Final Lap

It is now September.  We have finally gotten over jet lag, unpacked all the suitcases, reassembled our life, and are now staring down the home stretch of our time in Dushanbe.

A week or two ago, Brandon got an email informing him that he was paneled to our next assignment in Tashkent.  This means that we are definitely going to be living in Tashkent in at most a year (if Brandon doesn't pass his language test and has to spend a few months in DC brushing up on his Russian).

It's strange to be looking ahead and see a definite end date to our time here in Dushanbe, a point where all of our stuff will be packed up, we'll be getting on an airplane, and saying a complete and final goodbye to Tajikistan.

If we had spent a normal two-year tour here, this would be the point where'd I'd start panicking and buy all the things, hike all the hikes, and go on all of the trips I thought that I'd have plenty of time for.  But, it turns out that Tajikistan really doesn't have much of that stuff anyway and we've already done it all.  Twice.

I'm happy that we're not moving until May.  This gives me a whole school year to slowly get things ready, let the baby grow up a little more, and finish everyone's school work before packing everything up and leaving.  I'm not anxiously awaiting our departure, counting down the months and weeks before I can get out of here.  Dushanbe has treated me pretty well (other than the sicknesses and traveling) and I haven't gone crazy from the cultural differences yet.  It helps that I spend 95% of my time not interacting with Tajikistan.

But also I'm not going to be sobbing big, sad tears when we leave either.  It turns out that when you move around from foreign country to foreign country, there is an element of perpetual long-term tourist to your life.  Every Saturday can be spent going out discovering new things and having new adventures.  Once I thought about the lives of people who spend twenty years in the same house and neighborhood and state and realized that they probably ran out of new things to do about eighteen years ago.

I'm definitely getting a taste of on this tour.  We haven't gone a new hike in over a year because we've just about hiked all the ones within an hour drive.  Brandon and I choose our date night restaurants based on which restaurant (the Chinese, Korean, Georgian, Latin American, Asian, Ukranian, Afghani, or Middle Eastern one) we've gone to least recently.  The children are beyond familiar with the embassy playground, and I can tell you exactly what the Hyatt has for their breakfast buffet.  If we lived in America, this might be 'cozy' or 'familiar,' but here in Dushanbe and in this life where I get to see the world, it's more like boring.  I'm ready for some new scenery.

The children are equally excited for some new scenery, Kathleen most excited of all because of the possibility of a pool at our next house.  Well, some of them.  Eleanor isn't very clear on the concept of moving because the last time she moved she was seven months old.  Edwin is just irritated at the thought of his Legos being unavailable for several months.

For right now, however, moving is still a distant dream, like the thought of summer break when you've just finished the first month of school.  It's definitely going to happen, but not for a good long time.  In between now and then are lots of good things to look forward to also, and so I won't get too antsy yet.  But not too comfortable either.