Things left unsaid

[aadler]

 
Not for any particular reason, I haven’t made any allusion to several fairly significant recent life events. Didn’t do it at the time, because I was busy with other things, and left it unmentioned as time went by because I wanted to tell it in the right way (without caring enough to give it that much thought). Eventually, though, the weight of the unspoken comes to nag for relief. So here are the pertinent facts:

My son got married. Back in April, and he and Mei-li are back in China now. He’s talking about them moving to the US sometime next year, though recent events raise the possibility that they’ll do it sooner than that.

My daughter got married. (Yes, sroni.) This was in July, and though she was able to attend her brother’s wedding, he couldn’t be at hers because of the China thing. On the other hand, several members of her husband’s family flew in from Ireland for the ceremony, and we had them around for visits and sightseeing and even attendance at my wife’s annual family reunion. Conal is back in Ireland right now, interviewing at various prestigious firms, and sroni is living with a girlfriend and working to build up a cash fund till the time comes to go join him. (And there is now significant evidence that she’s pregnant, so even if they were inclined to wait much longer, that would probably override it.)

I’m no longer working as a long-haul truck driver. I really liked the life, but it was hard on Susan for me to be away so much of the time and then gone again after only a few days back. I may do it again some time in the future, but more likely I’ll settle for something closer to home.

And that’s it. Any other life updates I feel like mentioning, can now be assessed in proper context.

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Well congratulations to your children on their nuptials! May their marriages be happy and forever.

Sorry that trucking did not work well for you. I hope you find the right new career.


Gabrielle

[aadler]

I can hope I communicated to my offspring enough of my own ideas about a proper commitment to marriage that they can weather the inevitable difficulties and bear through to something lasting and rewarding. (The storms will come; it’s all in how we meet them.) Strictly on a pragmatic basis, I see the odds heavily tilted in sroni’s favor, simply because her husband comes from a culture where divorce used to be all but impossible, and is still so uncommon that he grew up with the understanding that people just don’t DO that.

As far as careers go, I was lucky to find two — military, and driving — that suited my temperament perfectly. The first is no longer possible to me, the second may or may not figure into the future; I can’t count on being so fortunate a third time. That’s just how it is.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

congrats on the weddings. It must be interesting, having international connections.

[aadler]

It never stops being a surprise, the directions life can take us. The last fifteen years (which honestly feels like an eye-blink, now) brought things none of us ever could have foreseen. Finding ourselves an international family was just the latest wrinkle in an ongoing trend of unpredictability.