So, we had our first parent’s meeting the other day. It was just before school and my one-year-old came with us and played on the mat. We sat down and listened to how our sweet four-year-old is navigating RR, but all that my brain managed to process in those first few minutes was, “How did I get here?”
I had this flashback to lying on a slightly scratchy bamboo lounger reading a faded old novel I’d found at the reception desk that morning. The cobalt and turquoise sea was just ten metres in front of us. It was gorgeous in the sunlight, despite a few clouds left over from a recent cyclone that had passed through the central Philippines. We had endured a few days of rain with more sleep, more reading, and a cheap massage or two. Now, we were back in the sun and waiting for the tide to come in a bit so we could get to the reef.
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It was quite sharp and rocky near the shore, but once you got deeper, the reef stretched for several kilometres in either direction. If you were lucky, one or two lazy hours with a snorkel and a rash vest brought endless colours; parrot fish, octopus, banded sea kraits, zebra fish, peacock shrimps and so much more. If you were really lucky, there would be a few green turtles or leatherbacks swimming by, close enough to follow but never slow enough to touch. Amazing!
But, here I was sitting on a yellow plastic chair as my son’s teacher spoke about our little boy. I’m almost a mom of three! We have lived in one place for almost five years, a record for us both. We undertook a quest in the Bornean jungle to find some of the last wild Pygmy elephants – and found them after five days! Now, I was watching my toddler happily dumping out every toy container he could find in his brother’s classroom, right before school.
How did we get here indeed. Life doesn’t stop for soaked-to-the-bone speedboat rides from Malaysia into Thailand. It only lets you remember all the fantastic things you’ve seen along the way. Maybe it was the sun rays on the wall that suddenly drew me back to our adventures.
As I listened to how much my boy has grown and learned, I had another thought. “What a blessing to be right here!” This is home now, with two tiny boys starting their own adventures alongside us. I could never have imagined how things would turn out while I searched the tree tops for that one wild orangutan we found, but I’m so glad that we kept going. It’s a new day, and I’m happy to be living in it.
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