I take back all the whining and complaining and general dourness over the past few months. I'll gladly go back to just being homesick and tired and overwhelmed. Cause that now seems like a dream compared to where I am now.
Just when I thought things were looking brighter -- a tough work project was a huge success, I was starting to feel like I had some friends, P is on his way to visit -- I got some pretty terrible news. My beloved stepdad, M, devoted (and only) grandfather to Lulu and Boo, and possibly the real-life Most Interesting Man in the World, is very, very sick. Like maybe only months to live sick, maybe a year or two if we're very, very fortunate.
I was so scared something like this would happen when I decided to come to Australia. M is 82, albeit in very good health, especially considering he had quadruple bypass surgery 18 months ago. But 82 is 82 and I was worried something would happen to him and I wouldn't be there. And it has. After some nagging back pain, he went to the doctor and was told the back pain is caused by tumors in his spinal column. They are also in his ribs and lungs.
I have such a range of emotions, I don't even know where to start. Of course there is the grief and sadness that we may soon lose M. He has been so kind and loving to me and my kids, and most important, my mom, who desperately needed and deserved a good marriage. Then, there's the parental anxiety of knowing that my kids are going to be very sad and wanting to both prepare and protect them. There's anger at being so far away and so helpless. Gratefulness for ex-H and L, who I emailed for help and who rose to the challenge splendidly -- staying with my mom and M through a very scary few days of roller-coaster medical opinions and decisions. They are family, however odd or unconventional.
Finally, panic at the flood of emotions this all brings back. I was only 8 when my father died and the aftermath was traumatic, to say the least. My mom was depressed and angry and scared, and as much as she loved my sister and I, and as hard as she tried, I never really felt she was OK. It was terrifying to think she might not make it through. I don't know how close she came to that -- probably not as close as I feared -- but there were days she just disappeared and I was so scared I wouldn't see her again. I don't have many childhood memories, but those days I remember like they were yesterday. I feel like I have a bit of PTSD... and I don't want to go through that again.
For now, I have to sit and wait. Depending on the news, we will go back for a visit as soon as we reasonably can, and we may even go back for good. If M only has a short time left, I want to be there for him and my mom as much as possible.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Friends
"Doing it tough" in Australia means something akin to "having a hard time." That pretty much sums up the past few weeks. But if you've been following along, that probably comes as no surprise. So I thought I'd ruminate on another topic today: friendship.
This is not one of my favorite topics. Of course, I love my friends and value them more than I ever remember to tell them. I just don't have very many of them because I am really, really bad at friendship. I make friends well enough, albeit with massive effort to avoid my introverted tendencies. But I don't always put in the effort to keep them. Or I try, usually reaching out after much too long, and they grow tired of waiting. So they drift away, sometimes almost immediately, sometimes over years, even decades. And I am left with the few friends who have accepted this colossal character flaw of mine and made the effort for both of us. A, you know who you are.
So that's my fatal friendship flaw number one. There's another, sadly, and possibly worse. I am horribly inept at first impressions. I don't know what's worse -- how wrong I've been about people or that I never seem to improve. Some of the dearest people in my life are ones I either dismissed or hated at first sight. I won't name names (other than P, but you already know that story) because I would like to keep these friends. But what if I had never had the chance to correct those impressions? It's tragic the wonderful people I might have never known.
Moving to a country where you literally know no one forces you to make friends or else hide out alone in your apartment for days on end, depressed and staring out at the ocean while pretending to work. I tried that option the first few months. It was not a success.
My first friend here was my boss's wife, L. From a few pre-move Skype talks with her, I was sure we wouldn't really hit it off -- she is as outgoing as I am not, a bit pushy, and very opinionated. And while we are very different and ultimately not destined to be besties, she couldn't have been kinder and more welcoming to me and my children. I can't count the number of times she has fed us, babysat them, answered questions, introduced us to other moms and kids, and just generally served as cruise director on this little adventure of ours.
Thanks to her, I now have the beginnings of other friends. E is the mother of four gorgeous blond boys, and got the first impression of her spot on. She's smart and funny and hilariously OCD. How does a mom (of 4) (BOYS) have the time or energy to iron sheets? But she does and when the other moms teased her about it, she held her ground instead of backtracking with a "oh, well, I don't do it all the time" disclaimer like other women might. She irons sheets and she's proud of it. I like that. She and I go to the same yoga studio and giggle over the speedo-wearing (male) students and commiserate over how we have not lost weight despite 3-4 hot yoga classes per week.
M is another mom I met through L. Her daughter ended up in the same class as Boo and we bonded a bit over our mutual skepticism over their teacher and our kids' ranking at the bottom of the readers in the class. We took to chatting after school every few days while the kids ran around and one day while we were killing time before Boo's gymnastics class, she invited us over for tea (this can but does not always actually involve tea, my American friends -- we would call it afternoon snack). Now this is one of those times when all my inclinations pointed to declining politely. There was only half an hour before class and I didn't know where she lived. But I liked M and was charmed by her little twin boys, and I couldn't really think of a decent reason not to go. We had tea and were late for gymnastics, but now I have another friend.
Finally, there is C, who I have known for a few years. We worked together in the US a bit -- she worked for P before he left -- and we were friendly, but never beyond a wave in the hall or the occasional happy hour chat. I was always jealous of her because she's smart and witty and P likes her so much and she has great style. Now she is here as well and in her I have found a solid ally against all the strange and unsettling things about living here and being so far from home. Her life is very different from mine -- she is married and has no kids -- but we are the only ones who understand the challenges of the work we do, our colleagues, and our mutual homesickness.
I imagine in time some or all of these friends will drift away -- it will be harder to keep in touch once we go back home, after all, and the things that draw us together now may turn out to be based more on our situations -- jobs, kids -- than on a real bond. But maybe that is OK. I have come to think that people come into your life at times that you need them or they need you, and sometimes that is only temporary. But whether or not I still keep up with all the friends I've had through childhood, high school, college, various jobs, they all have contributed a part (sometimes small, sometimes extraordinary) in who I am now, and I am grateful to them all. Even if I only ever see them on Facebook.
This is not one of my favorite topics. Of course, I love my friends and value them more than I ever remember to tell them. I just don't have very many of them because I am really, really bad at friendship. I make friends well enough, albeit with massive effort to avoid my introverted tendencies. But I don't always put in the effort to keep them. Or I try, usually reaching out after much too long, and they grow tired of waiting. So they drift away, sometimes almost immediately, sometimes over years, even decades. And I am left with the few friends who have accepted this colossal character flaw of mine and made the effort for both of us. A, you know who you are.
So that's my fatal friendship flaw number one. There's another, sadly, and possibly worse. I am horribly inept at first impressions. I don't know what's worse -- how wrong I've been about people or that I never seem to improve. Some of the dearest people in my life are ones I either dismissed or hated at first sight. I won't name names (other than P, but you already know that story) because I would like to keep these friends. But what if I had never had the chance to correct those impressions? It's tragic the wonderful people I might have never known.
Moving to a country where you literally know no one forces you to make friends or else hide out alone in your apartment for days on end, depressed and staring out at the ocean while pretending to work. I tried that option the first few months. It was not a success.
My first friend here was my boss's wife, L. From a few pre-move Skype talks with her, I was sure we wouldn't really hit it off -- she is as outgoing as I am not, a bit pushy, and very opinionated. And while we are very different and ultimately not destined to be besties, she couldn't have been kinder and more welcoming to me and my children. I can't count the number of times she has fed us, babysat them, answered questions, introduced us to other moms and kids, and just generally served as cruise director on this little adventure of ours.
Thanks to her, I now have the beginnings of other friends. E is the mother of four gorgeous blond boys, and got the first impression of her spot on. She's smart and funny and hilariously OCD. How does a mom (of 4) (BOYS) have the time or energy to iron sheets? But she does and when the other moms teased her about it, she held her ground instead of backtracking with a "oh, well, I don't do it all the time" disclaimer like other women might. She irons sheets and she's proud of it. I like that. She and I go to the same yoga studio and giggle over the speedo-wearing (male) students and commiserate over how we have not lost weight despite 3-4 hot yoga classes per week.
M is another mom I met through L. Her daughter ended up in the same class as Boo and we bonded a bit over our mutual skepticism over their teacher and our kids' ranking at the bottom of the readers in the class. We took to chatting after school every few days while the kids ran around and one day while we were killing time before Boo's gymnastics class, she invited us over for tea (this can but does not always actually involve tea, my American friends -- we would call it afternoon snack). Now this is one of those times when all my inclinations pointed to declining politely. There was only half an hour before class and I didn't know where she lived. But I liked M and was charmed by her little twin boys, and I couldn't really think of a decent reason not to go. We had tea and were late for gymnastics, but now I have another friend.
Finally, there is C, who I have known for a few years. We worked together in the US a bit -- she worked for P before he left -- and we were friendly, but never beyond a wave in the hall or the occasional happy hour chat. I was always jealous of her because she's smart and witty and P likes her so much and she has great style. Now she is here as well and in her I have found a solid ally against all the strange and unsettling things about living here and being so far from home. Her life is very different from mine -- she is married and has no kids -- but we are the only ones who understand the challenges of the work we do, our colleagues, and our mutual homesickness.
I imagine in time some or all of these friends will drift away -- it will be harder to keep in touch once we go back home, after all, and the things that draw us together now may turn out to be based more on our situations -- jobs, kids -- than on a real bond. But maybe that is OK. I have come to think that people come into your life at times that you need them or they need you, and sometimes that is only temporary. But whether or not I still keep up with all the friends I've had through childhood, high school, college, various jobs, they all have contributed a part (sometimes small, sometimes extraordinary) in who I am now, and I am grateful to them all. Even if I only ever see them on Facebook.
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