My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

love starts here

loveshartsherechina

He’s just about packed. One suitcase is full of clothes. One is full of all sorts of random supplies and gifts ranging from chocolate and freeze dried astronaut ice cream to a pair of overalls and a straw hat (that both fit him, mind you) and about 40 copies of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I wonder what airport security will think when that bag is scanned.

The family will pile into the minivan with those bags ever so slightly under the weight limit tomorrow at 7am. We’ll drive about 45 minutes to the airport where we’ll point out some big planes in the sky to the kids, talk about where they are heading, remind them all again where Daddy is going and why, and then we’ll say goodbye for 2 weeks.

Without even turning off the engine, we’ll hug and smile. I know I’ll tear up because that’s sorta my M.O. We’ll probably roll down the windows as we pull away so the kids can yell out one more goodbye to Daddy and all the other people entering that terminal at 8am. Then, we’ll go back the exact way we came, back to our day, to school, to goldfish crackers, to the playground, to our routine.

While Mark is there on the other side of the world, leading a team of 12 to a university, I’ll be in two places in one time. I’ll be home going to softball games, helping with homework, and eating ice cream (yes, I bought 5 containers of ice cream for our main food source just to start us out…), but I’ll be there too.

We may have met at a camp in Glen Spey, NY in August 1997 and declared our love for each other shortly thereafter. But, China? It’s where we fell in love again. It was there that we fell in love with a people and a place and each other and His call in our lives all over again. Some people’s second homes are at the shore; our second home is across the globe. We have our favorite restaurants complete with names we’ve made up to identify them since we cannot read or say their actual names. We have our favorite snacks and even specific clothes that always seem to go there with us. And, one day, who knows when, maybe we’ll travel there together at the same time again.

For now, it’s his turn. His turn to go work hard, love well, lead others to do the same, and play a lot of charades.

 

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I should have googled something else

Perhaps I should have spent less time googling the weather in Pattaya, Thailand and more time googling the weather in Tokyo where Mark had his connecting flight to Bangkok.

Here’s the picture I received by iMessage at 5pm today.

Pattaya hotel

It’s no mistake that it’s blurry eyed; it clearly reflects the eyes of the photographer which happens to be my husband.

The picture was of the front of his hotel where he was just arriving…that’s right, at 5pm our time, 58 hours after he left on Friday morning. Apparently, Tokyo had it’s worst winter storm in 20 years right as his plane was arriving. Go figure. So, 24 hours were spent at the Tokyo airport with no restaurants open like one of those crazy scenes you see on the news when you say, “Oh my goodness, those poor people.” Yeah, he was in one of those scenes. He, along with 6 others who include my parents, finally got their 7-hour flight to Bangkok a day late and then enjoyed a 2-hour drive by van to the hotel where their conference is, only to have to wake up a couple hours later for breakfast and their first meeting.

Poor Mark. There must be some significant stuff happening on this conference.

As far as the home front goes, we had our own traveling excitement here. We spent 13 hours in the car in two days as we road tripped it to Virginia Beach for a wedding Saturday. It’s not 58 hours…but I did have the four children with me…so…if you use the kids-with-you-equation, than it was comparable to about 30 hours, I think.

Stuck in the United clubroom in Tokyo for 24 hours trumps that, I think.

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I shouldn’t have googled it

Here’s a glimpse of my view right now.

snow phoenixville
There’s a reason that you can see my dirty window and the screen. It’s too darn cold to step outside my house.

8″ of snow on Monday followed by another ice storm which caused massive power outages all over the place around here including at 4 of the 6 schools in our school district. In the last two weeks, my kids have gone to school for one half day. I’m not even sure their teachers will remember their names when they go back to school next week.

And, while I’m living in an eternal winter wonderland, Mark left this morning for a conference for 10 days…in Thailand…which I just happen to learn has a 10-day weather forecast of mostly sunny with highs in the upper 8os. I just had to google North Pattaya too.

north pattaya beach
Thinking I better just stop writing at that because the words that may spill out may not be as pretty as that picture.

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The Day My Husband Quit His Job {Encore}

Originally posted in September, this post marks the single biggest event of our year…and one of the biggest in our life together really.

___________

china hutongHe put on an ironed shirt this morning, nice slacks, belt, and shoes. He kissed me goodbye and said, “Have a good day” just like he did yesterday and everyday last week and nearly every morning for the last 15 years of our marriage.

But, today was different. There was a spring in his step and an extra spark in his kiss because today was not like yesterday or the days before. Yesterday, he quit.

When he told his boss he was leaving, his boss wanted to play the game, give him a counter offer, encourage him to stay. When Mark told him he wasn’t headed over to a competitor but leaving the financial industry entirely, I think he left him a bit dumbfounded.

Leaving the industry. The one he’s worked in for 18 years.

Mark explained the work, his role specifically, how he’s been called to it. He told him how he’s been raising support so that we could do this. We thought he’d think we were crazy. Instead, he told Mark he was jealous; Mark will be doing something his heart is full in. It’s what everyone wants deep down, above wealth, benefits, prestige and all that comes with all three of those. Everyone wants to do something they love; maybe life too often gets in the way.

Just like that, Mark left that conference room, and everything was different. We knew his days there were numbered, but we didn’t know that number until now. He had imagined what that conversation would be like, played it over in his head. Now, the imagined is simply history, a day that we’ll remember that marks when we put a stake in the ground and said, “This is where we are meant to go, and we’re going.”

He’ll end well over the next two weeks, still putting on an ironed shirt and slacks and kissing me goodbye each morning, making sure things that need to be covered are covered, putting closure on all he can. But, at the end of those two weeks, he’ll close up a cardboard box with the few personal affects that made a sterile desk and chair his workplace, and he’ll drive home one last time for us to start a whole new part of our lives, one He’s been preparing us for all along.

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