Today is my last day in Sydney. For I don’t know how long. Maybe forever, hopefully not. Hopefully I’ll swing back by.
But as I sit here at 4 am the night before our flight home (god help me with a 2 year old boy on that long flight back to the US) I keep thinking of the song from Rent and it’s somehow become the soundtrack in my head to my memories.
Rarely in life do you get to know just how lucky you are and how loved you are. Too often people save all the things they mean to say til a funeral or a wedding or some other similarly momentous event. Moving across the country or the world does that for you. In a gut wrenching way. It means you get a chance to tell all the people you love, just how much one time how much without looking like a blubbering idiot. It means you get to laugh together over memories of your kids, yourselves, you trials and tribulations. It means you get to write down and say all the stuff about how much you value those people and the place you have been.
This has been a LONG week of good byes. Mostly bittersweet, but filled with so much laughter and love so many chances to give hugs and say thanks for everything. It made me grateful for all I have. It made me angry to leave it. It made me cry in private and put on my brave face in public because damn it I will not have the memories I take with me to last til I see them again be ones of sadness. I have loved it here. I have loved this place and the amazing women and men I have met here. So if I’m measuring 2 years of my life and it’s supposed to be measured in love as the song says I’m so damned lucky. Because I know after this week I and my kids and my husband are loved by the people around us. I am full to the brim tonight. And that makes this goodbye both a lot harder and so much easier. Thank you my friends on these boards who I have laughed and cried at this past two years.
I am landing on US Thanksgiving back home in Chicago so perhaps that in and of itself is a fitting end to a journey I’m so very thankful for. Thank you Sydney for 525,600 minutes x 2 years.
Michelle
23/11/2015 at 8:14 pmLove this post. Living overseas is such a wonderful and at the same time painful experience. Been in Sydney 7,8884,000 minutes. Safe travels home and I hope your future is a wonderful one. Have you thought about blogging your return home and dealing with reverse culture shock?