When i married my husband almost 11 years ago, i made what i considered (and still consider) to be a huge sacrifice. i moved to another country, gave up my family and my friends and my college to become part of his.
(and trust me when i say that any previous dreams i’d had of moving to a foreign country involved a man with an accent, and i don’t mean pronouncing sorry as sore-y)
I’m fairly certain i cried for the first four years i lived in Toronto.
and then, eventually, i stopped crying.
i still put in my requests for a country transfer on a near-daily basis, mind you, but things got better. things got easier. things got good. i made friends who became my friends AND my family. friends who will let me rip apart their kitchens. friends who will pick me up from the airport. friends who will tell me when my muffintop is pouring out of my jeans. friends who will meet me for coffee when I need to talk. friends who will stay out with me until 4:30 in the morning to party, canada rockstar style. friends who will let me crash at their house all day with all three of my monsters children. friends who take me bowling just because I love it. friends you won’t mind getting into a bikini in front of. friends who will remember my birthday….even when everyone in my REAL family forgets.
friends who make you forget that you don’t live near your family.
and then something happens.
something unexpected.
an out-of-the-blue opportunity to spend just shy of a year in Atlanta. with MY family. in MY country. on MY turf. a year for all of us to spend without winter and hats and mittens and car scrapers and warm boots and cold toes. a year to spend near a J.Crew. a year to spend within striking distance of ALL THREE OF MY SIBLINGS. a year to spend with my new soon-to-be-born-any-day-now niece, baby Audrey. a year to spend working from home (well, my dad’s home)…where i will be able to take my kids to school and take them to playdates and be at class plays and maybe even volunteer in the classroom. a year for my kids and i and the husband to spend more then a week with my dad and stepmom. a year to spend some time with my grandmother, who might just not have that much time left. a year to actually be able to BUY hockey tickets. a year to get this whole living-in-the-states thing out of my system. heh.
a year i never thought i would get.
a year that starting this August, i will never forget.
a year that even though it will be hard…to leave my friends (we are coming back guys! we promise!)…and the husband will be shuttling back and forth between his office in T.O. and Atlanta… it will be 100% worth it.
i can’t wait.
hold on to you hats, folks. it’s going to be a wild one!
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