Before writing these blog postings became real, I had this poetic notion and image of how easy it would be to sit at a café and impart my awe inspiring insights and observations through written form every day.
Nope!
This simply isn’t possible or actually very realistic, in our case anyway; maybe if you are single and on holiday all the time – like those blog postings where the pictures are of someone having a cocktail on a beach somewhere while they are travelling the world. But when you have two kids going to two different schools in two different locations requiring different mechanisms of support, whilst you and the missus are trying to study and/or work remotely and you are living in an apartment that has no “mod cons” you can very quickly let time fly by and the blog postings fade into the recess of obscurity.
The reality of it is, the ceaseless normality of life takes over.
Do not get me wrong, I would not change a thing (the important things, like actually making the decision to do what we have done, yes an apartment with heating and a dish washer would have been nice but that’s not what really is important in all of this). It is and has been amazing; the ups and the downs, the good and the bad, the obvious and the ambiguous, the mundane and the extraordinary.
What I am trying to do is paint the real picture; how the struggles, the everyday struggles and tasks, have to be handled and taken care of no matter where you are (especially in our case, as a family having this adventure together – probably not the same for young students, they will have their own struggles). And this is not a value judgement against anyone or a statement about how rough it for us as we did this as a family – no, this is about actually making a decision that some would say is crazy and who mentally create a long list of reasons why not instead of the reasons why to.
However, if anyone asks me how did you do it, my reply will be, by deciding to actually do it. (that is not meant to sound cryptic – lol) Taking the chance and understanding that I would rather be here in Japan thinking wow this has not gone exactly the way I thought, rather than sitting at home thinking I wish we went to Japan.
Nope!
This simply isn’t possible or actually very realistic, in our case anyway; maybe if you are single and on holiday all the time – like those blog postings where the pictures are of someone having a cocktail on a beach somewhere while they are travelling the world. But when you have two kids going to two different schools in two different locations requiring different mechanisms of support, whilst you and the missus are trying to study and/or work remotely and you are living in an apartment that has no “mod cons” you can very quickly let time fly by and the blog postings fade into the recess of obscurity.
The reality of it is, the ceaseless normality of life takes over.
Do not get me wrong, I would not change a thing (the important things, like actually making the decision to do what we have done, yes an apartment with heating and a dish washer would have been nice but that’s not what really is important in all of this). It is and has been amazing; the ups and the downs, the good and the bad, the obvious and the ambiguous, the mundane and the extraordinary.
What I am trying to do is paint the real picture; how the struggles, the everyday struggles and tasks, have to be handled and taken care of no matter where you are (especially in our case, as a family having this adventure together – probably not the same for young students, they will have their own struggles). And this is not a value judgement against anyone or a statement about how rough it for us as we did this as a family – no, this is about actually making a decision that some would say is crazy and who mentally create a long list of reasons why not instead of the reasons why to.
However, if anyone asks me how did you do it, my reply will be, by deciding to actually do it. (that is not meant to sound cryptic – lol) Taking the chance and understanding that I would rather be here in Japan thinking wow this has not gone exactly the way I thought, rather than sitting at home thinking I wish we went to Japan.
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