A beginning, really?

A month later and I really don't feel like I've begun anything. Okay, I did get DS1 enrolled in school which I am now agonizing over, since it seems way too easy. I did get DS2 to the doctor to look at the hernia which I've been ignoring for the past four months. Surgery is scheduled for March 22nd. But the rest of my life seems like just so much crap.

I can't get DS2 enrolled in any kind of regular preschool and he's acting out. It's the f--king fours, redux. I took him to a home-run Japanese preschool class today and he tried to escape for the first 30 minutes of it. I'll enroll him in it, but four Friday mornings a month costs me almost one third of what I was paying for full-time daycare in Japan and that included lunch. And the sad thing is, he wants to go. He keeps asking me when he'll start hoikuen again. All of the trips to the library and the supermarket don't replace being with your peers and having lots of fun activities to do. I suck at the whole home-schooling thing.

I'm hating the gurgling toilet in our over-priced rental condo. I'm hating the rain, the endless horrible rain. I'm hating the too tight parking space that makes me fear taking off the side mirror on a concrete column. I'm hating the moving boxes that are still stacked in the hall. I'm hating the chick on Craigslist who sold us an Ikea bunk bed that is missing the clamps to hold the ladder in place, and no, I couldn't get them from Ikea, I tried. She won't return my emails or calls.

I hate all of this right now. I knew this would happen, but no matter how much I try to blow sunshine, I really just want to bury my head in my hands and cry. I had a life. A flawed life, but a life. And now I have to go through the work to put a life together again. Yes, I didn't have to get a driver's license or open a bank account. We still had those things. Yes, I have a sister who listens to me and invites me over for wine. Yes, I have a partial life. It's a life and I need to live this life and stop being pissed off that I don't have the other one anymore. I'm working on that too.

iyo iyo saigo...

The end is here at last... (That's what the title means.) Today, DS1 said good-bye to his first grade classmates and I picked him up from school. His teacher gave him a kanji dictionary and I gave her a pound cake and cookies from the local pastry shop.

DS2 had his last real day of daycare. His teacher gave him minicars, a Pokemon DVD and stickers. I gave her gift certificates. I gave all the staff and teachers at his daycare rice crackers and cookies. I'm getting pretty good at obligatory gifts.

Tomorrow is happyokai, or performing arts assembly. My last one. Funny how three years ago, I dreaded it. Two years ago, DS1 was sick and I rejoiced at not having to be packed like a sardine into a tiny room to hear 5 year olds sing and watch them dance. Last year, I was nostalgic. DS1 was in his last year of hoikuen and danced and drummed and sang. DS2 danced with other three year olds. This year, I am weepy. Of all this is coming to an end.

I have been out to lunch or dinner multiple times this week. I am tired, strung out, and ready to burst into tears every time someone says good-bye to me. I'm still getting rid of stuff, packing bags and wondering how everything will play out on Monday.

It is the end and I'm sad. And telling me I should be happy that I'm going back to my home country doesn't actually make me less sad. And platitudes about "one door closing and another one opening" don't actually help with the sadness either.

I'll blog from the other side when it's "iyo iyo hajimaru." (At last, it begins.)

Three weeks later, four to go...

So, it's three weeks after the movers came and four weeks before we get on a plane to Seattle. I'm sitting on my futon in the middle of my mother-in-law's living room. These past three weeks have been tiring. I did Christmas. I did New Year's. I've had two sick kids on my hands, one week apart. I still have boxes of stuff that I'm getting rid of.

The oldest finally goes back to school tomorrow after winter break. I start work again tomorrow and for the next 3 weeks. I have one foot in two worlds. My husband google chats us everyday after work. He is lonely and not enjoying being single in the condo we have rented in Seattle. I want to be there with him, but I don't want to give up my job and life here. But right now I have half-a-life. I don't have my own kitchen, or computer, or even a room.

I'm stuck in grass-greener mode. My own space and life in Seattle seem greener, but I know I will be hating my return to full-time SAHM status. I will want my life in Japan back. I will suffer from reverse culture shock. I will struggle to find my voice and purpose again. And I will blog about it all, but very infrequently.

two beers later.

Can we say "Day from hell?" I was up before 6, which is unusual for me. The movers got here at 9 a.m. They were actually here at 8:50, but being the polite Japanese that they are, they waited until exactly 9 a.m. before ringing the bell.

A friend helped me from 9 to 12. She deserves a steak dinner, but that's another story. We finished sorting out all the crap near my desk and putting away the stuff that the movers weren't taking care of.

The biggest shock was that the movers wanted to finish in one day. I really didn't want to shut down my computer and say good-bye to my desk. I felt weepy when I put my iMac into its fashion forward industrial design box. The movers swooped in with 5 folks (6 later) and proceeded to pack our lives into 127 boxes. If this sounds like a lot, remember that 6 of those were chairs, 2 of those were desk and parts, and only a measly 7 were boxes of books.

They finished at 6:15 and left me with homework: 127 box descriptions to assign a yen value to. I promptly drank a beer and then I had another one, since this was a two beer kind of day. I will finish this blog and Grandma will bathe the kids and I will get them to bed. After that, I will ignore the remaining mess in my condo and finish the evil paperwork. And then, I will figure out where the hell I'm sleeping since my boys have bunk beds at Grandma's, but I have nothing.

The opposite of white space...

My word of the year has been white space. Yes, I know that's two words.

I am currently living in the opposite of white space. If I was motivated, I would take a picture of the pit of despair that is my home. The movers come next Monday. This week, I have helped remove from my condo: a washing machine, a bookshelf, an oven, a sofa, bunk beds, a home theater system, boxes of books, dishes, clothes and toys. And yet, strangely, my home still has waaaaaay too much crap in it.

I am plugging away at it, but honestly, I think the packers are going to come on Monday and take a look at my condo and do a lot of teeth sucking. They are going to blink and in that polite, indirect Japanese way ask me if there is someplace that they can work.

The ironic thing in all this is that 3 years ago yesterday, we moved into this place. And shortly thereafter, got our big shipment of stuff out of storage. I feel like someone hit the rewind switch and instead of unpacking, my life is going in reverse and I'm walking backwards and putting the stuff back in the boxes.

Which might also explain the lack of brain cells going on. This week alone, I have managed to forget my child's backpack, leave my purse in the car overnight, and walk off without teaching materials on several occasions. Obviously, my cranial rewind is causing data loss.

White space, black hole. Yin and yang?

Gratitude

I am not feeling grateful these days. No, indeed. My husband moved to the U.S. last week and I am facing an international move with a 4yo and a 7yo.

So in an effort to not turn this into a rambling, hate-my-life blog entry, I offer up the following things I am grateful for:

1) Being invited to the end of year party for the teachers at my son's daycare. I teach English there once a month and when I told them we are moving in February, the head of the school invited me. It was lovely going out, drinking and getting a beautiful frame with photos of me and my boys' time at the daycare.

2) Receiving multiple offers of help from the moms I know. One mom is coming over to help me sort out my kitchen and bedrooms before the international movers get here on 12/20. She even offered to take all my give-aways and trash so I wouldn't have to deal with it.

3) Living next door to my MIL. Today I was sleep deprived and in a foul mood. She offered to take both boys so I could take a nap. She also made dinner tonight. We will be living with her from 12/20 until we get on a plane in February. I am grateful for that.

4) Finding a buyer for our condo. This one I have a harder time with. We lost a lot on the sale of our condo. We are upside down on our mortgage and will have to pay out of pocket on 12/24 when we sell our place. But I am grateful that we have savings in the U.S. and my husband has a new job. It is only money. (Repeat, until I believe.)

5) Having a sister in Seattle. She is letting my husband live in their basement until he gets an apartment figured out sometime this week. She also picked him at the airport. Him, and his enormous duffel and bicycle box.

6) Having a husband with a job. I may have not been ready to leave Japan, but ultimately, my husband needed to move to somewhere with decent IT jobs. He starts his new job on Monday and is excited to be back in the world of software development.

7) Having a husband who has deal with all the relocation crap on that end, even if I'm stuck with the crap on this end. He has been apartment hunting, car hunting and is still jet-lagged.

I have much to be grateful for. I just need someone to keep telling me this. The soundtrack of my brain keeps playing the wrong tune. I need a new anthem.

Zero to Angry in 10 seconds.

This is one of those self-flagellation blog entries. The husband is off to America to look for work. He is eating pizza, shopping at the Apple store and Nordstrom Rack, and going out to lunch with former co-workers. I am happy for, and envious of, him.

Today was the start of a 3 day weekend. I had visions of baking cookies, going to a festival, and doing some beach-combing. Instead, my boys and I went to the video store, the grocery store and Mister Donuts. Sometimes I really dislike being a mom to boys. I tried to get them interested in making cookies, but instead they decided to beat each other up with plastic bats.

I made a conscious effort to let them have some sensory fun. I have an old container of stale coffee beans that I was going to throw out. I let them play with it on the dining room floor, with the only rules being that they contain the beans to the dining room and help clean up the mess afterward. Forty minutes later, I'm yelling at them because they are crushing beans into a fine powder, taking "showers" with the beans and getting them under the couch, in the tatami room, and under the floorcloth in the dining room. Much nagging later, the beans were picked up and the room vacuumed, but I felt like a failure in the "spontaneous fun" mothering contest.

As the day progressed, more whining and fighting ensued. My 4yo is going through some phase where everything ends in tears. We only watched one video, "Wahhhh!" Big brother touched his balloon, "Wahhhhhhhhh." I didn't get milk with dinner, "Wahhhhhhh!" I'm seriously tempted to wear headphones to drown out the constant noise of his disappointment.

By the time the boys went to bed, I had already threatened, yelled, ranted, steamed and pouted at both of them, multiple times. Not an effective style of parenting. I know the stress of my own life is manifesting itself this way, but I can't seem to stop. Hence, zero to angry in 10 seconds.

Now I'm going to watch a mindless movie and ignore the dishes in my sink.