Life moves on rapidly

This was the view at Mt Cootha botanical gardens, where I spent a few
hours catching up with my parents on the 13th. It seems an eon ago now!

I've been home a couple of days now. It's a new normal here which will take some time to get used to. But as I've found with all "losses", life continues on. Work continues, school continues, people still get hungry, clothes still need washing, things still get dirty and need cleaning. Life goes on. And at present it seems to be moving at a pretty fast pace.

Lots of travel

February/March is always a rather turbulent time of the year for us as we head into spring, there are lots of extra, once-a-year events: retreats, class trips, etc. This year has its own collection that means that I'll be away:

• two nights early in March for the usual Kanto missionary women's retreat
• three nights late in March for an unusually early OMF national conference (in Hokkaido)
• four nights late in April for training (in Hokkaido)

And where I ate with my life-long friend Mel on the 14th. Very tasty!

Additional to that, we've got only one boy at home this weekend, while the youngest is at a middle school youth group camp, which is rather weird, on top of not having our eldest here. David goes away for a night in March with the eight graders. And then our youngest at a summer camp in June after school is out.

Then there are other flights to book and schedules to organise: 

• for home assignment (leaving the start of July and returning at the start of January) 
• during home assignment: 
• national conference at the end of August
• professional development in Singapore at the end of October
• a deputation trip to Perth at the start of November

We're facing a rather busy year! And we're at the point of doing a lot of organising and preparing. I'm really glad that we're not facing moving out of this house as well. 

Our son's adjusting well

I'm also glad that one of the big things on the list to do (and yes, like it or not, it was something to "tick off") was relocating our eldest to Australia. It's done and we're moving on.

And for all those who want to know: he does seem to be doing well. He's landed in a good living situation and is surrounded by people who seem keen to get to know him and involve him in their activities.

He's found it quite nice to be operating in English and to be treated as a responsible adult as he's gone about establishing a new life. Life's quite a bit different when you have money and a phone and are 18! And at least on the outside, he fits in quite well (he's got an Australian accent too).

We still need to figure out how best to communicate between the five of us. It's not so easy or "natural" when you're not having meals together. I'd love to have us all on the same messaging network, so we can have a family group for chatting. But that requires cooperation from all involved to get the same apps. It's new habits to be formed and that takes time. Especially when you are unmotivated, like teenage boys are wont to be.

Thankfully, though I've jumped from summer to winter, sat in a plane for nine hours with hundreds of others, arrived back to a house with cold/ear infection, and sat in two doctors' surgeries with my youngest for over three hours in the last few days, I seem to have dodged illness.

Movie splurge

Here's something random. On Wednesday I flew for nearly nine hours. A whole day on a plane. I did something I've never done before and watched movies for nearly that whole time: four movies and one TV episode. It was an interesting collection of movies. 

Glass Castles: a story about a family with rather unstable parents. They moved a lot, squatted in many places, but stayed together. The four kids decided to work hard to get out of their situation and it follows them through to adulthood and them relating to their parents as adults. Based on a true story, it was a tear jerker, but the ending was good. "Enjoy" seems to wrong word to use, but it certainly kept my attention.

Strong: another movie based on a true story, it was about one of the survivors of the bombing at the Boston Marathon, who lost both his legs above the knees. They did a good job of being realistic and again, a tear jerker, but "enjoyable".

After these two, I looked for something that wouldn't jerk tears from me (not easy, considering I was flying away from Australia without my son).

A Young Victoria: there's a theme. I like realistic fiction! I do like historical fiction too. This was a very enjoyable insight into England's history.

The Hours: an older film (2002) that won awards. You might remember it? It had Merryl Streep and Nicole Kidman in it and was based on the life of Virginia Woolf and a novel by her, Mrs Dalloway. It was the first time I'd seen it and it was intriguing, yet sad too.

Not an unenjoyable way to spend the day travelling on my own. But the despite the movies, the hours did drag. It was a long day. You might feel that Australia and Japan aren't that far distant, but it was 15 hours from door to door (granted, I got to the airport nearly three hours before departure and it took two hours on three trains to get from the airport to our house in Tokyo). Long enough!

But I'm glad it's the weekend. I've spent the last two days trying to catch up with things I'd neglected in my work (though not so successfully yesterday as I was out most of the day). 

Today, I'm trying to relax (I stayed in bed a long time, it's less tempting to work there). Now, even though I'm on my computer, I'm sitting in my relaxing chair and have the Winter Olympics on the TV. Nice!