Going Back To America : The Reality

OK, the below blog I copied and changed a few things, its from a blog I often visit of a expat wife who lives in Abu Dhabi but originally from Lake Charles, La. , she is hilarious! I hope if she comes across my duplicate  she doesn't mind. I just could not have said it more perfectly !!!!!! Truly no one understands this life unless they are living it.

Everyone we see in KL is preparing to leave. Come mid-June it is just short of a mandatory evacuation for women and children .  So naturally, as you see friends and acquaintances, the main topic of conversation is: When do you leave? Which airline did you book? how long will you stay, where will you stay.. etc. etc.   We can all identify and relate to each other since every one travels out of here during the summer.  On the other side of the world our families and friends are doing  countdowns…. so are we, but maybe it would be beneficial for others to understand the downside of this summer travel stuff..

Beginning with packing: Have you ever tried to pack for a trip lasting longer than 2 weeks? Pretty tough, huh.. Then try 8 weeks. that’s 56 days folks. The shirts, shorts, jeans, dresses, undies, pj’s, the accessories, the shoes… THE SHOES – this is where I struggle with deciding… all of this but multiply by 4 people.  My head hurts just thinking about it.  Good news is that America is the land of plenty and if we don’t have it, we buy it.  

Oh yes, the flight:  A pretty expensive ride.  It is painful to drop about 8K to a trip anywhere, let alone –  Lafayette, La. or Houston, Texas.... for that kinda cash I’m thinking  London, Paris, etc..... OK. whatever we signed up for this so we just suck it up.  Want to know what it is like on the flight? The flight seats are the same exact as if you were just flying to Hawaii... so no, we do not get seats that lay into beds or any of that fabulousness… that’s business class which costs about a gazillion dollars.   OK, lets do a pretend exercise here. Go to the dining room and line up three chairs as closely as possible.  then closely line up three more chairs in front of you, (one of which some jerk will inevitably recline) Now sit there for 23 hours YES Twenty three hours. Seven hours to Dubai,a two and a half hour layover ( if your lucky), then back on the plane for 16 more hours to Houston and a 4 hour drive to Lafayette. Don’t worry, flight attendants will bring you food and leave the tray in front of you for about an hour… that is really fun when it takes all of 10 minutes to not really eat the airline food and then have to maneuver around it for the next hour. You will do that 5 times. And yes, there’s a bathroom   -  To see what this is like, go in the smallest closet you can find and sit down, now isn't that fun.  The conditions are usually sub-sanitary conditions. Oh, and we fly Emirates which is considered pretty much the Posh airline.

The jet lag:  Oh joy, this truly is a  nightmare.  I see so many people complaining about daylight savings time. Really people it is one hour. ONE.  Lets multiply that times 13 and literally try to switch your  days to nights and nights to days.  This makes you just want to die. You and your children will wake up in the night wanting things like ham sandwiches and chips because your body thinks it is lunch time when it is 2 am.  You wake up every hour all night long and will do this for oh, lets say the next 5-7 nights.  The daytime is not too bad until around 4 pm. You pass out even though you try to keep  awake {but you are exhausted} you need to be awake now so you can finally get one freaking nights sleep. Imagine being the tiredest you’ve ever been, like when your eyeballs burn and your muscles ache kinda tired.  Having just done this trip December, the wounds have not yet healed. I feel like I’m about to walk the plank or into a torture chamber.. whichever one is worse… then when this trip is over we get to switch nights and days again when we return to Malaysia. Awesome!

Once “Hell week” is over with it is time to try and do what we came here for – visit family and friends.  Then you get requests like, Y’all have to come and visit! Please come over, bring the kids.. DANG, didn’t I just come half way around the world!?!? I’d say the fair split in the middle would be to meet somewhere in Europe, but since we are already in the states how about you come to me? LOL.

Away from Dad: The kids and I have lots of fun and stay super busy which distracts us from the pain of missing Tyler for an entire month.  Have you ever traveled away from your spouse for a month? Not easy.  We will miss him terribly. He has learned that if he is curious as to what we are up to or where we have been, he just checks the credit card bill and can give you a play by play of our day… sometimes including 3 trips to chick fil a in the same day.   It has to be lonely here in the condo all by himself with empty beds at night. I’m not sure how he does it, but then again he’s a man, it is different for them. He will admit the first week is pretty wonderful and peaceful, but after that it totally sucks.  I’m grateful that he loves us enough to let us go for so long. The bad news for him is that he will be traveling almost the entire time we are apart. First India then back to KL then to Dubai then back to India then back to Dubai and then finally to the states. How exhausting does that sound?  Boy will he have jet lag!!!!

Leaving: The revolving door of good-byes is part of being an ex-pat.  You have to say goodbye  to friends that have become your family, knowing  you may never see them again usually about this time of year.  Equally awful: having to watch your kids let go of friendships as their friends move away… as you can imagine, the absolute worst are goodbyes to family …. wondering what all you will miss in the time you are away. 

As the joys of summer approach, I try my best to focus on the good because in the end, it is all worth it.   If it wasn’t worthwhile we would not do this over and over again… trust me!