Cue The Clash

Dear all, 

The last few months have been a bit tumultuous.  We sold our house in the fall.  Walking out the door for the last time was emotional despite the fact we’ve been away for nearly three years.  Then, two days before Christmas, we closed on a house in Lake Forest, IL.  It is closer to J’s work and is within walking distance to the train, shops and cafes, which was important to us after living in town for this long.  We hope to rent the house until our return.

I love change and so with the purchase of our new home, I was able to throw myself into our move back.  I was googling park district programs for A and collecting the phone numbers of handymen (bad 70’s shelving in the new family room has to go).  I started to think about things I wanted to bring back from England.  I fantasized about A celebrating the 4^th of July and seeing proper, over the top Christmas lights and decorations.  And snow.

Alas, I may have to wait.  J’s boss came to the UK.  He is a lovely man and while we stood together talking, it became obvious (by way of Dave bellowing and choking, ‘Who said you were going home in a year?’) that J is still needed here, which we knew, but chose to ignore.  Yes, we can go home, but will that be the best for J or our family?  We moved here because J was spending too much time away from home, would we want to move home only to have J flying to England for weeks at a time?  (Although maintaining a flat in London certainly sounds appealing…) 

But then there are the children to consider.  R wants the American lifestyle back immediately.  He is desperate to return so he can, by all accounts, loiter outside 7/11’s with his homies, lay in the sunshine and avoid growing up.  S has been seduced by Hollywood and now thinks high school is like High School Musical.  She wants to return so as to experience the American high school ‘dream’. M wants to stay in England and complete senior school here (And who can blame him?  He is doing so well after years of struggling with his learning disabilities). And A says he is happy to move home, but that he will NOT be going to school upon our return (not really worryin’ about HIS hang ups, though). 

And me?  I am happy here, but I do get homesick.  I miss my parents (My dad had major surgery last October.  My, mom, bless her, had to put to sleep our cat they inherited when we left.).  I miss family and my friends.  Some days I just wish I was sitting at my Aunt Marilyn’s kitchen table instead of negotiating sidewalks decorated with delicate starbursts of vomit (I seriously contemplate why Britain’s youth, almost without exception, eat carrots before binge drinking).  And, for all our faults, Americans volunteer and give of ourselves freely.  I miss our openness and lack of reserve and dedication to community.  

And so I say to you, ‘Cue the Clash!’

The Clash’s punk rock song “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” is clanging in my head, although, in this instance, I think a more soulful, slightly mournful remake might prove to be very effective (think Judy Collins’ version of “Both Sides Now”).  In your mind, add some rather self-indulgent shots of me, face heavy in contemplation, wearing a jaunty coat, perky hat and shiny black wellies walking my small British dog in the rain past stunning Regency architecture, answering emails in my very Jane Austen dining room with the sun, pouring through my two hundred year old, nine foot windows or of me dashing out to collect the children from their elitist schools.  Such doleful images.

We will do whatever is best for the family and staying here until 2012 would get M and S through senior school and give R a chance to go to high school back home for two years.  We are choosing between two blessed situations, we know that. 

I do, however, feel for R in particular, who carries all the baggage that middle children often do.  But, in the words of my father, a master of sensitivity, who understands R well (they share a birthday and birth order in families of similar make up:  three boys and one girl), ‘Too, damn bad, he’ll be fine.’ 

I’ll keep you posted.

With love from England,

T-Ann