What a whirlwind of a month we’ve had!!! Kaigan and I traveled 31 hours from New Plymouth, New Zealand to Louisville, Kentucky, which included a delay in LA, resulting in a missed flight in Dallas, putting us in Louisville four hours later than planned, causing us to miss our ride with Jenn to her house. The airline put us up in a hotel and Jenn got us in the morning and took us to the car dealership where we purchased Kaigan’s car. Sheeewwwww!!!
We visited with Grammy, Jenn and Sam for three days which included manicures, shopping, games and eating. Saying “goodbye” all over again, especially to Grammy was extremely hard.
Saturday night, Kaigan and I drove down to Somerset where we spent the next five days seeing as many friends as we could. I also went to see my babies, Bella and Soochie. These five days were extremely difficult; like opening the wound all over again. I’ve said before, I really like New Zealand and have no regrets about moving there. However, six months is not long enough to call it home. We lived in our Kentucky community for over 12 years, longer than I lived in any one community before. Kentucky was and still is home to me and returning after only 6 months was so very painful. My wounds from our departure in February had only just begun to heal. Visiting so soon just reopened them. Hopefully, upon my return, I’ll be able to start to make New Plymouth home.
In addition to the emotional difficulties of the visit, Somerset/Science Hill visiting was also challenging because of the high concentration of close friends there and so little time to see them all. Our culture socializes and visits typically over meals. Well, there are just so many feasible meals in a day and I was utilizing them all! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you want to look at it), my jet lagged stomach was not up for large, frequent and American-style dining. And Kaigan’s appetite was worse than mine! In short, 5 days is too little time to see all the people I’ve come to love in the last 12 years. To those I didn’t get to see, know you’re loved just the same. And to all of you, well it’ll be some time before I head that way again. But please, feel free to come see us!!!
Next stop, one quick night at Mom’s then to Billy’s sister in the morning for a day of jet skiing on Lake Pontchartrain with her, her husband and his daughter. We then crossed the lake for an amazing dinner at Drago’s. Sunday afternoon, we headed to a New Orleans Zephyr’s baseball game with some dear friends. We spent one night with them then to New Orleans with Mom to the WWII museum and the Riverwalk. We played tourist but the Crescent City is home too. We ate good and remembered the effects of 100% humidity in 95+ degree temps. Wow!
Two more nights at Mom’s, visiting, packing and eating, then to Denham Springs/Baton Rouge to visit more friends and have lunch with my Dad and his wife. We ate at my favorite, Mike Anderson’s Seafood, where 20 years ago Billy and I meet and the rest, well, the rest is history.
Finally on Friday night, I met up with some high school classmates with whom I’ve been in touch with on Facebook for dinner and lots of laughs.
Saturday was spent with Mom again, packing, eating, football! and eating (did I say that?)
What had I taken for granted in the US? Besides being near friends and family, I took for granted how cheap things are here!!! When I first set foot in Walmart upon our return, I was stunned by the low prices! I’d forgotten how cheap things are! Crayola’s for $.97, 5-packs of tee shirts for $9.97, jumbo shampoo for $4.44! Suddenly I had a realization: This is precisely why we had collected so much crap over the decades. Everything is so cheap. If you like it, you buy it. If you think you might use it, you buy it. If you have one but you like this one better, you buy it. If you have on that works fine, but you think it might break one day, you buy it. If you’re on the fence whether or not you like it, you buy it cause it’s just too cheap not to. This condition plagued us when we lived here. We were blessed to have a good income and didn’t have to worry too much so if we wanted something we pretty much just bought it. We’re not showy people, didn’t drive fancy cars. We had a large house because we have a large family. But we were definitely comfortable and well, probably rather spoiled. Now, in NZ, NOTHING is cheap. We buy what we need. Nothing makes you say “I’ll pass” like sticker shock. I’m quite disappointed in myself at how fast I fell right back into old patterns of thinking. While I did shop to bring back things that we either can’t get or are too expensive in NZ, I continually caught myself almost binge buying; rationalizing why I should buy certain things. I REALLY tried to stick to my list. Actually, for the most part I did. Ok, almost. (It’s not my fault that my Kindle crashed after putting like 20 new books on it and had to buy a new one!)
So now Kaigan and I are in Daytona Beach, my most dreaded part of this trip. Thankfully he is so excited. I know he’s nervous too but seeing his excitement in his future ahead of him makes it a little easier to watch him fly out of our nest. We’ve had fun and it will continue this week. But as he gets busy with the school orientations and activities, I know I’ll feel him pulling away. My heart is breaking but I could not be more proud of him and the man he’s become. Please pray that I have the strength to board that plane on Saturday.
