5245

"This house is perfect for where we are right now."  I can still see Eugene leaning against the counter in the kitchen that was not yet ours making this statement about the house we were considering purchasing.  It was May 2007.  Reagan was about 18 months old.  Tripp, just a twinkle in his father's eye.  The housing market was booming.  It was time to sell the house in Hollands Crossing and move into something with a little more space and a lot more trees.  Sure, our first home in Apex was lovely and our neighbors flat out wonderful.  But who doesn't dream about a little more lawn, maybe some granite counter tops, hardwood floors, and a little room to grow, or at least grow our family.  And so we bought it, 5245 Lake Edge Drive.  And now we call it home.

When your company offers you a transfer to a foreign country one of the biggest questions you face is what to do with your home.  Do you sell it?  Do you keep it?  We've been back and forth since day one.  Initially, the feeling was dump the house.  5245, as spectacular as it is, is an older home by Triangle-area standards where most houses are bright, shiny and new construction.  This home was built in 1993; it's hardly bright, shiny and new.  And it has it share of issues, problems, hiccups.  Like in November 2007, just after four short months of moving in, the downstairs furnace decided to blow cold air, all day, all night  and not shut off, or let us shut it off, until we just had to pull the fuse.  Nothing says new home like an immediate investment in a brand new downstairs heating and cooling unit!  Then there is this.  Remember this picture?  Yes, that is a big, black snake on our roof!  Why is it there?  Why to try to get at the bats that were nesting in our attic of course!  Yes, it's true, we had to tolerate bats living in our attic all of last summer because there were babies and you can't exterminate them.  You have to wait until the little dears can fly out and then you get a wildlife company to seal up all the cracks and crevices, clean up and sanitize, and give you the thumbs up, all clear and one year warranty that they won't return.  Then there is the fireplace that wouldn't light, the 40 foot tree that cracked in half, the leaking skylights in the bathroom, the busted hot water tank that produced dirty water in our bathtub, the squirrels nibbling on our siding, the massive spring on the garage door that failed, the copperhead snake in the garage and have I mentioned the genius that laid white tile AND white grout in our shower?  So, like I said, our first thought was to sell 5245.

But there have been those days where I wake up and from the comfort of my bed watch through the trees of our wooded lot, the neighbors walking dogs and the school bus chugging down the street.  I can hear the squirrels rolling nuts down our roof and I'm smitten with the charm of our neighborhood.  Or I think about those many summer nights where Gene and I put the kids to bed and spend the evening sitting on the screened in porch, talking about where our life has been, where it's going.  It's so easy to grow content with the things you have, to forget those charming little features that made me love this house.  Like the built in bookshelves, the plentiful storage of the walk up attic (now bat-free!), the french doors, the huge rhododendron in the backyard.  I can see Tripp and Reagan running through the massive leaf piles in the fall and picking tomatoes in the garden in the summer.  Some days I think, yeah, this is where we need to be.  We need to keep this house.  This house needs us to keep it.

But when we really think it through, like logical people, we know that we can't be halfway around the world and still own a piece of property here.  There has been so much maintenance, so many things have gone wrong, how on earth would we handle that from Hong Kong?  And the truth is, though 5245 may have been "perfect for where we are right now" back in 2007, looking forward to 2014, we are going to be in a different place in our lives.  I realize that it's not letting go of the house that bothers me, it's letting go of my "American dream".  A house symbolizes what so many people dream of, what so many people work so hard for, what we have worked so hard for.  How do you just throw your hands in the air and walk away from that?  Selling the house, means that we literally have no home base.  We have no home to call our own.  Nowhere to "have to" return to.  It makes us modern-day nomads.  Just wanderers setting up camp temporarily in Asia.

So as scary, confusing and difficult as it may be, we have to go with our gut. 5245 Lake Edge Drive will be up for sale shortly.  And we hope someone will come along and see it and think it's just perfect for where they are right now.

Smile and Wave

I smile and wave a lot.  I think it goes back to my time as Miss Polonaise where I smiled and waved for a whole year.  Even when people could care less that I was at their Harvest Fest, even when people referred to me as a "Pollack", even when I wanted to be out with my boyfriend, not holed up at the polka radio station on a beautiful summer day, I was smiling and I was waving.   Even when riding in the rumble seat of a classic car during the Erie St. Patrick Day parade and a slob of a man with an unruly beard and filthy mouth made lewd remarks to me, I continued to smile and wave... and pray the llamas in front of us would pick up the pace so we could move forward.  And I smile and wave when it comes to moving to Hong Kong.

Now don't get me wrong, I am excited about our overseas adventure, but I'm also terrified, petrified, unsure. And right now everything seems to be up in the air, a toss of the coin.  Will Reagan get into Hong Kong International School?  Will Tripp be ok in a preschool program?  Will our house sell?  Should we just hang onto it?  How will Inca handle a 16+ hour plane flight? For that matter, how will the kids handle a 16+ hour plane flight? Will apartment living make me claustrophobic? What about the smog?  How will I fill my time?  Will I make friends?  Will my friends here forget about me?  Do they sell Yoplait frozen smoothies there?  So many questions, big and small, important and stupid, are just running through my head constantly.  Yet, I'm trying to keep on smiling and keep on waving.

If you know me well, you know that I am indeed a control freak.  I like structure and organization.  I thrive on routine and order.  This anticipated move has none of those elements.  Eugene said it's probably a good thing for me to step out of my comfort zone and he's right, but it still sucks.  But look at me....smiling and waving!

So, here I sit in a kind of limbo, an exercise in patience.  But I have a lot of faith.  Faith in God that he is leading us down the right path, in my husband that he will make only the best decisions for our family, in our friends and family that they will continue to cheer us on, and faith in me, that I can grow and change and challenge myself, even outside my comfort zone.  And I have faith in the llamas too, that they'll pick up the pace so we can continue to move forward. And move forward we will, smiling and waving all the way.

When School Bells Ring

Reagan wears a maroon and gray plaid uniform to school and it's just the cutest thing!  Pretty similar to the red plaid I wore in my Catholic elementary school days, except in the 21st century Catholic school uniforms have matching ponytail holders and bows and socks and backpacks and lunch boxes and even teddy bears!  Every morning I get up and get her up and dress her in her little plaid jumper and the blouse with the peter-pan collar and do her hair with a ponytail or maybe two pig tails or maybe just a sassy side-sweep with a barrette.  And off she goes to St. Mary Magdalene, her purple polka-dot book bag bouncing on her back.  But next year will be different.

This is re-enrollment time at St. Mary Magdalene.  Parents are just about done scrambling about to get in forms and fees.  At dismissal time, I hear the calls of "Is Alex coming back next year?" and "Are you going to the uniform sale to stock up for kindergarten?".  And I feel left out, not at all part of that crowd or that experience.  And I wonder if Reagan feels that way too.

It's not like Reagan is going to fall into some kind of cesspool of an educational institution.  In fact, we've applied for admission at one of the best English speaking schools in Hong Kong, Hong Kong International.  The campus photos are amazingly beautiful.  The curriculum is stellar.  The activities, plentiful.  And the entry process, a process.  Gene has met with admissions; we've mailed in our application; we're putting together round two of the requested documents from teachers and doctors; and we're crossing our fingers and waiting and waiting and hoping. And on a daily basis, we're peeking at these brochures to remind ourselves of what could be in store for our little girl -- the start of her primary learning at an international school, where she will still receive a Christian-based education, but with a literal melting-pot of children from all over the world.  It sounds kinda impressive.  But it also sounds kinda scary.

I have a sincere fondest for Catholic education; my Catholic education has served me well.  And I would be remiss to mention that it was within those brick walls of St. Stanislaus School that I first laid eyes on the most handsome young man, who is now my most handsome husband.  But when I think back to those years at St. Stan's I think first of the families.  There were those families that everyone just knew.  The moms were the lunch ladies, the dads the basketball coaches.  You saw them at pick-up and at annual roller skating parties and every weekend at church.   When we moved down here to North Carolina, I missed that.  I missed going to church and seeing familiar faces and feeling like part of a larger community, a larger family.  But then we found St. Mary Magdalene and as I became more involved in parish activities and Reagan started school, the most amazing thing happened.  Faces behind the windshields in the car pool lane smile and wave at me.  Other mothers have sought me out to help on volunteer committees.  Waiting for Reagan at dismissal, I chat with the other parents like we're old friends.  And at Sunday mass I always see familiar faces in the crowd. 

So next school year when school bells ring, I'll be waking Reagan up and dressing her in her little red polo shirt and uniform shorts and getting her on a school bus, a novelty she is looking forward to.  But you can bet, that I'll be thinking of those familiar families at St Mary Magdalene and I'll be hoping they'll be thinking of us and waiting to welcome us back in a few years when school bells ring.

Stuff

One of my favorite comedians is George Carlin (God rest his soul).  And one of my favorite bits is "Stuff".  Do you know it? 

"Actually this is just a place for my stuff, ya know? That's all, a little place for my stuff. That's all I want, that's all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody's got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that's your stuff, that'll be his stuff over there. That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.  A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it."  (Material written and owned by George Carlin. )

We've been asked to start an inventory the stuff we want to ship over to Hong Kong.  The stuff that we absolutely, without a doubt, need to have, have to have access to for the next three years.  Our very favorite stuff.

Several years ago after some large-scale world disaster, I remember seeing a woman on the news who lost her home and was living in a tent city.  She was telling the reporter that she had learned that you really need very little to live, just a shelter over your head, a little food and clothes on your back.  And she's basically right.  Those are the necessities; the rest just make things convenient, make our lives easy, or at least easier. 

Walking through our house, room by room has been an eye-opening experience.  Because there is a chance of damage in transport, we've been advised not to take any "collectibles".  We're not taking any furniture or anything that will weigh down our shipment.  They are running on a different electrical system over there so we'll take very little stuff with a plug.  So, what stuff do we take?  The challenge is to make our home in Hong Kong a familiar and functional place for our family, most importantly for our children, while meeting a shipping limit, considering a smaller living space and leaving appropriate space to acquire new "treasures". 

I've literally walked into rooms in this house and said, "nothing".  There is nothing in this specific room that I absolutely want or need to have for three years.  In the living room, the only thing I chose was the martini shaker hidden in our wine cabinet.  The dining room, nothing really.  Maybe the silver framed photos of the kids on the buffet table.  But there are other rooms that have been very difficult.  The kitchen, a.k.a. my domain, I need everything; I use everything!  But maybe I can just make do with two cookie sheets and I can get by without wire cooling racks, but all those kitchen utensils have to come because I am not running all over an unfamiliar town looking for a pair of salad tongs.   

The hardest rooms to take stock are the kids' rooms.  As practical as I can be, I realize that their rooms are filled with their treasures.  Reagan may have not touched that dollhouse in months, but what if she gets the itch to play with it next April?  Tripp's not really into that remote control bigfoot truck right now, but I'm sure by Christmas he's going to love that thing.  And what if we store some toys here in the states and when they return 36 months later, they've moved on, outgrown that stuff?  It's like part of their childhood lost.  But I console myself by saying they will be able to say things like "Remember when we walked on the Great Wall?" and they'll decorate their room with Mickey Mouse from Disney Hong Kong.  And surly there are toys in China, right?  Aren't most toys made in China to begin with?  As of late, Reagan has begun to ask me questions like "Can I take my jewerly box to China?" and I say "Of course!".  But I also realize there is a delicate balance in packing up the kids.  Too much imput and they'll take it all.  Too little and we may leave some stuff behind that is invaluable to a five and two year old.  

So, as I go through my little Hong Kong notebook with Gene, and he nods and "umm hmmms" in agreement with the selections I've made, I've come to realize that we've spent almost 13 years acquiring this stuff to make our house a home, but at the heart of it all, the most important stuff to be transported to Hong Kong are Laura, Eugene, Reagan, Tripp and Inca the dog.  And as long as this "stuff" sticks together, we're going to be just fine.