It’s been almost 4 months since my husband and I moved back “home”.  I’ve been doing a little traveling since we’ve come back…a trip to visit my Mom in Arizona.and as I write this, a two week trip to Seoul, Korea to visit my daughterand her dog.I’ve had a few requests to keep writing. And I do have plenty of places we visited and stories from our time in Poland that I didn’t have time to write about before we left, like our trip to Prague. I’ve had new adventures and visited some local sights since we’ve been back like Lantern Asia at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. But I’ve been hesitant to write.  I’ve been struggling.

I started this blog last year mainly to let our friends and family know about how we were doing and adjusting to living overseas.  We jumped out of our comfort zone and took a leap of faith to move to Poland, hence the name of my blog,  “Jumping Out Of the Box”.  We took another leap back at the end of December and returned to the same city, and the same house, and the almost same life we lived before.  My husband jumped right back in to his new job…albeit working with most of the same people and at the same place where he spent 17 years working before, went back to his Gideon group, went back to church and singing in the choir.  But for me, it’s been a struggle.

My problem is that I jumped OUT of the box, but I can’t jump back IN the box because now I feel like I don’t quite fit.  Since we’ve been back I’ve been struggling with trying to fit back into a life that is not quite the same.  My everyday life has changed…I worked for 20+ years at something I loved and now I’m not currently working.  My priorities have changed…when you live for several months with only the clothes you can fit into a suitcase, you realize what’s important in your life and it’s definitely not the “stuff” you’ve spent years accumulating.  In the past year, I’ve expanded my horizons, expanded my experiences, expanded my friendships.  Expanded with a capital “E”.

I keep thinking of an episode from the TV show, “The Dick Van Dyke Show.  In the episode a box is delivered to the house for her husband and Laura has strict instructions not to open it. Curiosity gets the better of her and she opens the box.  It contains an inflatable raft that instantly inflates and expands and now there is no way to get it back in the box, no way to make it FIT back in the box despite all her shoving and pushing.

And THAT is my struggle….and the struggle is real.  I feel like that inflatable raft that won’t fit back in the box, and no matter how many people are trying to cram me back in, it’s just not going to happen.   I know I don’t fit in that box anymore.  And I don’t WANT to fit back in that box.  I want a new box, a BIG box, a GIGANTIC box!  Big enough for some of the “old me” plus room to add the new.

So while I figure out how to balance the old and the new me I’m taking my husband’s advice and the requests of a few friends to keep writing and sharing.  So brace yourself for a few TBT’s (Throw back Thursday’s or Toss back Tuesday’s) of our time in Poland that I’d like to share well as new adventures and random thoughts that are running through my brain.