While there are still one-thousand-and-one things left to do after turning in our visa application, I have decided to take a week off of paperwork and focus on starting to prepare our life for relocation. Naturally, when I think of this huge move I look back to 2009 when we put our house on the market, gave away nearly EVERYTHING we owned and set out, full of excitement, for two years in the Highlands of Western Kenya.
It was a very different move than this one. The move was originally meant to be for just one year (it ended up being two). The move was speckled with trips home and meant Matti would continue to work for the same university that he worked with here. It was, in retrospect, an easy move but it felt huge and I think mentally, insofar as clearing the hurdle of simply making such a big change, it was huge. The university was taking care of our housing arrangements, the university was arranging for our travel and our car, and even our "meal plan" but the intellectual hurdle of moving so far from home made parts of that move feel so much bigger than this one.
I can't help but look back on images of the 6 weeks moving into that first move. It was in the spring , just three and a half years ago.
