I wrote the following yesterday.

Sid is getting ready to leave tomorrow for Japan for 10 days.  Well, one day heading out, one day heading home, so 8 days that we won’t see him, I guess.  Too long.  Traveling with my husband was once the great joy of my life.  Now hanging out at home with him and our children is.  I have chosen to mother in a fashion, and have enough children, so that my caring for them has to usurp every other endeavor of personal interest I might pursue (except for things I can do in short spurts of time at home, and/or with my children, such as sewing, reading and origami), and I am continually passionately committed to this choice.  But it does sting at such a time as this, as Sid prepares to go to such a wonderful, enchanting, delicious, interesting, beautiful, kind land as Japan.  I know because I have been there.  At least I’ve been there . . . or does that make it harder?  He’s flying first class, there’s enough room in first class for me too, and enough for me to lie down.  I used to love flying everywhere!!  The thrill of anticipation when the stewardess would announce our descent rivaled the thrill of riding the Viper roller coaster at Six Flags in my young mind.  And not because of the physical aspect of the landing, because of the expectation that where we would be landing would surely impart to me an abundnace of life and learning and love, in my time there and I would always come home a different girl than I left home as.  I miss that so much.  But I love life with my kids and I believe strongly enough in the way I’ve been doing things for these last 10 years of my mothering.  I should add that I do know many a wonderful mother that choose both, children and travel.  Together and separate.  It is my personal choice not to leave my younger children for longer than the hours contained in a single day, so leaving home without them isn’t an option.  And with Sid working for much of his trip, it doesn’t seem reasonable for me to take on day after day of four kids, on my own, in a foreign land, including a nursling (that dear sweet nursling of mine!).  Although, writing that now, it does have the feel of the grand adventures of travel I enjoyed as a young girl!  Surely I am capable of such a task, surely we’d all learn so very much, and rely on one another, and get stressed and recover and flourish and expand and come home new people.  Why oh why are we not going??  Oh yeah, Sid could obtain exactly 1 first class ticket for $700.  One day we will all go, not flying first class, but we will go, and we will have a real good time.

There have been many trips Sid has gone on solo before this one, and surely there will be more, but I’m feeling the feelings more intensely this time, I believe, because next Friday, October 7th, will mark the 15th anniversary of Sid’s and my wedding.  He’ll be in Koenji, I’ll be in Santa Ana.  (Have I mentioned how proud I am of my man and that his tattoos are in demand all over the globe?)  I’ve tried to come up with some romantic and symbolic thing we can both do on that day to acknowledge our relationship, but as with every other anniversary, it’s significance is diminished by the fact that the wonder of Sid and I is in every day we spend together.  We find so much joy in each other’s company.  So if we could just get the kids to bed that night, mix up some form of a fizzy juice/vodka drink to share and then watch Mad Men on the couch, that would be perfect.  But okay, maybe I just didn’t apply myself enough to the task of figuring out some romantic thing we could do together, then I could focus on that now instead of how sad it feels that we’ll be apart on what is a super cool landmark in our lives together.  I guess its significance isn’t completely diminished.

Whenever he’s gone, I vacillate between wanting to take it super easy so I can check out emotionally, somewhat, and wanting to take on big, interesting tasks to make the time go faster.  Rearranging furniture is always fun, or redecorating.  This time I’d like to build an outdoor stone masonry oven and begin the trials for finding our family favorite backyard bread recipe to pass down through the generations.  Or build this cool wooden table with nesting benches I found the plans for online, that looks easy enough, and then get one of those big tents from Harbor Freight and erect a veritable “living room in the orchard” for us to hang out in.  I know very well that these things aren’t likely to happen.  I know I should focus on mustering the enormous patience, kindness, goodness, self-control and all the other fruits of the spirit I want to embody for the children while Sid is gone.  Because surely that is not my default setting when my love is so far away from me, under those circumstances my default is more along the lines of pissed, snappy, whiny, are those the vegetables of the spirit?  Ha ha, the rotten fruits?  The weeds and thorns, I suppose.  Anyway.

I recently found exactly 4 letters I wrote when I was nine years old.  They are written on stationary from a kibbutz my mom and I stayed in when we travelled to Israel with Grandpa’s church in 1987.  I have many, many fond memories from that trip, it was one of the ones I referred to in the above paragraph about loving to fly.  The letters were written to each of my siblings and they each highlighted different events of my trip, based on who the letters were written to.  I told my brother Mike about things I had climbed while in Israel, he and I loved to climb.  I told my brother William about a crusader fortress I toured, where there were holes in the upper parts to pour boiling oil onto any invaders.  I wrote to simpler, shorter letters to my 2 year old twin brother and sister, based on what I thought they’d comprehend.  These letters tell me so much about myself and my relationships with my siblings at that time, and they cause me grief too.  It would be 6 more years before my parents would divorce, and that family unity that pervaded my letters would be challenged, and eventually defeated as we all scrambled to find that feeling of family and home wherever we could.  Some of us turned to substances, others to friends, others of us – me – turned inward.  I feel so cut off from that young girl I was, writing those letters to my best friends, as my siblings surely were at that time.  I was nine and I wrote well, I would love to meet nine year old me, now.  I would tell her how special she is.  That she is obviously a bright, interesting and loving girl for her age.  I would tell her that those things will always be a part of her and to always nurture them, never believe that she isn’t those things.  At least that little girl was never forsaken by Jesus, even if His messages to her weren’t loud enough to always comfort her and convince her of her worth.  Surely that nine year old little girl is still very much who I am, even as a mother.  Loving the connection with my kids, nothing more satisfying than sharing stories with them that I know they will like.  Interested in history, I talked about the places I went in my letters with clarity, I obviously liked the stories about the places we’d been, as I would surely love them today.  I also see my own children in the nine year old me, I told my brother about all the cool stuff I got to buy in Israel, a necklace a pen and an eraser.  And I highlighted that the hotel maids put candy under the bedspread for us.  My kids love buying stuff and candy!  Just like every child.  My kids enjoyed hearing me read my old letters almost as much as I enjoyed revisiting them.  What a thing this life is.  Here I am, almost 34 years old.  I never expected to get this old!  Honestly, I just never imagined it until like, maybe two years ago!  And I am happier than I ever thought I could be considering all the drudgery I’ve offered my time to.  I am definitely blown away by how much I love living with, growing and learning alongside, teaching and witnessing the unfolding of - my children.  What a life!  I’ve feel I have been given another chance at unity within a family.