Out of Sight...

Lone-ly: unhappy as a result of being without the companionship of others.

I woke up two nights ago and had what I can only describe as a mild panic attack as I thought about all the preparations for Peanut's yochien (preschool). Her school has a uniform, multiple bags and sacks and packages for everything from crayons to tissues to notes from the teacher. I did my best to look through the guide from the school, but reading Japanese is still incredibly difficult for me and it could take me hours to translate the whole thing. As a result, I felt about 1/4 prepared for all the things we'd need to know and do. (Check for lice every morning and make a note for the teacher, fill up her water bottle, ensure that tissues are in the skirt pocket, etc.) The more I thought about all of this, the more overwhelmed I became.

Initially this preschool/yochien idea sounded ideal! She'd go off to school from 9:00 until 2:30 every day. Perfect! For a child who loves activities and needs a great deal of stimulation and interaction from other adults and kids, this seemed like a great solution. I didn't understand at the time we were first considering it, that this is more like a co-op preschool which relies heavily on the work and participation of the stay-at-home mothers who take their kids to this school (Japan is lagging behind in the women's liberation front and the glass ceiling sounds more like steel to me - the end result being a LOT of college educated women staying at home with the kids rather than working because there's nowhere for them TO work).

Anyway the more I lay there in the dark thinking about how much time and work would go into this effort the more frustrated I became. How would I ever get to see my friends in Japan? And if I don't get to see them more than once every couple of weeks, how will we build on our friendships. And this is important because once I'm out of sight, I'm out of mind.

It's pretty common for ex-patriates to experience this phenomenon I gather. Once you leave a place, the friends that you leave behind get on with their lives (and their other friendships) and don't remember to e-mail you or write you regularly. This leaves you out of the loop. For me, since I'm in Japan for part of the year, and the U.S. for part of the year, I'm always out of the loop somewhere. I think it's starting to get to me. I was suddenly not just overwhelmed by the thought of my child starting preschool, but with the thought that I don't have any friends to commiserate with and those that I do have seem to be out of touch. Most of my U.S. friends have been out of touch since we left over a month ago. True, I'll be back in just 4 1/2 more months, and maybe that's what they're waiting for - my return. But in the meantime, it can be incredibly lonely.

Communing with My Community

I'm excited to report that my neighborhood (and several other adjacent neighborhoods) has formed a new volunteer-run parent resource group. The focus is on both providing community for and with one another so that we know our neighbors and recognize the kids on the playground, and also on supporting parents of families with kids aged 0-5 (although it's not exclusive to those parents). The idea is that by providing a centralized website and resource with information about daycare, preschool, and babysitters parents will be better able to care for themselves and their children. Likewise, the group has organized some Moms' Nights out and Dads' Nights out too, as well as several playgroup opportunities for kids. I'm stoked!

One of the things that I have found the hardest about being a stay-at-home mom for the last 2 years, is that slowly many of my peers who had kids of the same age as my daughter, began to go back to work leaving me literally at home alone with Peanut. When I was growing up, my mom lived right next door to two families with other stay-at-home moms. This meant that there was a constant flock of children around our house and the moms seemed to have "coffee dates" just about all the time (although I suspect the actual *sitting down* with a cup of joe and a coffee cake happened at best once a week!). I suppose a part of me envisioned that this is how my life as a SAHM would be. The best of both worlds - time with my daughter and female companionship. Not as easy as I thought.

I'm not sure that this particular group will hold the answer. But even if it doesn't, I think that the benefits to the community and our neighborhood make participation well worth it regardless. Our neighborhood isn't super family or kid friendly and although we're lucky to have lots of nearby parks (whoo hoo!) that seems to be the extent of our neighborhood's "child-friendliness". Hopefully this will change things.

Bridges from one heart to another

The other day, my sister J who had her baby just over one week ago, told me that she was feeling really sad. My sister's friend S was due to have her baby just a few days after J had her baby. Unfortunately, S developed cramps the day before her scheduled C-section (baby was transverse and there were some other minor concerns that the doctors had) and when the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat and performed an emergency C-section, their little boy was stillborn. A mutual friend had contacted my sister to give her this update and J was still feeling very emotional. She was uncertain about how to proceed - worried that contacting S directly might make her feel worse given the reminder of J's new baby.

I encouraged her to think about making a call and offering some support, thereby allowing S to make the choice for herself. I also suggested that my sister check out Share for more information. Additionally I contacted Cara at Building Heavenly Bridges (I'd visited her blog a number of times and I really admire the work that she does) and gave her some of this background and she sent me a sweet email encouraging both J and S to feel free to contact her.

While I think it IS sad that we connect with others in these circumstances - there are so many wonderful people out there to meet and get to know better - I wish it didn't have to happen this way. But I confess I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to make a wonderful connection like this and to know that we can began to make these heart connections. I hope that each of these connections brings a little bit of healing to all of us.