It’s so bittersweet.  As I write this post with mixed feelings, we are about to board our plane to Rio to start our summer vacation after this crazy adventure in this incredible city.

It’s probably too early to understand what this year has meant for our family.  Still, looking back initially with raw emotions in our hearts, we have so many feelings, learning and thoughts, but are mostly filled with joy coupled with the sadness that the year is nearing the end.  Joy in having the time to do what we want with it.  Joy in spending so much time together as a family.  Joy in having the chance to explore new places, cultures, and foods.  Joy in meeting and spending time with some incredible people, including the many visitors who stopped by.  Joy in all the new experiences that we’ve lived through.

I know that we are just getting past the hypothetical and are not able yet to truly reflect on the year.  I know that there were plenty of challenging moments as well.  For the grown ups in the family the year was mostly play time together for hours on end, while the kids had to learn in an unfamiliar school filled with new kids speaking only a foreign language.  I don’t think I can describe that as joyful for them, particularly in the beginning.  And yet, learning to be the ‘other’ and to assimilate and grow into new environments is a skill that I hope will serve them for life, regardless of how difficult it may have seemed at times.  As the year comes to a close, it’s clear that they’ve made incredible connections at school, built friendships, and recognized how generally fortunate they are.  There has been lots of ‘going away parties’, last play dates, cakes being baked, ‘good-bye’ cards to friends and babysitters and even a, ‘I will miss being here’ once in a while.  And many tears.  It’s never easy to say good bye.

We have too many memories we’ve made to neatly summarize this year but the city of Buenos Aires, the people we met here, and the travel adventures we’ve had are all highlights that make this year unforgettable.   These have shaped our time here in ways beyond descriptions, forever etching incredible moments into our memories that I hope will provide life-long lessons and comforts for all of us for years to come.

Buenos Aires turned out to be magical. As one of my favorite travel writers, Danielle Pergament, recently described, it’s easy to be enchanted by the sexy, gritty streets of San Telmo. The leafy, moneyed blocks of Recoleta. The groovy West Village vibe of Palermo Soho where we lived. Buenos Aires is a city of profound character, fantastic food, midnight dinners, romantic, tree-lined avenues, and all of it, remarkably affordable.  We scoured every corner of it, danced, ate, and explored on foot, bikes, busses, taxis, ubers, subways, and boats.  Very simply, we loved living here.

The connections we made with the people are also unforgettable. It wasn’t just forming new friendships, though these are priceless.  It was also learning to work with so many fantastic new friends in the city, from my hair dresser, to my kick-boxing class instructor, to our Spanish teacher and everyone else who made our life here such a pleasure.  The attitudes and openness too, was unrivaled. We met and got close with people with whom I normally don’t seem to have enough time to engage with, and this profoundly changed who I am.  Not every connection is deep and ever-lasting, and yet, I feel that I learned more about people this year than I had for years.  Of course, my limited Spanish definitely hindered my ability to get as close to everyone as I wished to, but often words were not necessary to show mutual respect and deep appreciation for the helping hand everyone was extending.

Lastly, the travel we got to experience while here is unparalleled to anything we have done in the past.  Because we had so much time, it was more deliberate, richer in exploring and down time while more relaxing and less stressful.  Even short weekend trips seemed somehow less rushed and more fun.  It wasn’t just about seeing and experiencing new places, but instead about just being.  I don’t know when is the next time that I’ll be able to replicate that feeling of infinite time, but I am grateful for the opportunity to experience it, if even once, in my adult life.

People have asked me if we’ve changed because of this year.  It’s not a question without merit, but it’s impossible to answer just yet.  We all change all the time and grow in new ways – perhaps this year has given us the opportunity to speed up the process.  We are different people than we were when we left, but that would be true for any adjustments in life.

Although it’s too early to understand the impact, one is already manifesting itself in the choices we’ve made about how we see our life moving forward.  We have loved living in a city this past year, even at an expense of a yard, although not enough to leave the suburbs completely.  We think we’ve found a middle ground by moving to Oakland when we return.  We want to continue living in an urban environment with the ability to walk everywhere while still having a house and a tiny plot of green grass for the kids to jump on.  We will miss the nature of Marin (we already do!) and of course, our friends there (though we will be just across the bridge) but having access to greater diversity, maybe more arts, and a little more edge of Oakland and Berkeley seems like a good fit for our family now.  Of course, there is also the draw to continue to do something new and not to come back to our lives exactly as we left them.  We loved them then, but we’re keen to experience something new now.  Separately, we’ve made many promises to ourselves of how our lives will be slightly different in thousands of ways based on this year, but of course, it’s really easy to make them before the pressures of two careers and schools and all that entails take over.  So we will try to cook more, play more, workout more, add more art, creativity and time together, and so on, but who knows?  The least we can do now is dream.

And so, as we count our last weeks before our return, we’re grateful for everything the year has taught us, some of which we don’t yet know.  We’re grateful for the time together and the upcoming weeks.  And we’re grateful for the continued change.  Onwards.