The bittersweet week of farewells

After almost five months at the cancer rehab center (aka my parent’s house) we’re finally on the move. Or, at least, we will tomorrow when we board the plane in Brisbane and head for Bangkok. We’ve spent much of the last two days sorting and packing. It’s all feeling decidedly bittersweet.

So, what’s so bitter about finally getting to go “home” and get on with “real life”? After all, given that we’ve only spent ten weeks in the last year living as a family unit of four, you’d think I would be doing jumping jacks at the prospect of some “normality”. Given the circumstances under which we arrived, you’d think we’d be delighted to leave.

Weeeeellllll… it’s complicated. For me, anyway. Right now Dominic’s sitting on Nana’s lap in the TV room. He’s running a fever and we’re waiting for the Panadol to kick in before we try bedtime again. In the meantime, she’s watching a nature program with him and they’re talking about lizards. After that, they’ll probably look at tractors on the iPad, or maybe birthday cakes.

Leaving feels particularly bitter when I think about how that will change things for the kids. Dominic is never happier at the moment than when he’s following my Dad around this place. When I walked up to the chicken pen with him the other day he talked non-stop, and almost everything he said was related to his Papa.

How they collect the pecans together, and shell them. How they dig in the vegetable garden, and what they find there. How he saw a BIG snake and Papa picked it up with two sticks and put it in the woodpile. How Papa uses the big shovel, and the axe, and (always uttered in a tone of reverence) the chainsaw. How Papa lets him drive the green mower. He does, too. Have you ever seen a two year old steering a ride-on lawnmower?

Dominic is going to miss my parents even more than I will, and I’ll miss them a lot. On the whole, I enjoy parenting more when I’m living with my own parents. Sure, sometimes I have to take a deep breath when there are three or four of us all trying to direct proceedings at once, but for me the benefits of intergenerational living have vastly outweighed the disadvantages.

Not sure my parents would say the same.

So what else would line up on the “bitter” side of the ledger for me?

Not only do I like my parents, I like their house. I like this place – the closest thing I have to a hometown. I like that I can drive around here and not get lost. I like the supermarkets, and the butchers, and all those signs in English. I like that life here is, in some ways, easy. Less interesting, maybe. But easier.

So let’s leave the bitter there, because sitting in the bitter for too long rarely does me much good (and never does me much good the night before an international long haul). Let’s switch channels.

What stacks up on the sweet side of the equation?

First and foremost… Mike’s leaving these shores with the all clear and his first post-cancer blood results came back looking great. We’re still holding our breath a bit about his foot – the wound still isn’t fully healed, but it’s slowly (oh so slowly) tracking in the right direction.

What else? We don’t have to move house in the next couple of months after all because our landlords changed their minds. So. Relieved. And I’m looking forward to building relationships with some of the cool people in Vientiane that we were just starting to get to know better when we had to jump ship around New Years.

So there you have it. Some bitter, some sweet. All mixed up together, as is usually the case. I’ve pretty much stopped expecting untethered sweetness in life. I’ve begun, instead, to appreciate (if not always celebrate) complexity.

Speaking of complexity, it’s 8:20pm and I have to go help finish our packing. Our extensive haul of Australian loot ranges from children’s books to chia seeds and first weigh-in saw us 15kg over our weight limit. I should check out the latest news on the Thailand martial law situation since that could, ah, “complicate” our weekend. I have a cold. So does Dominic, who has climbed out of bed is running around blowing on a party whistle and yelling that he’s thirsty when he’s no such thing, so I better lay down a little maternal martial law on my way towards the suitcases.

And, in the midst of it all, breathe deeply and try to remember to embrace the interesting instead of resent the toll it exacts.

See you on the other side. Assuming we don’t get stuck in Bangkok.