closing a chapter and saying goodbye

balkayas exiting ankara

believe me, i'm not exaggerating when i say these past 7 or 8 weeks have been a complete whirlwind for ben and i.  i will look back and remember them in a blur - i already do… those last weeks in ankara were so chaotic, running every minute of every single day to wrap up our life there.  then, a wonderful pause - a breath of air - as we traveled to munich for a trip we had booked before we knew this move was happening.  five blissfully peaceful days of enjoying one of our favorite cities with our two boys, knowing it would be our last european excursion for a long while (that brought some tears).

then, back to ankara for three more incredibly stressful days.  running from place to place, closing up the office, taking our last looks at the house (apartment) we had made a home (that brought a LOT of tears).  a lovely evening out with friends who gathered to say goodbye.

it was pretty gut wrenching, saying good bye to a city i didn't even know i loved that much.  between the two of us, it was me who didn't feel ready to say goodbye, who was sobbing as our plane taxied down the runway.   sure, it was a hard place to live.  it was getting harder, noticeably, by the day.  since we've been back everyone seems to tell us the same thing: you left at the right time.  and i guess we did.

but... it will always be the place where i grew to love ben even more deeply.  where we realized that ours was a commitment we'd spend our lives fulfilling.  where i suffered the most painful, most numbing heartbreak i've yet to endure.  where i survived two (somewhat difficult) pregnancies, and birthed my two beautiful boys; where i became a mom.  it's a place i grew to know (in parts) like the back of my hand.  it was no longer foreign, i had reached a comfortable familiarity and rhythm.

i understand now what people mean when they say you can never go back home.  for my little family, home will always be in two parts of the world.  few people will truly understand that.  ben has spent his lifetime saying goodbye to one side of his family or the other, and now i can begin to understand what that feels like.  it's such an incredible blessing to us, getting to know these different parts of the world so intimately, being fortunate enough to call them home.  but it's also such a curse, never being able to bring the two together.

goodbye for now, turkey.