Muscle memory.
I dreamed of turtles last night. Sea tortoises, to be exact.
And I rolled over as the sun started to rise wondering what it meant.
I have been waking early this week. As I tend to do when the days grow shorter. Or, I guess, as I tended to do.
It’s an endless summer here in the tropics. Even though the calendar tells me it should be sweater weather season, I’m still lounging around in my sleeveless Presidio dresses from Athleta. The only pumpkin spice in my life is in the form of a candle that my best friend Other Emily sent in a care package last week. And I know that it’s true but I’m finding it hard to believe that it’s October already.
Since we got back from Joe’s grandma’s funeral in Omaha two weeks ago, things have been… unremarkable.
Maybe that’s remarkable in and of itself.
I was noticing the other day — out loud, of course — that it no longer felt like I was just surviving here. Not really thriving yet, but somewhere in that place where it no longer feels like a total upstream slog to get through each day.
I have a routine. It’s a little lather, rinse, repeat at the moment but it’s a routine. And I have been having tiny little glimpses that things might get OKish even if they may never be exactly as I had envisioned they would be before we arrived.
A friend who happens to be another Foreign Service spouse mentioned that it usually takes her about 6-9 months to settle into a new post. That she spends the first 3 months enamored with a new city and country and then another 3 months being annoyed by everything before finally things start to normalize.
I think I skipped the enamored phase here. (I’m sure the mishaps and struggles with our landing didn’t help.) And, by my reasoning, if I jumped straight into annoyance phase then the next phase should be normalization.
I’ve been able to get back into my coaching certification work. With any luck (and a lot of concentrated effort), I should be graduating early next year. I had worried that I’d lost my mojo but got some really good feedback from a trainer today so I’m no longer feeling like a lost cause. (But ask me again in November and December when I’m in the thick of the observation and paper-writing period…)
We found out this week that there is indeed a spot for Nicolas starting in January for the preschool we wanted. It feels like both a long way off for a kid who’s been missing playing with other kids and also not so very far away when I think about it.
And Joe bought us a rower that should be coming in a few weeks. I think I whined enough about how unwalkable the city is just outside our residencial and how I feel like I’m just becoming a blob here that he bought it just to get me to shut up. (I jest. Mostly. We’re both feeling the effects of not getting some decent cardio in.) I’m hoping it’ll do wonders both for my atrophying limbs and also for my general disposition.
All of this to say, there’s something about being here that is starting to feel more recognizable and more familiar. Even if it’s also completely different.
