"The Returnee..."

We are in the middle of a roller coaster of transition. We left Uganda on 1st July, and travelled to visit Dan's family in America... Now we arrive in England, where I have not lived since 1992, almost twenty years ago... I left young free and single, and return with an American husband and two children, aged 11 and 9... I hope to describe the experiences of "the Returnee", with, no doubt, flashbacks to our African life, and commentary from my children along the way...

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Second time around

As our second year living in England begins, I have definitely noticed a sea-change in my state of mind. Doing things for the second time makes me realise we have been here a while now, and it is beginning to sink in that there is a long while still ahead. Subconsciously for the whole last year I think I was living in a "temporary" state of mind - I knew we were here for a long time, but my mind didn't really know it.

We are still in the summer holiday, but next week we have to buy new school shoes and replace a few bits of uniform. Thinking about doing that again, I realise that this time I know which shops to go to, I know roughly how much things will cost, I know how long they might last, I know whether we need to get one or two of each thing (or more) - hey, I even know what schools the children will be in in two weeks time... that is a lot more "knowing" than I possessed this time last year. It feels a lot more comfortable, and I feel much more settled.

1 comment:

  1. This is encouraging for me to read! I just wrote a blog about figuring out routines- it is a lot of work for sure.

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