The End of Transience, For Now

Luca, ready to get moving.

I feel like I’m about to cross a finish line. Summit a mountain.

Like any marathon or climb, our past several months without a home of our own have been a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time with family, we went on vacations, we enjoyed DC, and we caught up with dear friends.

I spent a good chunk of time in my tiny, adorable California hometown, and a good chunk of time in my wonderful new hometown, the nation’s capital.

Boat day with the Brewers and Gleasons

Cousin love in Lake Tahoe

I adore both places, and both are rich with memories and people I care about. I got to make new, blissful memories in both places, some pictured here. In short, it was fantastic.

DC Fun with Halmonee & Harabogee

But, like any marathon or climb, our past few months have been a challenge.

Some dear friends asked us recently if it feels like we’ve been on a vacation that’s just gone on far too long. That’s close, but not quite it. While we’ve been enjoying life within the transience, and we've been valuing people and places, there has been a looming sense that our lives are on hold.

Luca loves when Nana reads to him.

The most tangible reminder of this is our current housing: Our hotel room is nice, but it is still a hotel room.

Any hotel staff member can enter if they have reason: housekeeping, maintenance, Internet engineers. We’ve lived here, but it is not our home.

Of course I’m grateful for a roof over our heads and safe beds at nighttime, but there is an intangible longing for home I just can’t shake.

Train Museums!!

I don’t mean our old place in Seoul. I don’t mean our old condo in Arlington. I don’t mean Oakdale, California.

Enjoying Tahoe with Appa

I mean a place where Joe, Luca and I will stay for more than a few months. Where only we have keys to enter. Where our taste in décor and our photographs fill the rooms. Where all my cookware is at my disposal as I adapt to Luca’s dietary requirements and shifting toddler tastes.

It’s strange, but this summer while I've been marveling over DC's charms, I’ve felt homesick for a place I’ve never been: Hong Kong.

The new setting won’t solve life’s problems and it probably won’t even make life easier, but the new setting is a place we can belong for a bit.

My parents with all the grandkids

Somewhere we won’t be semi-short-term guests in people’s daily lives.

Luca kissing bye to his buddy Sage

We can build a new community, learn new things, and explore new places. We can settle in to a home.

Hong Kong, in my mind, is bursting at the seams with the thrill of unknown friends, experiences and challenges that wait for me and my little family. It seems filled with blessings both wonderful and difficult, gifts from God that I’ll open day by day and month by month.

I know, especially on hard or lonely days, I’ll look back to this time in DC fondly, as I already do with my time in Oakdale. I’ve appreciated this life phase every step of the way, and as I suspected in a blog last spring, God gave me the emotional strength to remain joyful in this in-between period.

But still, I’m thrilled to move on, to settle down.

That is, at least for the next two years, when we'll move again.

Luca had a world of fun with cousins Gavin and Avery