Today Was the Day

Today was the day. Our shipped items from the US finally arrived at our house.

It's so hard to describe the emotions I am feeling, but you know that I'll enjoy trying :)

So this process of shipping our stuff here, emotionally, has taken us on a roller-coaster. First, we knew we wanted to ship stuff because we figured we had to. We had two suitcases each that we could bring on the plane and needed more than that because of Kieren and her stuff. We have been living out of four suitcases (between all three of us) for 10 weeks now. When we started to pack stuff to ship, it was first Kieren's stuff, then books, then towels and sheets (expensive to buy, easy to ship), then kitchen stuff, then clothes, then shoes, then clothes, then more clothes, then I went on come insane Target runs trying to get ANYTHING I would need (I was in a manic state at this point). We also shipped bikes, Kieren's stroller, and a couple other bigger items. It was annoying even at the time because I KNEW we would be annoyed that we had it all once it arrived in South Africa because we wouldn't need it all and then be living a simpler life in Africa. At the end of the day, we shipped stuff knowing we might even give it away, but knew it would go to grateful people.

Once we got here, we first greatly longed for our missed items. My 'Scrubs' TV show DVDs (WHY did I ship them?!? I needed them those first weeks...), maybe ONE hammer or screwdriver, a nice pair of shoes for church, little things from our house. Then, we began to furnish our home here and I realized we had shipped WAY too much and just HAD too much. Uugghh. Why do we have to be so 'American' and have so much??!? Then I began again to long for our things, the Scrubs DVDs, just little things for the house, etc.

Today our boxes were dropped off. We were jumping around and hugging each other when they called this morning to say today was the day. Casey is out now running a couple errands, so I have opened by myself four boxes and feel like I'm moving through the stages of grief or something. Denial (it's not that much), happiness (oh this stuff is so nice to have again!), upset stomach (oh no, only through four boxes and the house is full.... can we send it back?), and major REALITY CHECK (our stuff is here, now we live here FOR REAL).

So yeah, we will now spend the next week unpacking, joyously celebrating things we have missed, giving away things we know we don't need, making our home totally OURS now and settling in for good. The strangest emotion I feel is one that is mixed with peace, sadness, and joy at the realization that this is now our home. Permanently. It's so right but there is still a twinge of mourning. But it's so right. I am thinking a bike ride along the beach on this beautiful 75 degree day might help ease the pain :)

Lots of love,
Sarah