PYHO: CHINA . . .

 

As many of you know, we spent a year living in China.  We were transferred there for my husband's job.  It all happened very quickly.  We were on vacation with some good friends on the Monday that we found out.  We returned home on the following Monday.  Four weeks and a day later we were on a plane heading to China.  

I believe I spent the first 8-10 weeks crying.  I was NOT happy to be there.  I missed my family.  I missed my friends.  I missed my LIFE.  But slowly, VERY SLOWLY, I started to adjust to our new life.  I started making friends.  I started finding things that I enjoyed doing.  

Now don't get me wrong, I'm VERY glad to be home, but by the time we left, I was sad to leave.  Part of me wishes that we had stayed a little longer.  I don't think 1 year was long enough.  It was a GREAT experience for all of us.  We learned a lot.  We saw things we never would have been able to see.  We traveled to new places. 

But Sarah will never remember any of it.  She'll have the pictures, but not really any memories.  And imagine how far in life the kids would go if they'd spent 4 or 5 years living in another country.  As a parent, we want our kids to have the best things in life.  We want them to have opportunities we never had.  We want them to do better than we did.  The school they were attending was an AMAZING school.  Imagine the college scholarships they could get if they spent years overseas.  

Yes, I'm glad to be home.  But some days, I miss our life in China.  I miss my Ayi!  :)  I miss being able to walk to just about anywhere we wanted to go.  I miss walking across the street and buying a movie for $2.  I miss Hot Pot.  I miss my friends.  (Although most of them are gone by now).  I miss learning new things and seeing new places.  I miss the closeness we had as a family.  Being away made us closer.  We had no one else to depend on, so we HAD to depend on each other.  Yes, we're still close.  We'll always be close.  But it was different there.  

So yeah, I'm VERY glad to be home.  But I also miss China.  And I don't regret for ONE MINUTE the opportunity we had to live there.