Change Of Plans...

In case you haven't noticed... things have been pretty quiet around these parts lately.  That seems to happen here every so often.  I get into blogging funks and just don't feel inspired to write.  Or it may just be a super busy time of year, and blogging just gets demoted down my priority list.  However, this time this little blogging hiatus has a different explanation. 

You see, literally less than a week after I published THIS post about how I was in a bit of an expat funk and was wishing time away to just get out of here for a while, we got some news that changed my tune in an instant. 

That news being: David will be moving to a new role with this project.  And that new role is a Houston-based role.  And they want him (us) to report there in January. 

So I guess my blogging silence was a combination of denial about this major wrench that was being thrown in our plans for the next few years and the fact that from the day we got that news, things shifted into high gear since we suddenly had less than two months to make another international move happen.  Probably mostly just denial though if I'm being honest. 

I wish I would have blogged during that time... so that I could better remember exactly the mix of emotions I was feeling and how I processed everything.  But I think I really just didn't believe it, and I felt like if I "put it on paper" it would make it more real than I was ready to acknowledge at the time.  But I guess now I'm finally ready (and finally have a spare moment) to document this event and some of my feelings surrounding it. 

I remember very clearly exactly when David told me the news.  I just leaving work on a Friday.  We had kind of known that this was a vague possibility for a few days, but I really hadn't thought anything of it, as I had kind of gotten used to these somewhat regular talks of assignment changes and then nothing ever coming of them.  But it just so happened that this time, something did come of it.  The moment I read that text saying that we would be heading back to Houston, my heart sank and tears filled my eyes.  I remember driving home and all of a sudden this place and everything I was driving by just seemed different- more special somehow.  My "this may be the last time I (fill in the blank) mindset started from that very moment I think.  It's funny how just days earlier I was just so ready to get out of this place.  I needed a break, and I wanted that break NOW.  And suddenly that all changed.  Now I wanted more time here, and I wanted the time I did have left here to pass by as slowly as possible.  I went from having my "Countdown 'Til Home" app front and center on my iPhone home screen, to deleting it entirely.  I couldn't stand a daily reminder that my days here were now numbered.  What was originally going to be our first trip back to the US in nearly a year and a half was now going to be our demobilization trip.  A one way ticket...

I was very sad.  I cried a little bit pretty much every day for that first week.  This change was very sudden and unexpected- especially since only back in September we had been told that we would likely be here until 2016.  So I had really only recently wrapped my head around that and then this news.  I sort of felt like someone pulled a rug out from under me.  But I guess it's just part of being in this industry- you go where they tell you and when.  We had to wait about a week before telling any of our family or friends while we waited for everything to be official.  Even then, I found myself hanging onto the chance that something might fall through.  It didn't. 

It is official.  We have one way tickets leaving Australia on December 24.  It's funny... I basically came to Gladstone kicking and screaming... and now I feel like I will leave the same way.  Who would've thought? 

Honestly?  If you would've told me this news only six or seven months ago?  I probably would've been thrilled.  It took me a long time to feel settled here, to find my niche, to make a solid group of friends (something I didn't really even have in Houston before we came here).  It's only been in the past 6 months or so that I had really been enjoying the life that we have here... and looking forward to what was ahead of us here (oh the amazing trips I had planned in my head!).  I guess I just feel like we weren't quite ready to leave quite yet.  Sure, 2016 was a little much for me to take, but I would've at least liked another year.  That's obviously not in the cards for us though. 

Things have been full on for the past few weeks- organizing everything we need to sell here, quitting my job, sorting out having packers come, while at the same time trying to make sure we aren't living on the streets in Houston since we sold most everything we had there, too.  It got real pretty fast.  It's amazing how quickly your brain kind of just automatically begins to slowly detach yourself from things, people, places upon big news like this.  I guess that's just the mind's way of beginning the process of letting go.  I hate that I'm doing it, but I catch myself checking out, pulling away... in order to prepare for this big change.  However, I am trying to soak up and enjoy as much of our last few weeks here as possible.  I'm going to do my best to try and get caught up from old trips I still have yet to post while at the same time trying to do a better job of documenting this whole moving process and experience in real time.  I know that this will be important in being able to process this change, and find closure on my time here in Australia. 

Two international moves in less than two years?  Wish us luck...