One hundred days - and thirty more

We have officially lived in Japan for 130 days, today, and this is officially my one hundredth post on this blog. I can't believe it, really - the time seems to fly by one week, and crawl the next, but 130 is a big number. I'm amazed.

I was going to write about the thirty days I would delete if I could, for the 30 days when I didn't write a new post on this blog. The days with no sleep in the Navy Lodge because our neighbors' kids were screaming. The most painful of the homesickness, when I found myself outside the Lodge at midnight, sobbing to no one in this foreign land. Or maybe parts of that tricky move!

But I realized as I tried to write that post that it just wouldn't go onto the page, that I couldn't bring myself to wish away any of our time here. My life in Japan is and is not what I imagined, and I think it is what it should be. Moving to a foreign country - and please notify whoever gives out awards for groundbreaking philosophical breakthroughs that I've figured this out - is really hard. And stressful. And if I skipped the hard and stressful parts, I'd be missing this incredible experience.

There is that other thing, the Big Painful Issue from August, the miscarriage I suffered in the midst of the house-hunting madness. I'm not sure whether I would take that back if I could. For now let's say that I'm hoping that every step toward starting our family is worthwhile.

So here we are at 100 posts, and what WILL go onto the page is my heartfelt thanks to you, dear readers, for sticking with me through this crazy adventure. Domo arigato gozaimas.

You should know that I wouldn't give back the past few days for anything - we've had two dinner parties, one to attend and one to throw, a new friend came by for green tea today, and Josh gave me a Nintendo Wii as a present! Life is very, very good way over here, and I expect it to stay that way.