Endings and beginnings...2013

The last two weeks saw some endings. Finished with French exams and also it was the last time we would be together as a class. Some people moving in different directions - V returning to Estonia, M finding an evening job, B having her 2nd baby.... and me in a limbo of sorts too. We were only about 5 of us in the last meeting. The only constant is going to be D, our professor, and the school. I probably will have sharp memories of them all for a while, even perhaps miss them purely out of habit every Thursday. Soon the shifting shape of life and everyday living will lift them away in a wave and toss them gently but finally in a treasure chest of old memories, labelled the sweeping past. None of them matter too much as I forge ahead in my now current preoccupation and obsession with driving -  a little bit further and longer and faster than the previous day.

We will also be bidding goodbye to our life in this small commune from where we literally built our family. I can't even begin to list what and who I am going to miss - the few friends I'd made, the innumerable nodding acquaintances thanks to the children's school - parents of classmates, grandparents, the teachers, the baker, the librarian, the staff in the grocery store, the friends  in ballet less, the neighbours in the building, the commune officials... just too many people and not too many of whom I know by name. Ironical, isn't it!  And the comfort of having managed to figure out the ways of how life and processes here function. Will need to get back to doing it all over again in a place far-away, with no anchors of any kind. Wondering why I even feel the need for them? Where has my self-reliance gone to?

And the questions re the new place - how well will the kids integrate in new school? Making new friends. How long are we to stay here to justify the need for this change? We will be moving to a house, a luxury we could never manage back home, with space for children to run around. Here, we have to literally tip-toe at times, as the neighbour downstairs has become increasingly intolerant to the children's moving about at home. Play-dates have stopped for a while now.

I had come here with no expectations of any sort and leaving with none either. Am getting increasingly emotionally detached by the whole thing, though I had protested a bit at moving so far. Have managed the whole admission process for new school in Dutch! Just basic, painfully grammatically correct in two tenses and a bit restricted. No verbal flourishes, sadly. Future tense is not very certain, in language and life. If this does not convince the husband of my need to learn this language at the snail's pace I do, I don't know what will.

In spite of it all, existential dilemmas continue and probably they will never get exorcised. Not that I'm trying too hard at anything actually. Summer vacation plans and a double packing are going to be the topmost themes for next two weeks. Then innumerable questions fielded by people who will never think twice about passing comments - even before a proper greeting - on my physique, appearance, the children, just about anything, while I waver between being equally blunt or choosing to ignore and simper with the outrage inside. When am I ever going to learn to stand up for myself? Again, September is a new beginning of a kind for us.