Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Permanent Departure



We are down to 37 days before Z and I depart from Jakarta. Like any move, there is so much to do, arrange the moving process, moving the dog, changing the mail. There are also the added aspects of a a State Department move, medical clearance, shipping your things internationally (do you want it, hopefully, quickly. Then it goes UAB. Or you can wait for the slow boat, it goes HHE), planning our home leave to the States. And for an added bonus, once again one of our offspring is graduating from High School and headed off to college this fall so she is getting her own shipment!

This is also that time when you come to terms that you will not see all of the country that you wanted to. This can be particularly challenging when you are in a country as large as Indonesia. My American friends may not quite realize this but Indonesia covers roughly the same area that the Continental U.S. does. It is a country of diverse and amazing beauty and some of it is very hard to get to. With that in mind we are planning a few more desperate trips in an effort to see just a little bit more.

During one of our nightly dinner conversations (HUGE plug: sit down and eat dinner with your family. You will have all kinds of interesting conversations.) Z and I were dwelling on the fact we are leaving a place we may never return.
This made me really sit back and think. Certainly I have traveled to places I will likely never visit again,  but leaving a place you have lived for almost two years seems to have much more significance. Most moves in my life I left  with the belief that I would be back in that place again. I don't know that we can say it this time. The nature of this life we have chosen, and the regional nature of T's position makes it less likely that we will live here in the future. This makes it feel so permanent.

Jakarta with all of its warts....traffic, pollution, lack of green space, has come to feel like our home. And now we are departing. I am sure that Amman, will present new adventures. I'm already wondering about transitioning from the tropics to the desert. Do I have enough lotion?

So we are staring down this new adventure. Our first transfer season. And we are taking time to say goodby to this beautiful place. Don't get me started about having to say goodby to the people. Instead I think I will use the standard State Department ....See You Sometime.



1 comment:

  1. Sean and I truly hope to be posted in Indo. again in the future. I miss it terribly. I was told I would feel like this about my first post and I'm glad I do because I didn't get to see nearly enough of it! Ambon was high on my list. Flores, more Lombok, more Bali of course. Sumatra! Seluwesi... The list is long. So, my point is, if I'm there again in the future you are totally welcome come back and stay with us. We can go buy pearls and have new gem stone/silver rings made. We can almost climb volcanoes :) ! We can order tahu goreng and drink old Fashioneds. Even if we don't get posted there again we can still meet up and test our Bahasa skills on a new adventure! I'm going back, God willing, because I can't imagine my life without seeing more of Indonesia!

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