Looking forward looking back

“When you get old in life, things get taken from you… That’s part of life.”

I’ve been thinking of the Peace with Inches speech from Any Given Sunday recently; partly because I’m getting older, but partly because we are living small right now.  We won’t have a TV until Friday so J and I have been digging through some of our purchased movies and living on Netflix and things like that.  Internet is also hit or miss for us right now, so a lot of times it’s tough or choppy to watch the streaming services.  Therefore, we’ve been sticking to the purchased stuff.  Mostly, her and I have been rewatching Anthony Bourdain; Parts Unknown together nights, but we’ve mixed in a few other things as well.

However, being the night owl that I am, I’m up later than she is and I’ll watch something myself.  Action stuff or things like Any Given Sunday.  The movies that are my taste or just not hers.  

It’s not that I’ve had things taken as in stolen, but sacrifices need to be made when you are living and traveling around the world.  Leaving California, I needed to give up my PS4, my cast iron pans that were well loved and perfectly seasoned, and a ton of other things that were impractical to move.  We all (Kiddo included in this) needed to give up books and switch to a digital format for that.  Can you imagine the cost or efforts to move 3 floor to ceiling bookshelves worth of books?

Also, in getting to Shanghai, I needed to make sacrifices.  We needed a towel as we didn’t have a rug for the bathroom.  I have an old Stone Brewing Beach towel, but I gave that to the house for the good of the family.  It will probably stay as a house good and when it’s served it’s purpose, it will go the way of those other things and be gone from my life.  I got that towel when I was still dating Brothko all those decades ago.  

Maybe I’m just reminiscent today as the Brewers are in Oakland and I saw a headline that it will be the last trip to the Oakland Coliseum for the Brew Crew.  I saw a TON of games there in my years in The Bay Area and part of me is sad that I didn’t carve out a night when we were there to get to Oakland to see a last game there.  In all honesty, B and I did talk about it, but we decided that we didn’t want to give our money to John Fisher (A’s owner) and instead we spent a night having a few local IPAs and chilling.  It was probably a better time sitting around with him at our AirBnB than it would have been at the Coliseum anyways.

As much as I look back, I still need to look forward.  Kiddo will be starting school in a week.  We have a ton to do this week as we start to acquire items and get the house set up and built.  I need to support J as she gets kids in the classroom, I need to support Kiddo as she gets into the classroom.  I need to learn Shanghai and the Metro system for ease of getting around and exploring this new city we live in; finding parks, museums,  English bookstores, little places to eat, and just cool places to see when we want a weekend out.  

Also, for the last week, I’ve been on lil miss days as J has had work.  She doesn’t just show up first day and teach.  It takes planning and set up.  So, I’ve been with Kiddo and we’ve been exploring some, but with the heat (35ish) most days and her little legs, we are a bit limited.  So, we’ve been playing at home, exploring the neighborhood, and planning a Ranzan Wedding for Poley and Camouflage.  The wedding was Saturday and it was a blast, as you can see.

We’ve even had a few silly songs.

And we’ve been making some new friends.

So, I can’t just look back and stop.  I need to look forward.  And I do.  I look forward to seeing and exploring Shanghai and other parts of China.  I’m looking forward to setting up the house.  I’m looking forward to getting a TV back.  I’m looking forward to J teaching and hearing her talk about it at night (both the good and bad) with the passion and presence she has about her work.  I look forward to Kiddo learning and wanting to share that with us at dinner or at night.  There’s a TON to look forward to; and so I do.  

Let’s go, Kiddo…. We still have a week until school, but we have a lot to do this week.  We get to explore, set up, but most of all we get to play in your wonderful world of imagination.  Know that I always look forward to you, to Mumma, and to what cool and new things we get to experience.  I can’t wait to look back one day and see us looking forward to whatever it was we were doing that day.