At 16:00, my ride to the airport comes to pick me up. After that I will not officially be residing with my husband for the next 7 months.
This is the major downside to this move; I’ve said that I’ll miss lots of things in Taiwan and it’s true, but there are enough things to look forward to that I’d be totally unconflicted about the move if it weren’t for this separation.
The saving grace is that Ted has a business trip out there at the end of this month, so I’ll see him in only 19 sleeps. This is the part they don’t tell you about moving up the corporate ladder; at least two of the Board at our company live apart from their families (in France) and only see them on weekends, and another VP is gone from his home at least 50% of the time. Ted’s boss is sympathetic and has even talked about moving him to the Netherlands earlier, so we’ll see: he doesn’t want to do that if it means taking a job he won’t like. I’m hoping that while we’re officially living apart we won’t actually have to go more than a month or so between seeing each other.
Still, phooey. Do not like long separations. I made sure to tell him last night that if my plane went down today into the Caucasus (or, um, whatever mountains I’ll be flying over) I’d have no regrets about any of the time we’ve spent together. The time we’ve spent apart, maybe. I’d have very few regrets at all, really; I’ve done a good many of the things I always wanted to do. Not that I’m ready to stop living yet! Still on my list: take a wanderjahr to travel around the US; compete in regattas into my 70s and 80s; build a house just the way we want it; retire and enjoy not having to go to work every day. And other smaller stuff; there are sweaters I want to knit, poems I want to write (and places I want to sell them to!), people I want to spend more time with. So this isn’t meant to be a goodbye message! Just … taking stock on the cusp of another big change, and having few regrets so far.
Still, I think this entry could best be summarized as: Waaaaaaaahhhh! *sniff*
Best wishes for a smooth flight. Good luck.