Friday July 15th, 2011
2:23 pm. The wheels on our flight from Seattle to Amsterdam just retracted and we're now unequivocally committed. After a decade of consideration, a year of determination and a month of somewhat frantic preparation we are off.
This past week has been much more difficult than we expected. Emotionally it was super-tough. In our busy lives, we don't think that much about not seeing close friends as frequently as we'd like. Sports, school and work commitments, and the general routines we all enjoy preclude a lot of relationship maintenance. If after a year you haven't seen a close friend it's a bummer but life goes on. For some reason though, when you're making the conscious decision to leave for the year, and physically separating yourself by 1/3 of the planet or more, the parting with family and friends is super tough. Seeing your children hug their friends and sharing tears and saying their goodbyes is really difficult. Seeing grandparents, parents, in-laws, brothers, nieces, nephews and many dear friends for the last time in a year was very hard on all of us. I held back a lot of tears during these goodbyes, but on the final day seeing the kids maul their dog as they said goodbye to her made a big fat chocolate mess out of each of us. Lots of tears. In my next life I want to be a Labrador Retriever.
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