Home, where my thought's escaping.

In two and a half months, we will be back in the US, after almost six years of living in Bermuda.  As our time here on the Rock draws to a close, I can't help but reflect on what it's been like, what I've loved, what I have hated, what I am most looking forward to seeing again back home.

Our kitchen, July 2010...



People thought I was joking when I announced I was moving to Bermuda with my husband and two young kids (4 and 5 at the time.)  I had gone back to work for a year, was commuting almost three hours a day, and both kids were in school full time.  Jeff had accepted a position at a smaller firm in NJ and was enjoying the ease of a shorter commute with less stressful law practice.  It all changed when he was offered this crazy job out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

I embraced the idea.  In my mind, I thought of it as a wild lark, the adventure of a lifetime before we got too old to do something crazy like this again.  I remembered the days of living abroad, when I was in law school, and always feeling wistful that I had waited so long to do it.  There's really nothing like living in a different country and culture to give one an appreciation for how global the world has become.  I wanted that again, and I wanted a chance to do it as an adult, with my kids before they got too entrenched in the US school system.

I was also sick of this.



When we moved, I had two kids.  They looked like this.





Now, they look like this.



Oh, and this one showed up...



Jeff always says, "It doesn't matter where we are or where we live, our home is where you guys are."  He's very good like that.  It probably explains why we have been together for 23 years.  He's grounded.

I'm a bit different though.  As much as these years have been amazing, eye-opening, fabulous, beautiful, heart wrenching , exhausting, serene, infuriating, tiresome, lovely, grand, lush, warm, beachy, sunset-y, relaxing, incomprehensible...

all of it.  The good and the bad.  The wonderful, the worst..

I've never believed this was my home.  I've always missed my real home..



A few more sleeps, as they say ... and we will be on our way..