reunited. finally.

my retreat staff has arrived. 🙂
 
 
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hey! i have an idea!

why don’t we leave our family and friends (including our 2 sons) and move to a foreign country, where we will be totally overwhelmed by a new culture and a new language?

and let’s take it one step further and go through the slow, complicated immigration process to stay legal and become residents (and eventually citizens).

i try to stay as positive and upbeat as i can. i really do. and i’m usually successful. but the last two-and-a-half weeks have been a bit more than i’ve felt able to handle. they have tried my soul.

• worrying about two family members, realizing our helplessness from afar
• spending hours, once again, inside the complicated mix of immigration requirements
• missing cues and clues, leading to a misunderstanding with a friend
• shopping for cars, when we had no time to spare from renovation work
• buying a car, with very different procedures for insurance and registration
• sifting through still more piles of moldy dirty trash, even more disgusting when it’s someone else’s stuff
• continuing to spread dust throughout the house, all over our floors and furniture and cats and clothes
• voicing irritability and tension in unproductive ways
• breaking a beautiful beloved vase (a wedding gift from a dear friend/cousin that has traveled everywhere with us for almost 29 years – including all the way to italy), trying to glue it back together, being forced to say a final goodbye
• dealing with several odd health ailments
• experiencing two small-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things-but-still-disappointing developments
• encountering a disturbingly rude individual (not of italian descent)
• feeling TIRED TIRED TIRED, every single day, to the point that i cannot form a coherent sentence

 

 
 
however, despite my very long list of complaints (and in a nod to last week’s “mindful” post), eric and i both continue to notice something positive.

things have been sailing along.

lots of progress with the villa renovations.
happy excitement while planning my retreat.
positive and inspiring updates from a & n (sons) in the u.s.

and then a phone call, in the wee hours monday morning.

RAIN.
beating against the windowpanes.

WIND.
so violent it kept me awake during the night.

COLD.
unseasonably cool, and a concrete house that isn’t always cozy.

following a fabulously fun birthday,
i’ve had a surprisingly sad week.
not-so-cheery news, combined with a list of physical ills,
propelling me into a bleak kind of funk.