First trip back

I've been scrambling the past few days to get everything in order for my first trip back to the Old Country since we made Aliyah over a year ago. Renewing passports, finding something to wear and choosing one child to come with me has been surprisingly time consuming. I guess it's because it's not only that but the preparation at home that it takes to make sure that TPH can run the homestead as calmly as possible while I'm gone. 


I'm not the "make-a-dinner-for-each-night-and-freeze-it-in-nice-little-containers" type, but to be fair I did stock the fridge and cabinets with just about anything anyone will need over the week that I'm gone. 


Going on this trip is a surprise. I told my family I'm coming when I got the tickets this week, but what I mean is that it's more of a surprise for me. 


Unless you've made Aliyah it's really, really hard to understand why that first trip back is so hard. I told my family earlier this summer that there was no way I could come. N is impossible at home these days, and I could never leave him. Tickets are ridiculously expensive, so I probably couldn't bring him, and even if I could there was so much potential for disaster that I just threw my hands in the air and said, "Forget it. I can't come."


I see now that these were excuses. Valid perhaps, but excuses none the less. But as always, TPH saw through my excuses even before I did. It's one of those things that make him T. P. H. And gently, as only he knows how, he insisted that I go. He would find the money to send me. He would be fine with everyone at home for a week. Yes, even N. He gently encouraged me to find the strength to get past whatever it was that is holding me back, and to go and spend some much needed time with my family.


I went to Gymboree with a friend a couple weeks ago and we were talking about going back "home", and she said she just doesn't think she'd be emotionally ready to face everyone and everything yet. I am so thankful to her for having this conversation with me because I was worried that maybe I was the only one who was feeling this way. It helps to know there are other normal people out there like me and that I am not alone.


The problem is that I'm scared to go back. I'm scared to see who and what I left behind again. I'm scared I'll want to leave or that I'll never want to leave. I'm scared to see my house again with lush yards and trees and I'm scared I'll compare it to my current rented apartment with dirt for a yard. I'm scared that everyone has stayed the same and that I have changed. Or maybe that they have changed and I have very much stayed the same. 


I'm sure it'll pass and that IY"H the trip will go just fine. I am very, very excited to be able to make it to my brother's wedding and will be forever grateful for a husband who knows me better than I sometimes know myself. TPH, thank you for being just that. Perfect.