About a week ago I told Evan that there were a some books that I wanted to buy. Knowing that I am frugal and only make purchases after a lot of consideration, he gave me the go ahead. I was a little bit annoyed that he didn’t even want to know which books I was buying so I asked him to guess which books they might be. He tried to make a few guesses then gave up. “Which books are you going to buy?” he asked. My response, since I was feeling sarcastic, “I am thinking of buying a book called ‘How to Usurp Your Husband’s Role and Lead Your Family Into Communism.’” He got a good laugh out of that one. We don’t laugh enough lately.
Ever since we came to Indonesia life has been non-stop. For Evan it’s school and for me it’s the boys. There is always SOMETHING that needs to be thought about, decided on, or done. The insanity never ends. We have both been feeling overwhelmed by things and when that happens we just want to go home. For me today is one of those days.
Living in America is not perfect and part of the reason we left was because we had grown tired of life there. But America is still home. That is where we feel comfortable. We can drive by ourselves, eat food we like, have winter and many other things not found in Indonesia. We miss family and being a part of their lives.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things to love about being here, for example, we live two minutes from the school, it’s always summer, we eat watermelon everyday, and we pay someone to clean our house. However, there are days like today where I don’t want to have to put forth all the effort that living in a foreign country requires of me.
On days like today I don’t want to be in charge of someone taking care of our house, I want to feel that accomplishment myself.
On days like today I am tired of the heat and my brownies not turning out.
On days like today I want to go for a long drive on the back roads in Oregon and have good conversation with Evan while the boys are asleep in the backseat or are (gasp) not with us.
This is how I feel today.
Tomorrow will come and I will hopefully once again be ok with living here. I will enjoy the sunshine, eat my watermelon, and be thankful for my clean floors.
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I love your thoughts! Reading them over and over reminds me of two things: you are a great writer! and I love being your lifemate!
In fact, over the past few years she has become such a wonderful, selfless helper in our marriage that it just makes me want to serve and protect her more in return).
Rereading it at 3am today I realized you probably should have said a little more about why the communism thing is so funny.
For those that read the comments:
– One of the books she wants is “Created to be his helpmeet” by Debi Pearl, which reiterates the biblical notion of wives being submissive to husbands as husbands are submissive to Christ and both are mutually submissive to each other. (If you’re worried, I don’t think Jess would ever try to usurp my role
– I just finished teaching a unit in geography on Russia and so was teaching about the evils of communism (seriously, good idea – the basics are semi-biblical [Read the first three chapters of Acts], the problem is that it seriously doesn’t work and never will and therefore brings/brought more harm than help). Jess had actually come to class that day to help me with something and so she got to sit in on my lesson (a nervous joy for me). “Alright class, altogether now. Communism is… bad!”
hahaha. the communism bit makes me laugh. but i think i can understand what you mean about wanting to be “home,” jess. over the past few days i’ve been thinking about going back to korea for 6 months or so…and after being home for awhile, i just don’t want to go. it’s a hard thing -embracing adventure and new things, but desiring the security and comfort familiar things like home bring. hang in there. i’d do a lot of things for sun and watermelon right about now. =)
Sent to Sandra
[...] Convert to communism. [...]
[...] be a leader as long as you’re filling the position. Whatever you do, don’t usurp his role and lead your family into Communism. That’s [...]