Today is the day

The last eight months had been so torturing.... I had been doing my preparations but we had not told the kids about it, so we did not tell our friends yet either... everyday I was looking at my surroundings with the feeling that I will not see  it again for the next few months...  the place that I had been calling home for the last seventeen years, the best seventeen years of my life so far...

It was like having my feet at two different places, I know I have to go for the sake of our family's future but at the same time I don't want to go... I applied for my visa three months before the start of my study, but there is this part of my heart that was worried that they would not grant it but also hoped that they would not... but they granted it....

After that I told my Case Manager that my visa has been granted and she took care of my OSHC... after I got the OSHC and knew when the coverage started, I bought my ticket.... it felt like the point of no return...   though actually when I accepted the scholarship offer  in November it was already the point of no return....

The last couple of weeks I had this silly thought that if I do things slowly, time would pass more slowly too .... the night before our first farewell dinner in mid June with my hubby's colleagues who are also my friends, I told my kids... I thought that J would cry but T cried more, while J only cried because he saw his brother cried....

After that it was a series of farewells to my dear friends, who have been a part of my life all this time... I teared up everytime..... and one night, T prayed for me "God, please protect mama when she is in Australia, so no bad people will hurt her", I assured her that I will be ok, that I had traveled to many places on my own, he asked me,"What if you don't know that they are bad people?", oh this boy whom I scolded so much..... I cried hard that night....

But tonight was the culmination... we went out from the house at 17.00 so we could have dinner together and the kids could send me to the airport.... we said our teary goodbyes... I was crying the whole time after we finished our dinner... my hope and the only thing I could tell my kids is that we will see each other again in December

So my lonely adventure began.... there were so many people queueing at the bag and body check area...  and we had to remove shoes/ slippers and computer/ powerbanks from the carry on bags... ohhh the smell from their smelly feet was killing me....  anyway, here I am waiting for  two hours until my boarding time....

dream comes true

As impossible as it had seemed before, my dream has come true
But unlike the time when I had to leave for Thailand (I embraced it whole-heartedly and happily, I literally leapt at the opportunity), this time my feelings are hard to describe
in my eight years of being a mother, the longest time I ever left my boys were five days
during the worst times, when I was so down, I thought that they would be better off without me
but when the possibility comes that I will have to leave them for a long time
my heart is wrenched
I am not afraid or worried of what I have to do there, but I know my heart and thoughts will always be here