A foot in each world

This is where I live.

Where my babies live.

My husband.  My house. 

This is my home.  

But also, this isn't my home.

It's not that it feels particularly foreign anymore.  In fact it feels quite comfortable.  I leave the house without fear now.  I bike, I shop, I talk (out loud).

I don't expect smiles and waves as we wander the streets, I've stopped worrying if everyone hates me, if they can somehow smell the foreigner on me.

In fact, until I open my mouth, it's pretty easy to blend in here.  And I find I'm granted a little extra leeway for the small children I tote around on a fairly regular basis.

There are certain moments, holding Finny's hand down the slide, coffee in hand, where I feel like this is mine.  Like I own it somehow, or at least participate as a small part in it all.  

But there are times when I feel my heart quite literally pulled across the ocean.  Back Stateside.  Back home.

It nearly always hits quick, unexpectedly.  And is layered with the guilt of my contentment here.

Mostly it is fear.  My nephew not knowing me.  My friends moving on.  My family not needing me.  My kids growing older.  

How I wish I could freeze our time here.  Enjoy it, experience it, learn from it, but not lose the time.  The moments I'm missing back home.  The moments they are missing here. 

Nine months in and I am happy here.  

Sometimes I sit back at my book club, or play group, or home, and I feel so lucky.  Lucky to be here, to experience this, to know these people.  

So when the panic sets in and the homesick surfaces, it's more complicated, and, to a degree, more painful.  I don't miss home because I'm unhappy here, I miss home because I'm missing it... missing moments, missing people, missing time.

I am torn between one happy life and another.

In bath tonight Aiden decided he would like to go back to the United States.  Tomorrow.  For one day.  Then he would like to find an airplane and fly back to Hungary.  For one day.  Then... well, you can guess where it goes from there.

But somewhere in that four year-old mind he is searching for solutions to my exact problem.

We love it here.  We are happy here.  But also, we love it there, and are happy there.

If only we could live with one foot in each world, a day here, a day there...

But if we followed through with Aiden's plan we'd spend most of our life in the air, between homes, in the company of strangers.

For now this is our choice, our home.  But a part of me belongs both places.

The pictures, the voices... they are snapshots of a life I'm missing, moments without an in between.  But moments just the same.

And while I can't have a foot there, these moments keep bringing me home.