The Tides Have Turned

Things have officially gotten easier here. The reason? I think it's time.

Ryan was given some reading material before we moved. It mentioned suggested timelines, one of them being 3 months. That's the time it typically takes people to adjust to these international rotations. I started feeling better at about 2 1/2 months... so, look who's above average!

There's a line that struck me in a new book I'm reading. I wasn't expecting to find anything insightful in Paris to the Moon. I just picked it randomly out of a pile Mom gave me. Oddly enough, it's about a man moving himself, his wife, and his young son to France. The line reads "family life is by its nature cocooned, and expatriate family life doubly so." I'm not sure that has much impact on you guys, but it made a lot of sense to me.

We were busy in Memphis. My friends were the type that met for dinner during the week and shopping trips on the weekend. Ryan's were the type that called on Friday at 9:00 and wanted to be out by 10:00. Between the two of us we had a pretty well rounded social life, and loved it.

It's obviously different here, and at first having no friends only added to us feeling isolated. But lately, it's felt good. We still have fun, just by ourselves. We still laugh, but just at each other. Cocooned is a perfect word. This apartment, this city, it feels like it's just us in here. And something's changing. We're like a family of two.

To celebrate this new found dynamic, I set out today to make an authentic Italian meal. I got as far as bruschetta, and then made lentil soup. That's me LOVING the result, and that's Ryan, sitting on our "couch" making fun of me taking pictures.














PS - I just read this post to Ryan to see if he liked it, and he's making me laugh so hard I can barely type. His response... "now we're a beautiful Italian butterfly of love." He's shouting out one word zingers like "metamorphosis."