Bluebird's Nest

6 weekends. That’s all we have left.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about coming home. I feel like I’ve been gone for so long and it feels weird on all sorts of different levels.

I think about leaving here. I have a life here now. Ok, so maybe I don’t have a lot of friends – to be honest with you, I’ve enjoyed being alone and just spending time with my family. I think I may wish or regret that I didn’t put myself out there a little more than I did but at the same time, I’ve really enjoyed watching my tweenager grow (let’s face it, she’s not going to want to hang around with us for much longer) and spending time with my wee babe in her first year. You know what they say: time flies by in a rush so enjoy every minute of it.

I think about leaving my hubby’s family. I really feel like the relationships that I have with his friends and family has grown as well. Especially his parents. We Skype with them almost every day and it seems like we’re spending every weekend at their house for sleepovers. It makes me think about how we won’t be spending as much time with them in 6 short weeks and how they will only get to see their grandbaby through Skype. This makes me sad.

I think about how it’s hard to have two people come together who are from different countries and raise a family together. I think it’s maybe more difficult for the grandparents as one set of grandparents miss out on the grandchildren more than the other one. In a perfect world we would live 6 months in Canada and 6 months in Switzerland. But the world is not perfect.

That gets me thinking how lucky we are to be able to come here for 5 months and to be able to provide the grandparents here, a strong memory of their grandbaby’s first year. It makes me happy that they got to enjoy that. And hopefully a memory strong enough for the wee babe to remember them when she sees them on Skype from the other side of the world.

And then I think about going home. What is life going to be like when we get home? I go back to my job, the hubby starts a new one, he goes back to school full time, the tweenager is in middle school, the wee babe in daycare… Same old same old? In a way I hope not. And then I ask myself, how do I want life to be like when we come home?

I think about what this adventure means for our family. Are we destined to travel the world with our kids? We sure have shown ourselves that it’s something we can do; we all are adaptable. How has this experience changed us? me? I don’t know if it’s possible now for me to stay in one place for the rest of my life. I want to be able to experience different things, challenge myself, push my comfort zones, give diverse experiences to my children.

I want my life not to be mundane and ordinary.

And then I think about my hubby and I’m happy that I married the man that I married because I think in the same way that I feel, he maybe feels a little like I do. I hope he does at least.

And so we’re coming home. We’re going to be adding on a bathroom when we get home. My hubby’s family will be visiting in the summer which won’t seem like that long away until the wee babe sees her maminou and papinou again in real life. Life will continue to go on, we will celebrate the wee babe’s first birthday when we get home and my 37th in February.

But I refuse for life to be usual and predictable. I choose for life to be full of experiences, adventures, and worthwhile relationships. I choose for it to be stimulating, nurturing, and above all else, I strive for it to be amazing.

I’ve been reflecting lately on perspective and how one gains perspective. I’ve always thought that gaining perspective has a lot to do with removing yourself from the situation. Being able to be an outsider looking in. Taking a break from what’s happening and giving yourself time to reflect and rejuvenate.

But I guess you could also gain perspective by being in a different environment. If you go to a third world country, you would gain the perspective of how fortunate we might be with running water for example. But then it also might give you perspective on how superficial we are. A stick may be a little boy’s toy in Peru, where we need (insert fashionable toy of the minute here).

I think gaining and getting perspective is so important. A chance to see things a different way.

I’m beginning to think that gaining perspective also builds on growing you as a person. Because if you think about it, if you can look at something differently, doesn’t that help you to change and perhaps grow just a little?

I’m thrilled to be able see how my baby grow and thrive in the next 6 months of her life. Changing at the same time as I write this blog. But what I’m even more looking forward to is seeing how my tweenager grows by gaining perspective.

Seeing a different way of living in a new culture, meeting new people, missing old friends, learning new things… if I know her I think she’s going to embrace the differences and this in turn, will help her to see life just a bit differently. Not that there is anything wrong with the way she sees it now.

Just differently.