1 Year : Then and now..

Small break from Covid-19 diary… We marked one year in April since we decided to start this family journey. Where we started vs. where we are now… One sentence to sum up: Crazy roller coaster! It definitely beats ones in Six-flags!

What a journey! And what switchbacks life decided to throw to all of us!!! I think this may be true for all of us, not only to our family.. Each one of us lives in her/his daily lives and we have our own experiences and interpretation no matter where we are.. Especially times like this, every experience is unique on its own. What I can do is to share our experience to document.

When we decided to come to Belgium, we were going through life-time event and decisions. Some of them are intentional and some of them we don’t have any control..

Stitch- our dearest dog passed away. He lived for 14 years with us and David essentially grew up with him. It still aches my heart to remember the time he was fading away during his last year. But he taught us so much about love and pets are truly a part of family.
David, our son – He stays in US. We knew there were potential risks since our family essentially would be separated between US and Belgium. But to be honest, that was not a serious concern for us because the flight from NY to Brussels (~7 hours) is shorter than from NY to LA. Our reasoning at the time is if David were in LA for college, it would not have any more difficult than NY to Belgium.. While that is true, we definitely underestimated the difficulty. That difficulty tripled when Covid-19 hits everywhere. Sometimes, the pain was really raw and deep even before Covid-19, and the only thing I could think about is to pack and go home at the moment.
Our home and our extended family – We will come home in US. We are not quite sure whether we can really come back to NY due to the job situation, but we will be back to US for our home and extended family.
Okay. Everything else was an open question and still remains uncertain.

I guess we always wonder whether we would ever make the right choice in any decision we make. I am wondering whether there is any right or wrong decision ever. Sometimes, it feels right or sometimes it does not.

Thinking back from last decade (2011-2020), our family went through pretty serious adventures across three continents: Korea for 2 years, US and Europe now.. Uprooting our family every time and experiencing what it meant to live in a different country. In each case except US, not all of us or none of us could speak the language. If I read this in the book, I would think “wow, they are totally crazy!! And wish I could live like that”.. When “they” become “you, and I “, the experiences could be so overwhelming and difficult to see the excitement and pleasure. It surely appeared more glamorous than what I felt at the time.

But looking back for last year, I admit that this is the unique opportunity of life experience for me and my family. We are learning about ourselves, our strength and weakness. We have been learning about our family and growing together. I am truly grateful to have this experience as our own and have friends and family to make this possible…

I do not know whether this journey will continue or what is coming next. So far, the life has reserved plenty of surprises.. One thing for sure is that I continue to doubt our sanity (or insanity)… But this may be why we are all humans. At least this is what makes me who I am..