Week of Good-Byes

It's been a week of good-byes here in Hong Kong.  Good bye to school, to the bus mother, to after school activities and routines.  Bye to speech class and uniforms to packed lunches and repeat play dates.  But it's also been good bye to people.  Some for the summer, some for, well, ever.

Ex-pats generally don't stay in Hong Kong for the summer.  They go home, to the mother land, to the places they came from to begin with.  Husbands go too and sometimes they are lucky enough to stay the whole season, but more often then not, they fly back themselves after a few weeks and wives and kids follow later. School ended yesterday so today began the mass exodus.  Tomorrow it will continue and we will be among the families that follow. 

And when we return things will be different for us.  Just a few months ago I expected that we would return from summer home leave refreshed, proud and somewhat glad to have our first year behind us.  When this adventure began Eugene told me that it would be a year of figuring it out, a year of living, and a year of preparing to return home to the US.  But as we discussed last time, butterflies flapped their wings and BAM!, back in the US earlier than we anticipated.  So that year of just living was annihilated, and we've moved straight on to prep work.

When we come back in July, we will be (fingers crossed) home owners again.  When our feet hit Asian soil the countdown will begin.  Time will be limited. And though I am excited to have a home of my very own again, in a place where speaking English is the norm and Target just a short drive away, I am oh so very sad to see the clock tick away to final months, weeks, days, hours of our time here in Hong Kong. We were prepared for three years.  We were not prepared for 18 months.

I have a tendency to look way too far ahead in all situations, with all things, so I can't let myself do that now.  What matters now is that tomorrow morning my family will board a plane in Hong Kong and when our feet touch ground again, we will be on American soil, glorious, familiar American soil.  And we will see family that has been so far from us and we will eat cheap pizza and chicken wings, indulge on Denny's ice cream and run together at Presque Isle.  We will pick strawberries with the kids, swim in the pool and watch fireflies dance in the evening. Great times will be ours and wonderful memories will be created.

 And when we get back, we'll have six months to do it all right. To tick off all the items in that Hong Kong bucket list.  To enjoy it, really enjoy it.  The goal: no regrets.

To my family and friends and my BFF in Holly Springs, NC, can't wait to see you all!! And to my Southside family here on the island, safe travels, rest up.  We're gonna do it up right when we all get back.  No regrets.  Not a one.