Our son started his preschool class last week. It was a week of great highs and lows as he adjusted to this new place, and more importantly, adjusted to being there without me.
Every new situation he faces causes me to feel of two minds: I want him to feel safe and happy but I also want him to explore new worlds and learn from new people. And sometimes those two ideas clash and we’re left with a very sad child who is in a safe environment that he just doesn’t want to be in. As a mother, this is heartbreaking to see.
Week two will hopefully be a big improvement over week one, and I have no doubt that soon enough he’ll be excitedly waving good-bye to me when I leave him on the school playground.
And with a big portion of his day now devoted to school (and napping), I am really aware of my daily free time all of a sudden. With my husband and I talking about the distant (but not too distant) realities of repatriating to the US, it has forced me to take a harder look at my time here in Shanghai. I want to make the best of my free time and take the classes that I never had time to take, sign up for the volunteer opportunities that are too time consuming back home, and investigate new career paths. All of this is available for me right now because of this wonderful work hiatus that I’m on, and I have to say I am really excited about it. Even if I end up back in the US with the same type of job, at least I will have delved into other areas of potential expertise and found out whether I liked them or not. I’ve taken on two volunteer copy- and content-editing jobs here and I look forward to seeing what else plays over the next year.
What do you most want to do if you had the time to do it? What small changes could you make to build your resume skills and also your confidence?
An Ocean Away 
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