…pack it in. That’s it, we’re packed up. We arrived in Bangkok with 134 boxes and a hefty dose of culture shock. The girls were just tiddlers, aged two and four, and my husband’s hair was only slightly greying. Two and a half years later we are leaving with 211 boxes, a seven year old, a five year old…and a silver fox who is fast approaching forty. Yikes.
The culture shock abated as we got stuck into expat life out here, made new friends and created lasting memories. There are things I will be glad to leave behind – the traffic, the distance from loved ones, the rats and the c’roaches (as my littlest one calls them). There are things I would love to magically transport – our friends, our amazing helper, Noo, the fantastic food, sunny afternoons by the pool and the fact I never have to wear socks.
But, as I keep telling my girls, home is wherever the four of us are together. Those lasting memories are shared memories. While it hasn’t always been easy, I hope the last two and a half years have enriched our daughters’ lives as much as they have ours. That they take with them some of that wonderful Buddhist calmness, the Thai smile and the willingness to try new things. And God forbid any visitors to our house in Germany come inside without taking off their shoes!!
So we now have a few weeks of hotel living while the girls finish school and we are looking forward to the round of farewell parties, birthday parties and a final fling at the beach.
And then we’ll pack up our cases and crack on with setting up home again in a new place. And we’ll be ok because we’ll be together, and we’ve done it before, and we know it will be ok in the end. And those extra seventy seven boxes?? Well, we wanted more than just memories to remind us of our time here 😉