THIS is why we're going.

I found this prayer in a comment on the Burgh Blog (great read, by the way) and wanted to run around waving a copy. This is it! This is why we're going! I tried to express our motivation when I started this blog, but this is much better. And I can even refer back to it when the kids and I get depressed about giving up our home and community in Pittsburgh. I made J read and unravel the metaphors and he really gets it -- probably because some fancy-looking dead guy wrote the prayer, rather than just Mom, whose sole purpose is to provide authority for him to challenge.

Prayer of Sir Francis Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love.

To sell or not to sell...

That is the gut-wrenching question.

For a long time we have been concerned about the quality of public education for our children here. Pair that with a giant mortgage and ridiculous taxes, and it makes sense to sell our house before we go. Which is fine by me. My happiness is not laid in that foundation; it's the relationships and nature that surround us here that enrich my life. As three years pass our attachment to this particular house will fade.

I just don't know how to explain that to the kids.

They've all been excited to go back to Doha. They miss their friends there, they miss the school (ASD). It was a great experience. But as soon as they realized that there is a cost - there is a permanence in three years that was easy to overlook for four months - the reaction changed. A is too young (4, now) to understand so I can kind of gloss that over. J (now 9) is more aware; he gets that three years will be a long, long time and things will change. He's sad about that but he's still basically on board. Which maybe I shouldn't trust so much, given that he second-guesses pretty much everything else that comes out of my mouth. But that's a different entry.

C (still 6) is another story. When he first heard us talk about renting the house he immediately understood that we won't be coming back to his old bedroom twice a year. Dead stop. Total deal breaker. He's less visceral now but just yesterday he told me "You know, one year is the right amount of time to go. It's enough to really have friends but now too long to be away." But that's not an option.

How do I relate to three young children that we're selling their home because the schools just aren't good enough? So far I've come up with this: We're not sure where we'll live when we come back to Pittsburgh but we will find a nice home in a nice neighborhood with good schools and no matter what, they can still see their dear friends.

Not bad, but I know I'll fall apart when they freak out.

Reprise, extended dance remix

Yep - you guessed it. We're heading back.

Daddy-O got an invitation to leapfrog his career in a three-year contract in Doha. So that's just what we're going to do. It was an easy decision, really - this is an opportunity that doesn't come around but once a decade (or two). And there are opportunities for me too - I've been chomping at the bit for over a year to re-launch my career, and as the US economy tanks it makes some sense to go where there are tons of interesting projects. The kids were happy during our first visit, their school is fantastic, way beyond anything we could afford here.

So it's a good decision. Except that getting there is going to suck. Once we decided to go to Qatar, the easy choice was over and everything that has followed has been grueling hard.

We've been happy is the thing. We have a comfortable life, surrounded by wonderful friends and close (enough) to family. We lack for nothing, in contrast we are incredibly fortunate. Is it ungrateful to pursue more? I hope not, because I try hard to be conscious and appreciate the life I have. Have I mentioned before that I hate to say goodbye? Well, we've got a lot of that going on.

It's going to be a long haul.