Why are we here?

On the hard days, I wonder why we are doing this. Why are we here? Why are we putting the kids through this?

In some respects, it doesn’t matter why we came, though it does matter why we stay. When we decided to come we had lofty goals – we would all learn Spanish, we would make Spanish friends, we’d learn to love another country and culture. I’m not sure that I still hold any of those ambitions as goals any more. Yes, it will be nice if we learn some Spanish. Yes, we are meeting a few people, some Spanish, many foreign. And yes, we can get a glimpse of Spain. But we cannot know Spain like I’d hoped we could. A year is not long enough.

So, what do we get out of being here? At this point, I don’t think it’s about knowing a place, a people or a language well. I think, ultimately, for us, this year will be -- and is -- about us. We will know for certain what it is like to be foreigners. We will learn more about how we handle stress, humility, confusion, adversity, etc. It’s less about this place than it is about being dropped into deep water and seeing how we manage to keep our heads above it. To keep breathing until we’re on dry land again.

And maybe that’s enough. In fact, that’s a lot. And it takes a lot of pressure off trying to accomplish something that was impractical from the beginning.

I have agonized a fair amount about not doing this well. About not being good at taking full advantage of everything here. Of every second. Every opportunity. Of being a good exchange student, as it were. News flash for me: There is no good way or bad way to be here, any more than there is a good way or bad way of living all the rest of life. There’s just our family here, or wherever, and loving each other. That’s what is either good or bad. Have I loved Jack and Alex and Anna today in a way that they feel loved and secure?

So I missed the Matisse exhibit. So I haven’t found the fabulous food Madrid is supposed to offer. So I haven’t taken any Spanish culture or cooking classes.

The better question is, did I wrap my arms around my crying child and provide a tiny bit of comfort so that she will be better able to deal with the situation tomorrow? Am I giving the kids the support they need so that they will discover their own ability to cope with being here? Hard question when what they really, really want is to have friends, have some autonomy and normalcy, and kind of, just want to go home.

We knew in advance that this would be hard. But we thought that since we knew that that would be the case, that it wouldn’t really be so bad. Nope. It’s just as hard.