Welcome Home?

I don't  know what happened, really.  The last time we returned to BJ after going to Utah, we had a nice, heart-warming "Ah, we're home" feeling that made us finally feel we lived here.  This time, I don't know.  It was weird.  The city felt different, and the house felt huge, empty.  Foreign.  What's the difference, I wonder?


Is it that we've finally hit the "wall," the end of the honeymoon that expats are supposed to hit after a few months but we haven't really?  Have we just delayed the eventual letting-the-little-stuff-get-to-you stage rather than avoided it?  (and if so, how am I supposed to feel all smug and superior now?)


OR is it that I was so wrapped up in the anticipation of showing this incredible place to my parents, knowing they would love every inch of it, that after they left it's kind of a letdown?  A weird, if-I-can't-share-it-with-an-appreciative-audience-then-it's-not-as-cool reaction?  (and if so, what does that say about the state of my inner self blah blah blah that I need an audience to appreciate something amazing?)


OR is it that for two months BJ has violated our unwritten contract that every 5 days of disgusting grey smelly smog must be followed by at least 4 blue(ish, which is all one can hope for around here) days, and that has just sapped our will to live (here)?



OR is it because we now have an official end date?  When we had an amorphous, some-time-we'll-have-to-leave-but-we-don't-know-when type assignment, every day was precious.  I joked about not wanting to live here a long time, just until Leafy Isaac graduated from High School.  I couldn't imagine how I would stand to ever go.  And then, bam, Big M gets a promotion and a firm two year contract, and suddenly we both have itchy feet.  What IS is about firm dates that does that to people?  Or, maybe not People, just Us.  Why does that two years now seem really really long?  Don't get me wrong, I still love it here.  It's just Different.  As in Not The Same.  And I still don't know why. 


However, nothing is more irritating than people who whine over nothing.  Okay, lots of things are, (like people who use hyperbole all the time) but it is irritating nonetheless.

So, here's a list of things I wish I had my camera to take pictures of during this morning's run.  Because I really do love this place.  Just not this week. 

• The army (50+) of neighborhood guards wielding clippers hard at work cutting all the weeping willows off at head-level all the way around the neighborhood wall.
• The awesome old man in a spotless white shirt and vintage fedora pedaling his bicycle cart slower than I can walk on his way to . . . somewhere.
• The shaven-headed (is that a word?) little girl who nearly fell off her chair with shock when I responded in Chinese to her breathless "Look, Mama, a foreigner!"
• The Ayi with a huge dog in a "cone of shame" riding happily along in her ridiculously undersized bicycle basket
• The game of poker abandoned in mid-play on a folding table near the Jenny Lou's taxi stop because the drivers had to ferry someone home from shopping.  Don't worry, they'll be back.