Before we left Thailand to move to our home country — a place we left when we were in our 20s, which was a LONG time ago!!! — we did a “100 Day Countdown.” A good friend had encouraged us to daily write down
- one thing we would miss about living in Thailand, our home for almost eleven years, and
- one thing we would look forward to as we moved to our next destination.
Gotta admit… I didn’t write something every day, but one of the advantages of this exercise was that it helped to reframe my thinking.
I had a lot of contradictory emotions about our move. I was both excited and fearful. Eager and yet dragging my feet. Overwhelmed one minute and full of hope the next. Unsure of how to relate to people in a culture that had changed vastly during our years overseas.
Focusing on one thing we’d miss and one thing to look forward to helped me see our move in a positive light. Instead of dreading the unknowns, feeling insecure about how to relate to people, second-guessing myself about a lot of things, I started to look forward to what the future — our unknown future — held.
… and now we’ve been here 100 days!!!
I wish I had started counting and commenting on our “First 100 days” earlier, but beginning on Day 79 (better late than never, right?!) I finally began to write down some of my observations/things I’m enjoying about being in our home country:
- being able to wash, dry, and put laundry away the SAME DAY! Living in a tropical climate, we didn’t have a clothes dryer, which meant having to iron a lot of wrinkly clothes! Plus during rainy season you had to allow several days for things to dry!
- being in the same time zone as most of our family — and also being closer to our kids. Now the four of us only live on two different continents instead of three!
- being able to small talk in English with folks we meet on our walks, servers at diners/restaurants , clerks and cashiers.
- having four distinct seasons — although I must admit this winter-that-will-never-end has been a bit much! Our tropically-acclimatized bodies have been through the wringer with temperatures that caused pipes in our home to freeze (at least they thawed within 24 hours!) and then the “Blizzard of 2026” that left us without heat and electricity for 36 hours!!! We’ve never worn so much clothing — INSIDE!!!
- being reminded that every country has its annoying, confusing bureaucracy — and yet successfully navigating some things with Social Security, Medicare/health insurance, drivers licenses.
We’ve had some “bookend” experiences, things that reminded us of bygone days:
- living in the other side of the duplex (two houses that share a common wall) we had been in when we left for Thailand 11 years ago!
- walking on solid-packed snow — and sometimes hearing the crunch, crunch, crunch as we walked — brought back memories of living in Austria and the winter wonderlands we experienced there!
- not having any heat and wearing LOTS of warm clothes INSIDE reminded us of living in Communist Romania where heat and electricity were regulated and infrequent.
There are still things we’re trying to figure out, things that feel “foreign” to us. It’s confusing to us how disagreeing with someone can cause rifts in relationships. It’s hard to see and hear hatred. It’s disconcerting to feel like walking on eggshells, not knowing what to say or not say because of being unsure of where a person stands on any number of issues. It’s disheartening to see common courtesy and respect flagging in our culture.
But then there are glimmers of hope… and I’m reminded once again of the importance of where I’m choosing to put my focus, where I’m choosing to abide.
It’s not a coincidence that lately the word “abide” has been jumping out from my Bible reading. So next blog I’ll be sharing some thoughts on that.
In the meantime, life sure can be crazy at times, but I’m grateful that together we can have joy in the journey of this thing called “Life!”
PS
In case you missed it, you can read about the “100 Day Countdown” here:
Joy in the Journey 