Returning

Last Saturday morning I was making a shopping list for the farmers market and planning meals for the following few days.  With all of our guests lately, we are going through food even more quickly!  I was thinking about which items from the grocery store I might be able to "stock up" on, when my calculations revealed that we will be here in our house for only a total of two more weeks.  Oh my!  It suddenly makes everything seem so final.

It is strange, thinking about this "other life" we have been leading here and the new normal we have established.  We have our routines and ways of doing things that we don't give much thought to anymore.  Having visitors has reminded us of things that we have taken for granted.  I wonder which things we will notice when we return to the US that we had "forgotten" about or on which we will have new perspectives.  For example, when A and I returned to the US on Memorial Day weekend for the last week of school and activities celebrating her graduation from Middle School, I was struck by how wide the roads were, especially when coupled with the wide front yards and parking lots on either side.  And, how empty the sidewalks of pedestrians and bicyclists!

I have mixed feelings about our return to the US.  I am definitely looking forward to being back with friends and neighbors, having much easier communications, and just being surrounded with the comfortable and familiar aspects of home.  On the other hand, it also means a step back into the reality of my life, which is busy, busy,  busy.  We have commitments, activities, and a social life which we have completely dropped from our daily schedule here.  All of these fill up our calendar and sometimes require intricate coordination of everyone's plans.  While A and I were in Columbus, I was immediately plunged into this busy-ness as I drove to and from school, activities, and visits with friends.  It was a fun and special time, but I drove more in that five days than I had been driven (I haven't been behind the wheel a single time) in the past five months here in Germany.

The mom-as-taxi-driver is one part of my life that I do not miss at all!  When we return and settle back into our every-day lives I hope to make some changes: using the public transport, bad as it is, a little more often, investing in bikes for the whole family, and making more choices to walk rather than drive.  Maybe we can also make some choices about how we spend our time, now that we have the perspective of having more free time and having lived without such a full schedule.