This week marks the 9 month point of living in NYC … In some ways it feels like we just got here, but more often it feels like we’ve been here longer… We’ve been so fortunate to have embraced this adventure with a (more or less) common attitude of simultaneously ‘taking care of business’, (setting up camp, figuring out the basics, establishing some routines) and of also ‘taking it all in’. (exploring and tasting and hearing and photographing as much as we can just because we can…)

It’s weird though… When we first signed on for this, we committed to 2 years. And having never done this before with our family, we really didn’t break it down any further than that, other than in calculating what toys the kids might actually be interested in upon our return at the end of these 2 years.

We had no idea what to expect in terms of what living ‘in between’ might feel like…. Revelling in the fact that every weekend felt like a holiday, but also getting the chance to feel ‘like a local’ during the week as we schlepped ourselves very manually from one obligation to another ( school to work to school and home. Rinse and repeat.)

Revelling is one way to think of it. But anxiety enters as well…. What’s going to happen after 2 years? When do we start thinking about that? We just GOT here, and are just now starting to feel like the intensity of a move has been replaced with day-to-day living… We really need to start thinking about what’s next already?? When can we just ‘live’ for a bit? When can we change our plans next?

When we’ve had these opportunities for this kind of adventure (or reboot) in the past, it was just us dummies. We didn’t even have a dog the last time something this substantial happened.

We also hadn’t experienced the breadth of highs and lows yet that life tosses your way, the longer you get to stick around this world. We didn’t yet really know the pain of losing someone, nor did we understand the pure joy ( and intense responsibility) in welcoming a baby into the world.

So with this perspective, being in this ‘ in between’ means something, or rather, we actually feel it because of this perspective.

This weekend we had extremely different days.

One of us went fishing with (an inspiringly interesting uncle) in Jamaica  Bay, leaving the apartment by 4:30 am to get on the subway to get to the spot for sunrise. Exactly every part of that statement is completely new to us.

The other one spent the morning at a birthday party for a 2 year old that could easily have been off of a TLC show (not because the company was bad in any way- quite the contrary in that they were extremely welcoming and generous)k. I then headed out to eat Cuban food and go do a dance festival in Tompkins Square Park with the kids. Exactly every part of that statement is also completely new to us.

Who knows where we’ll be in a year. Of course we’ll think about it every day.

And our circumstances are different and a bit more complicated as both the kids and our working visas grow older. But so too has our perspective….