I'm still struggling to find some open space for swimming. That's how I'm phrasing my current "status" at the moment.
It's less than four weeks till we walk away from our lives here in Japan and move to Australia to spend half a year talking to people about what we do in Japan. Preparing for that continues to seem quite messy right now. I'm hoping that I'll have a clear run at getting my current responsibilities under control in these next few days, but every time I see a bit of clear space to swim forward, another "piece of debris" turns up to hinder my movement forward.
Today, it is email-sending difficulties. That always flusters me because when you send an email you trust that it goes to where it should, especially if your computer says it has gone and you don't get an error back. However I am periodically getting messages from people asking about an email reply that I sent and they didn't receive. That's a big concern when I've sent about 140 emails from four of my five regularly used work email accounts in the last 12 days (when the trouble seems to have begun). Yep, my work is very reliant on email.
It's easy to be flustered and I admit I've been there today. Then, late this afternoon, I remembered this article that I saw over the weekend:
http://www.alifeoverseas.com/death-is-right-around-the-corner-so-live/
Here's a particularly good quote:
Living and working cross-culturally is hard, and we often forget the joys of the little things. We need rhythms of rest and Sabbath to restore us, to remind us of how much we need the “sensible and human things.”
The content in quotation marks is a CS Lewis quote.
Though I know that it delayed my dealing with all the things I need to deal with in preparation for this move, I'm really glad that I spend my Saturday doing "sensible and human things".
Basically we "played". Friends invited us and another family over for a final get together before we leave. These are two families that we've spent quite a lot of time with over the last three years, socially, and at school events, especially sport, as our kids competed together. Two of our kids graduated together last year. We've travelled together (one of the mums I travelled with to Korea with and shared a room). One family we've camped with several times. These friends have become something like the family you have when you aren't near family.
On Saturday we were invited to lunch. Before we left, David and I spent time in the kitchen together preparing some things to share (I made tortillas from scratch and he made waffles and a yummy chocolate, nutty sauce to go with). That creating in itself was therapeutic.
Then lunch was tasty and fun. I did not expect it to morph into an afternoon of fun, though. The adults played card games and the seven kids kept themselves entertained (eldest 18, youngest 8). At one point I video-called our eldest and everyone spontaneously sang happy birthday to him and several chatted a little with him.
We got home at about 5.30pm. My love-tank was full to overflowing. We'd laughed our way through the afternoon. It was the first day that week that I didn't take a pain killer for a headache!
We didn't get anything done to prepare for our move at the end of the month, but we were reminded to live, and in doing so, attended to our well-being. So as I continue to try to swim forward through all the cluttered water ahead of me, I'm bolstered by the rest we engaged in on Saturday.
Though I know that it delayed my dealing with all the things I need to deal with in preparation for this move, I'm really glad that I spend my Saturday doing "sensible and human things".
Basically we "played". Friends invited us and another family over for a final get together before we leave. These are two families that we've spent quite a lot of time with over the last three years, socially, and at school events, especially sport, as our kids competed together. Two of our kids graduated together last year. We've travelled together (one of the mums I travelled with to Korea with and shared a room). One family we've camped with several times. These friends have become something like the family you have when you aren't near family.
On Saturday we were invited to lunch. Before we left, David and I spent time in the kitchen together preparing some things to share (I made tortillas from scratch and he made waffles and a yummy chocolate, nutty sauce to go with). That creating in itself was therapeutic.
Then lunch was tasty and fun. I did not expect it to morph into an afternoon of fun, though. The adults played card games and the seven kids kept themselves entertained (eldest 18, youngest 8). At one point I video-called our eldest and everyone spontaneously sang happy birthday to him and several chatted a little with him.
We got home at about 5.30pm. My love-tank was full to overflowing. We'd laughed our way through the afternoon. It was the first day that week that I didn't take a pain killer for a headache!
We didn't get anything done to prepare for our move at the end of the month, but we were reminded to live, and in doing so, attended to our well-being. So as I continue to try to swim forward through all the cluttered water ahead of me, I'm bolstered by the rest we engaged in on Saturday.
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