had not made cultural exploration a priority in my life, I would never have dared to apply to do this. If I didn't believe that global awareness from an early age would give my girls the best possible life chances, I wouldn't have pursued this. If April hadn't also learned the thrill of adventure, she would never have encouraged this opportunity.
...
And still, none of that quite prepares you.
Six weeks.
That's it. Six. Six weeks and we drop everything and go to live in tomorrowland.
I am no more ready than an expectant father. Sure I know what will happen... in theory... but as a parent let me just say... there is a lot of unexpected shit in that first year...
It's nice having the safety blanket of a one-year exchange... but still, a year is both a really long and a really short time...
Ì