Transition in Word Pictures

I like to think about and explain my life in word pictures. For example, I would say that driving on the streets of China is like a constant game of Frogger, a higher level where there are fewer rules about what the cars on the road have to do. I think I reached a new level today, and possibly gained some gray hair from it.

So in this transition process, I find myself coming up with frequent new images to put into words how this all feels. Here are a few of them that capture life right now:

Saying these goodbyes is like pulling a bandaid off a hairy part of your body (this is more vivid if you are an extremely hairy person. I am not, but it still works for me). Each goodbye is a little pull. Is it better to do it slowly or all at once and get the pain over? This whole week feels like I have the edge in hand, waiting for the rip.

This summer has felt like being steamrolled very, very slowly. The strain of house hunting from afar, wrapping up our affairs, purging and sorting and selling and packing, trying to balance logistical necessities and precious time with people - it's all gone on for months. Many times we've looked at each other and said, "Can we just go now? Are we done with the hard stuff yet?" Not because we want to go, but because it's hard to be under a steam roller for that long.

This last week, now that our shipment is gone, we have been spending as much time as possible with people. This is good, but my introvertedness is being tested (steam rollered, if you will). Each night I collapse into bed, wanting just a day free to myself, but knowing I will wake up and do it all again. I feel like a squirrel storing up for the winter - gorging myself now so I can feed off it later.

But most of all, it all feels like pregnancy. We can see this next season and it looks like it will be good and exciting and probably also hard and unknown, but the only way to it is through an increasingly uncomfortable and finally painful process. As the due date approaches, we try to remember to breathe and not take it out on those around us. There's life on the other side, we know.

Just a Little Extra Money

We're finding out (as if we didn't already know) that in China, money will get you everywhere.

Last Thursday, it got Erik a fast pass through the exit health exam for Scout. For the base fee, he would have had to go back two more times and do all the paperwork himself. For 100Y extra, he only had to go back once and do the paperwork. For 250Y, he only had to go once, they did the paperwork, he got a guide to take him to all the checkpoints (including that cotton pickin' microchip) and they sent the results to us by messenger the next day. Yes, I'll take option 3 for 250Y please Alex. Best 250Y we've ever spent! So that was an unexpectedly easy moment.

This morning, I received the invoice from the cargo company that is handling Scout's excessively early (7:30 am for a 4:25 pm flight??) departure from China. In the place of "airline fee" I saw the number 11,521Y, putting our grand total over 15,000Y once he threw in his cargo processing fee. $2,000+ to ship our dog back to the States? Dude, she's not made of gold!

I've held up pretty well through all of this transition, but this pushed me over the edge because I was sure that all manner of reasoning would not get that fee back down to what it should be. Basically, they were calculating her weight based on the size of the enormous crate we had to buy for her according to airline regulations and decided together they would weigh 101 pounds. Yeah, they weigh 30 pounds. I was prepared for a fight, but when I contested the fee, I got a prompt email that said, "Ok, you can pay 4,937Y."

I'm sorry, where am I again? Is this China? This never happens! Oh wait, it is China because then we saw he added 1,000Y onto HIS fee because he had to, and we quote, "have a profit." Friends, I believe what we have here is a case of someone thinking the "rich" foreigners will never look at the invoice, so why not ask a little extra? But when it turns out that said foreigner who calls (Erik, not me - I hate phone calls) has stellar Chinese and has to pay this fee himself (instead of his company paying), he finds another way to make a little money.

So either we offer it up front or they take it from us. Either way, money moves the world around here.

How We're Spending Our Days

A giant garage sale, the sound of packing tape becoming like nails on a chalkboard, the kids running off almost daily to continuing filming a movie with their friends, checking the weather in Minnesota for September, midnight phone calls to the loan company in the States, one more order from Tao Bao, catching up with a friend I haven't seen in a year over a foot massage, a long, actually cold, walk in the morning around the park, homeschool curriculum purchases, dinner with old friends, taking breaks with episodes of Suits, rethinking what we really need in those 6 suitcases we can take back, disassembling thousands of Lego pieces, negotiating one last Build a Bear party with friends, using up the oatmeal, caramel and chocolate chips in a stellar dessert, finding time for a family photo, the more frequent flow of tears . . .

This is how we've been spending our last days here.

Feelings about The Move

When we ask our kids, "How are you feeling about the move?" their most common response these days is an exasperated, "Stop ASKING me that!"

We might be asking too often.

It's all part of trying to keep our finger on the heartbeat of this transition. While our kids don't necessarily like to produce a response to this question when we ask, there are plenty of other times when they volunteer the information. It comes in random comments like Megan saying, "Mom, this is the first move I've done where I'm going to be sad." (the others she either doesn't remember or we were moving to places where we already had lots of close friends and weren't leaving any behind), or Ethan telling me, "In the morning when I wake up, I'm excited to move to America, but in the afternoon when I play with my friends, I'm sad."

So how is mama feeling about the move? (it's ok - I'm not tired of the question yet!)

Most days I'm ready. It feels like the right timing for us to go. We've been doing a lot of "last time to this place" trips around town and while I thought I'd be sad, instead I'm just filled with happy memories of them. It's a sense of "we came for such a time as this" but that time is done and it's time for new memories in new places.

I'm finding great satisfaction in sorting through and purging our stuff. I like knowing that we are stripping down to what we really need and use, and are able to bless others by giving them the rest. I'm thrilled that it only costs a little more to have people pack for us so I don't have to spend my last two weeks doing that.

I'm excited for things like family, libraries, Minnesota in the fall, water from the tap, letting the dog run in the yard, our future home, shopping in English (no more wasting time trying to read labels in another language!).

I'm a little fearful about leaving the role of expatriate. It's one I've had for 13 years and through several moves it's stayed with me. I'm afraid people in the U.S. will think I'm "home" and all is well, and not be able to understand the reverse culture shock that is inevitable. 

And I'm sad to leave. I hate that I will have to say goodbye to my friends here because they are great friends who love me well. I could try to placate myself with the knowledge that we can stay in touch so easily by many means, but the truth is that they have part of my heart. I am deeply blessed which makes it devastating to leave them.

So that's a whole salad bar of emotions for you. Feel free to ask me in another week or two - there will probably be even more.

Just don't ask the kids. :)

The Coming Storm

When we lived in Singapore, we could often see storm clouds coming from a long way off, and we knew that before long we would hear the onslaught of rain pounding against our windows.

There's a storm coming for us here too, and I don't mean the one currently dumping buckets of polluted water on our streets. The one I'm talking about has been a long way off for awhile, but I can see it on the horizon. I see the sky darkening, see the storm clouds rolling toward us. I feel the wind picking up and occasional droplets on my face. The storm is coming.

It's a storm of transition, of saying goodbye to people who are like family to us, to places that have been home for 13 years, to a culture that is not our own but which is what we know. It's a storm of knowing that this time we aren't coming back and that we will have to navigate the other side not as visitors but as citizens again. It's a storm of tears, adjustment, goodbyes, new experiences, old memories.

I'm tempted to run down into the storm cellar and hide out while the storm passes. Transition strikes me in odd moments when I am unprepared and sometimes unwilling to enter in, like when I realize, "this is the last time I'll see this person" and I thought I had more time.

I am trying to tell myself to be ok with those off guard moments. Truly that's what I want to be - off my guard. I want to get caught in the rain, so to speak, where my heart will be honest, raw, true. I know the real strength lies in bearing the storm, being willing to let my heart be broken, not in putting on a brave face and telling myself, "It's ok."

So in my mind Erik and I wrap our arms around the kids and assume a stance that will lean us into the wind when it comes. We'll stand together and hold each other in it, not because we are gluttons for pain, but we know that to keep our hearts open for good things we must keep them open to all of life, including the painful parts. And as one of my friends said the other day, "The sorrow is so great because it's been so good." And I want to celebrate that by acknowledging it.

And sometimes, when the storm gets to be too much, I know that my Savior will be close by, my shelter, my haven, my resting place, right in the middle of it all.

There and Back Again

I get what it was like for Bilbo Baggins. He was a hobbit happy to stay in The Shire until adventure came knocking at his door in the form of Gandalf.  Bilbo had no desire to go, stating, “We are plain, quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.” 

But what followed was the “story of a Baggins who had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbour’s respect, but he gained – well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.” 

              I would probably have been happy staying my whole life in my hometown as I have never been the adventurous sort. But Adventure came knocking on my door too and sent me to Asia for 13 years where I have found myself doing and saying things altogether unexpected as well. I believe I've gained quite a bit in the end. I hope I haven't lost the neighbor's respect, although I strongly suspect I will have lost quite a bit of common ground and understanding and don't know that I'll ever fully get it back. After all, as Gandalf commented,  "My dear Bilbo! You are not the hobbit that you once were.” And neither am I.

But like Bilbo, I hope to be content and scatter memorabilia from my adventures throughout my home for which I have a greater appreciation that I did before I left. And I'll keep in touch with my Elf friends whom I have met along the way.

I was explaining this to the kids tonight, and Megan commented that she hasn't been There and Back Again yet. America is "there" and China is "back again." 

But that is another story entirely.

Resisting the Urge

As much as this impending move might be the most difficult one to date for our family emotionally, there’s a large part of me that wishes it were happening next week. It’s brutal to hold your heart and life in this limbo where you can see the next chapter, but you aren’t there yet. I want to start sorting through things to see what we need to purge, sell, ship. It doesn’t help that people are already asking for various items around the house (back, scavengers, back!). It’s hard to believe we still have three months here, maybe a little more, as I saw this morning that one-way tickets are cheaper after September 11^th (and I’m talking like $1,000-2,500 less total). That was hard to stomach – really? I have to drag this out a week more than I expected?

I need to remind myself of all the things we will still get to do this summer because we aren’t leaving yet – the kids hopefully reaching green/blue belt in Tae Kwon Do, cramming a little more Chinese into their brains, trips to Xi’an and Tiger Leaping Gorge, Erik’s hiking trip to Xin Jiang, and just lots and lots of time with our dear friends, who are our family here.

I still might do a little sorting sooner than later though.

Excited about America

In the 13 years we've lived in Asia, we've never been back in the States for more than 3 months at a time, and even then, we weren't really living there. I've started thinking about what it will be like to actually live in the States again and what I'm looking forward to on a completely surface level. Yes, this is going to be a shallow post, but I think of these things once in awhile and they get me excited to live in the States. It may or may not be a coping mechanism to avoid the real pain of leaving. :)

1. Not having to shop like a ninja. Usually I'm trying to purchase clothes for my family once every 2 years or so, within about 2 months time at the most. I've been at the mercy of whatever happens to be in the stores. I'm in and out and whatever I've got is what we wear until the next trip. I'll be able to buy clothes when we need them, or wait till they're on sale, or until there's something I really like!

2. American sized things. Admittedly, at first being back in the States I feel like I'm in Gulliver's Travels, the part where he's with the giants. Everything is oversized compared to Asia. But then I get used to warehouse sized stores and washing machines I can fit whole people into, and they are glorious.

3. High quality paper products. I'm kind of a paper products snob. To me, if it's going to rub any part of my body, or be used to absorb any amount of liquid, it needs to be thick and soft. Asia makes paper products you can see through and feel a little like sawdust. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm dreaming of using rolls of paper towels as pillows.

4. Getting back all the time I waste staring at products in stores, trying to discern if they are what I want or not because I can only read 2/3 of the characters, if that. On the other hand, for a period of time I know this time will be spent staring at the overwhelming number of choices that will present themselves. People, I just want toothpaste and deodorant and bread. I don't need 50 choices for each of these. But at least I'll be able to read my choices!

5. The process of cooking and baking not requiring the use of excessive amounts of time and money. There's nothing like the feeling of spending $5 on a brownie mix that you had to drive across town to purchase being ruined because you accidentally left your Easy Bake style oven on broil. Again. Or thinking you have the ingredients to make that recipe you saw on Pinterest, and having to change direction mid-course because to get that one ingredient you don't have would require a one hour round trip drive. I've almost cried Gollum-style, "My Precious!" over granola bars I baked too long as I think about the wheat germ, flax seed, raisins, and chocolate chips, that went into them. Seriously, they're hard to find and expensive. But not in America!

Ok, I know that I may be idealizing America right now. I know when I get there I'll lament many things I miss about Asia. But everywhere has pros and cons, and you just have to let yourself get excited about them once in awhile.

Good Grief

Grief is one of the obvious downsides of transition. It's always tempting, when I leave a place, to avoid grief. I can do it by staying busy or staying focused on what's to come, or I can diminish my heart by telling myself that I'm not as attached as I am.

I've learned though that none of those are good options because grief is a friend. It helps us feel deeply and see how much our hearts have been opened to others, to love. To deny it is not only to be untruthful about the impact a place or person has had on me, but it closes my heart to the future. Denial of grief does not make the pain go away. It simply shames it and hides it away for another time.

I've noticed this all around me, not only in people who are going through a transition like ours. We don't like to deal with grief, and we don't like others to deal with it either. So we avoid it by staying busy, or focusing on only the positive things in life, or we tell ourselves it's not that big of a deal. Worse still, as believers we spiritualize grief with platitudes like, "Oh but God will use this" or "This is His will." Those things, albeit true, stifle our hearts and our ability to process the hurt.

Dan Allender said it well this week in our video, "We live in a community that does not know how to grieve, and won't allow grief. And we live in a community, therefore, that silences those who know shame, because if you cannot grieve then shame must stay silent." 

The other night at dinner, we were talking about our move. Ethan became very emotional and said, "I don't want to talk about it! Whenever I start to think about it, I just avoid it!" We talked about how instead it might be better to give ourselves times when we DO let ourselves think about it, and let ourselves feel the depth of the loss of leaving, and weep over it. We don't need to cry constantly between now and when we leave, but we do need to honor our hearts and allow ourselves space to feel. 


Grief is good. It allows us to purge the pain and wrestle with God in the darkest places, only to see that He is there as well. He is as good in the darkness as He is in the light, but we can't see that unless we allows ourselves to go there. Grief brings healing. It keeps our hearts open. I hope I can remember all this through the process!

Life In Between

For the past few months, I've been pondering the idea of what it means to live "in between." It seems that in many areas of my life I am called to live between who I was and who I will be, depravity and redemption, this place and that one, this identity and another. As a believer and a displaced person, I feel like I'm never fully at home.

I wrestle with this a lot. I'm someone who likes things to be wrapped up neatly, for life to be predictable and manageable, but it seems like God calls me to more and more mess in my heart and life. Many years ago, I was encouraged to pursue being someone who is "undone." That sounded like a horrible idea. Being undone sounds messy, awkward, embarrassing, uncomfortable. You're telling me I have to fall apart? No thank you. But a few weeks later, I asked Ethan not to do something because it was "unsafe." He asked me what unsafe meant. I said, "It means not safe. Like untied means not tied, and undone means . . . not done." Light bulb! So being undone isn't just falling apart, it's recognizing I was never "done" in the first place? Got it. 

One of the biggest ways God makes me aware that I'm not done, that I'm still living in between, is through transition. Nothing stirs up your heart and makes you lose your equilibrium like change. Last September we somewhat unexpectedly began a process of change that has led us to see that our time in Asia is drawing to a close. We hadn't shared this news with everyone until recently, so I haven't been able to share how I am processing the emotions of saying goodbye to what has been home for 13 years. This September we will leave here, head back to Minnesota for a few months, and then start a new life in Orlando, Florida.

So now we are living between excitement and fear, terrible sadness and joyful anticipation. Sometimes it feels like too much to bear, and we still have 4 months here. It will only be a greater tension as our departure draws near.

I've been looking forward to being able to share our transition process on my blog because I believe it will help me work through all this upheaval. I plan to change the url for my blog soon, since I will no longer be living my Asian life (and we're certainly not the Butz fam in Singapore anymore!). I anticipate that it will take a long time before we feel settled back in America. In fact, I expect that we will never completely feel settled there. It will just continue to be my "in between" life.