5 Years

This is what 5 years looks like.

Five years ago tonight, we arrived at the airport, checked in 17 bags, hugged our family goodbye for the last time and made our way through security.  We  took a deep breath, one long last look at our home country and stepped out onto the jet bridge and into the plane that would take us 9000 km and a continent away.  We would make that flight dozens of times over the course of our time in Chile, but none of those trips were as life changing as that very first.

Five years ago, we became an expat family.

And in those five years, we have moved south of the equator, and then back north again, but have never gotten any closer to home (we are still 9000 km away).  We have spent a total of 6 months living out of nothing but suitcases while all of our worldly belongings sailed their way across the ocean packed tightly in a shipping container.  We have moved houses 3 times; the girls have attended 3 schools in two languages and are studying their 3rd (and in June they will begin learning their 4th).  It has been challenging.  It has been exhilarating.  And it has been nothing like I thought it would be as I naively set foot on that jetbridge all those years ago.

Because those five years have changed me in ways I never could never have imagined that day.  I knew that life would never be the same, but somehow I didn't figure in the fact that I would never be the same either.  And neither would my family.

I knew we would grow physically.  I have visual proof of that...

But the pictures can't ever begin to show you how we have grown emotionally, mentally and spiritually as a family.  They don't show the hurt and scars that have been left by having to say goodbye, time and again.  They don't let you see our excitement as we meet and befriend new people.
There are no physical reminders of the embarrassment we have felt at breaking social customs, or the pride we feel when we finally get it right.

We have been worried and exhausted.  Wary and Confused.  But we have also proved time and again that we are strong (sometimes by being weak) and that we are confident in our ability to weather the ups and downs of this crazy life.

We have been blessed by this life, but we have also been overwhelmed.

It has been crazy.  And it has been amazing.  And it has been inspiring.

I still don't know what the final impact will be but what I do know for sure is that five years ago today, we became an expat family, and I wouldn't have it any other way.