Prepare for Takeoff

The movers are coming for my shoes tomorrow. They're also coming for my picture frames, my giant cleaver that reduces garlic to tiny slivers, the assorted goods compiled over two years of life in a new country.

I can hardly believe it. I mean, i've been counting down in that masochistic way you might poke a bruise. You know it will hurt but still you do it.

And what's there to say that, in another one of life's moments that provokes triteness, hasn't already been said? At the beginning of this journey, my brother and I got into an argument. His sentiment: 'But who's going to help you if you get sick? You don't have any family there. You're so far away!'

There's no denying that China is far away; it is so, so different to anywhere I've ever travelled to before. But the expat bubble that has become my life abroad has its perks, the biggest of which is the establishment of my Shanghai family. The people who invited me to dinner when I was new; who walked my sobbing ass home when kidney news invaded; who orchestrated several weekends away to destinations unseen; who helped me keep the Thanksgiving tradition alive; who ate, drank, commiserated with me during both very sad and very happy moments.

I'll see these people again; this I know. But it's the end of an era, so this week, I'm allowed to weep a little bit.