one year and some change

Air NZ lounge
and a Charlie-sized chair.

A little over a year ago we packed up our house and put endless boxes of whoknowswhat into storage and hugged our friends and family harder than we’d ever hugged them before and went to the airport.  And we got on an airplane and watched a thousand movies and flew over an ocean and fell asleep a little but not enough and then we were in New Zealand.  Living.  And as scary as the prospect was, the reality is amazing.  Even without Target.

My conclusion is this:  When you move to another country and half your crap is in a storage unit, you get a do-over.   At putting one foot in front of the other.  It’s like a having a near-death experience but without the light or the tunnel or the handy defibrillator.  Moving to another country, once you get through all the paperwork and forms and ‘why are you here?’ questions, makes you feel so much lighter, fresher, freer, and suddenly happier.  The act of shedding stuff and stress and the fact that we were now living in Kansas in the 50s were part of it.  But so were we.   

As it turns out, our family was bogged down with life back home in Los Angeles.  Everything just wore us down.  The house.  The street cleaning.  The 405.  The underworked me.  The overworked him.  Thinking of something to eat for dinner every single night over and over.  We got lost in the monotony of it all and misplaced our joy.  That’s not to say we weren’t happy.  We were happy.  But we were like a much loved but slightly abused stuffed animal.  Always smiling, never blinking, being dragged around on the ground by life as we were ever-so-slowly coming apart.  Bits of our belly fluff were everywhere and we had no clue.  

And now.  A year and an ocean and no Targets later.  It’s as if we’ve been sewn back together.  With unbreakable threads of meaning and joy and simplicity.  By the best stuffed animal seamstress in the world.  Our family is happier.  Our quality of life is better.  Our belly fluff is back where it belongs.  

We’re still smiling but now we remember why.  

Blink.

Our plane to happy land.