Seven months later we returned, all together, to this house that we own. This old, interesting house that had been loved but not cared for. A house that had been lived in but not updated. And we started the project. Which consisted of many projects. A list of projects, plus all the other projects that were hidden under the layers of the initial projects.

From when we landed back on this continent we had a ticking clock of four months. Four months to tackle these projects, decompress from life abroad, reconnect with friends and family, travel. All of it. And suddenly these projects seemed to be taking more than their fair share of that time. More time and more money and more effort that we wanted to spend in such a short span. And suddenly this house, this project, which was supposed to make us freer was making us feel captive.

The truth is, when we sat down, breathed, talked and thought, this kind of dilemma is so obviously a problem only in our minds. We have a house. A home. Safe, warm, place that we have carved out of the world for our family. In a beautiful, peaceful town in a country where plenty is an understatement.

We have projects, sure, and not a hope of finishing them all. Not this summer. Maybe not next. But we have what we have. Which is so much. So, so much.

We have friends.

We have books.

We have space.

And new perspective.

We make new memories, with Dad.

And with soon-to-be new uncle.

We have art.

And so much beauty.

We work well with others.

And things have started to grow.

She has bounce.

And more balance than I could hope for.We have it all.

The weekend was, however, an amazing eye opener for me. I was with my sister and 10 of her friends, most of whom I had met before, some of whom I have known since they were in elementary school, all of whom have played an important role in her life. And I saw them in a different light. I saw them not as just ‘my sister’s friends’ but as the women who surround my sister when she needs them. They were there to have fun, sure, but in reality they were all there for her. To celebrate her. To celebrate their friendship and the happiness they had for her. This didn’t surprise me, my sister is a wonderful woman who has always been wise enough to nourish her female bonds, but it was a new perspective. I saw them as a group, I saw them as a network, I saw them symbolically.

I would never hesitate to say that my sister is my best friend, but the truth is that a sisterly relationship, or at least our sisterly relationship, has a certain limit to it’s infinite nature. There is almost nothing I wouldn’t do for her (I went to Magic Mike IN THE THEATER you guys, for real) and I know she feels the same way about me. But there is also an element of fire to our relationship that I don’t have in my friendships with other women. We have high hopes, expectations and standards for each other and we are very hard on each other. And sometimes quite harsh towards each other. And once in a while downright mean. And though I’m not proud of that, I know it’s exceptional because any other friendship would not survive such heat. But ours does. And it grows. Stronger and stronger.

The intense, historical, familial relationship I have with my sister is just one part of my sisterhood. I have more than my share of truly exceptional women around me, who understand me in different ways than my sister does, who forgive me more quickly or hold me accountable more consistently. No woman on earth could ever replace my sister, but these other sisters complete my life in a way that just one woman, not even a sister, could ever do.

My time in Vegas with my sister’s friends led me to the should-have-been-obvious conclusion that my sister has her own sisterhood. She completes her need for female connection with other women, just like I do. When it comes the women in her life, I am not her everything, and letting myself realize that gave me the freedom to stop feeling guilty for the fact that she is not my everything. My sister’s sisterhood gives me relief when I might be worried that she is lonely. My sister’s sisterhood makes sure she has someone to talk to about the things she doesn’t want to tell me. Strong, wild and wonderful, my sister’s sisterhood.

I spent the night in a Holiday Inn Express, one of the most beautiful, fascinating, joyous places on earth according to my daughter. I slept with earplugs in my ears. And a pillow on my head. And the KindleFire on top of that pillow with the white noise app blasting. Because the snoring. My god the snoring.

Our trip was long. So, so long. But safe and relatively uneventful. I started packing up our apartment about two weeks before our flight and on the same day the suitcases came out of storage Falcor started boycotting breakfast and losing fur in clumps. That exact moment is when the trip started for me.

Our itinerary was like this: 3 hour drive to the airport, 10 hour flight to LAX, 11 hour layover in LA, 4.5 hour flight to DTW, 2.5 hour layover in Detroit, 1 hour flight to Marquette.We arrived to the airport in Tokyo 3 hours early, thinking we might have overdone it, then used every spare minute only to walk up to our gate as the flight was boarding. The profuse sweating started before we even got through security. And this is my travel hell.

You know when you have 8 pieces of luggage, 2 dogs in crates and a toddler and you get assigned to the desk with the agent in training? Perfect. Really perfect. To be fair, this was probably a great case to train her with, they had the binder full of instructions out and called a manager several times and tagged our luggage in incorrectly before finally fixing the situation. While we endured the longest check-in process ever in the history of commercial aviation, I ask you to imagine the sound of Enid is shrieking like her leg is in a bear trap echoing through the terminal. Envision Vesper running around like a toddler five hours past her bedtime (there is no metaphor for that phenomenon that describes it better than just that) adding the second layer of sweat as I chased her then Dave chased her then she threw the contents of my purse on the floor then ran for it once again. At that point, she was still the cute foreign child acting like a crazy, adorable foreigner and the Japanese love of all things cute combined with their politeness meant that they just smiled and laughed and cooed ‘kawaii kawaii kawaii.’ I thought to myself ‘enjoy this now…because when we step off that plane in LA you are just another unruly American child with a dirty face running through an airport.’

The packing, planning, and coordinating of travel for two adults, a child and 2 child-like dogs combined with the stress of that check-in process led to a situation where getting into our almost painfully uncomfortable seats on an old Delta plane for a 10 hour flight actually seemed like a relief. The initial turbulence was disarming, the controls on our TVs were faulty, the food was how it is, and yet I felt so (relatively) relaxed. I was thankful to the airline that they (FOR ONCE) actually provided our special meal request, I was thankful for the extra seats for V to stretch our on, I was thankful to the Sikh man next to us who was so gracious when V she loudly inquired “What’s on that man’s head mommy?” We were full and relaxed, V was an angel, I stopped sweating for a brief moment. But we had to land eventually.

We landed in LA and, in an attempt to pre-comfort myself in case anything went majorly wrong, I said “We are on US soil. We could rent a U-Haul and drive home. We could walk. I could call my mom for a ride. We are going to get home.” Whenever I travel, no matter how many frequent flier miles I’ve accrued, I get anxiety. When my dogs are flying too, that anxiety is multiplied. I had nerves about going through immigration, nerves about collecting the dogs, nerves about finding our airport shuttle, nerves about our next two flights being cancelled due to weather.

Our 11-hour layover was spent eating American pizza in an American sized hotel room that was, no joke, nearly as big as our entire apartment in Japan. We watched TV in English while Vesper investigated (“Mommy! I found a book in this drawer! Mommy! Tiny bottles! Mommy! A bathtub!”) and had a nap for a couple of hours. Dave politely suggested I change to a clean shirt for our LA to Detroit to Marquette segment, but I shrugged. Seriously, what would be the point?

Quick sidenote: Air travel is the worst, but there were some pretty awesome individuals along this trip that made things way easier. Shout out to the immigration officer who literally asked no questions (a first for us), to the LAX employee who got us an industrial cart for our luggage and fast-tracked us through customs, the customs officer who didn’t even peek into the dog crates, and, shockingly, basically every single Delta employee we came across, particularly the agent who re-checked the dogs at the special services desk in LAX. Seriously friendly, efficient service. Several layers of sweat were spared by these heroic actions.

We nervously ate bagels in Detroit, fretting over threats of bad weather and worrying about our dogs as we watched snow blow all over the tarmac. Our girl ran around like a chicken out the coop, and we chased her down moving walkways sort of just constantly chanting ‘sorry, sorry, pardon us, sorry’ to anyone who might get in the way. Confession: I’m not sorry, I just have Midwestern manners. This is an airport and she is 2 so just deal with the chaos, can’t you see how sweaty I am!?

It’s been a long, long time since I felt the kind of relief I felt when the wheels of our plane landed in my hometown. This season was an amazing adventure, as they all have been. But it was tiring by the end. It was lonely at points. Our families felt further away than usual. Japan is beautiful and the Japanese are lovely but living there  can be so dang hard.

I have this dream of being the kind of true vagabond that feels at home anywhere, that adapts easily and laughs (instead of sweats) during travel mishaps. But not-very-deep down I’m a homebody with  control issues and the sweet sight of home warmed my heart. Despite the snow.

Four months to re-fuel until we reverse this trip and do it all again.

The implications of signs like this are’t subtle. Sports that are faster, harder and meaner are for boys. Sports that involve more grace, agility and sequins are for girls. The reality of this annoying and damaging trope is being chipped away at gradually. Very gradually. Because even when a woman is strong and powerful and athletic, commercial images of her still have to assure us that she is pretty and sexy and feminine. And men can try more artistic, expressive pursuits if they dare, but only if they have the fortitude to be the potential target of homophobia. So. Progress.

And anyone who argues that seemingly small things like this aren’t part of the larger picture of our culture’s limited scope of gender roles probably fits quite nicely into their assigned slot and doesn’t ever feel the friction of trying to be yourself in a world where your options are limited. It’s so ingrained in our minds it almost hurts to start questioning it, but once you do I bet you will never be able to stop.

An important note, though, for those in charge of signage a this arena in Tokyo: on Sunday the Japanese Women’s National Ice Hockey Team qualified for the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, while the Men’s National Team lost out several months ago and won’t be playing in the Sochi games. I can already hear some misogynist blabber about the competitiveness of the pools and the level of play in men’s versus women’s hockey at the international level, but this victory is sweet and these signs are bullshit.

As a trailing spouse in a foreign country, this line of questioning can make for a quick turn into awkward territory. Depending on my mood, I would answer  differently. On days when I felt bitter or stressed or annoyed, I’d just say ‘Nothing. I do nothing of value to the misogynist capitalist machine’ and this would lead to a silence followed by the other person backing away slowly. Or quickly. If I felt like being very literal, I would say ‘I’m a social worker by trade, but right now that is on hold since it is impossible to do while Dave plays hockey’ and this left the conversation a little more open, though most people would grab onto the bone I threw and ask more about social work, what I used to do, what I’d like to do later. I’d indulge this, for polite conversational purposes, but the truth is I don’t identify as a social worker in a professional sense anymore and I don’t know if I will in the future. If I was feeling very honest and open I’d say ‘It’s really complicated. But at the moment, I don’t work.’

When I became a mother, my answer to this line of questioning became simpler and more complicated. On the one hand, I could always just answer ‘I’m a mom’ and people kind of accept that as a valid exception to the define-yourself-by-your-paid-work rule of life. But it isn’t actually an answer to to the intended meaning of this question. If I had a full-time job, I’d still be a mother. When V is grown and gone, I’ll still be a mother. And anyway, even if I use this as an answer there’s about a 62% chance the other person will follow-up with ‘But what did you DO…before that.’ Sigh.

As Victoria and I talked, I realized that this question was probably frustrating to more than just partners of professional hockey players and trailing spouses of expats. This question would be annoying to many stay-at-home parents. To anyone unable to work physical or mental reasons. Anyone unemployed or underemployed. Anyone who has a job but doesn’t like that job or consider it to be an accurate indicator regarding their identity. If life is good to us, we get to experience the adventure of meeting new people often, and this fixation on employment as self can be a hindrance to these encounters from the start. And that’s no good.

Victoria had solved this problem before we even finished the conversation. A wiser woman than I, she said simply:

Wouldn’t it be great, wouldn’t it be more interesting, wouldn’t it be more encompassing if we started conversations with ‘what are you INTERESTED in?’ instead of ‘what do you DO?’

Yes, it would be great. This question doesn’t exclude anyone who isn’t in the paid workforce, voluntarily or involuntarily, and doesn’t lead to anyone giving complex explanations with personal information about their employment status. This question includes everyone, and leaves an opening for those who are so lucky that they would answer the question ‘what are your interests?’ with a description of their job or career. Brilliant, Victoria.

Get you answers ready, because when we meet I’m bound to ask you ‘What are your interests?’

During my first run since the half, I thought back on the training and the race. The way the program kept me running through some cold and wet months, the way the race itself was such a new adventure since I don’t speak Japanese and literally couldn’t even sign up for the race myself. During my run the sun was shining and I stomped down the road and up a mountain and past tea shops so glad to be back out. After a hiatus like that, I feel a bit out of shape. Lungs are tighter, legs are heavier, miles are longer. But it’s no matter, because you know that a few weeks, a few runs, you’ll be back and it’s always worth it and while we may run in races, running is not a race.

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The half marathon I did on January 14th, however, was a race. And I ran it faster than my first two halves in 2009 but slower than my personal best set in September of 2012. The course was nice and tame, my training times were satisfactory, but the weather. Oh. My. Stars. The weather.

Running a race in January, in this part of Japan, I knew the weather wouldn’t be a sure thing. During the months of training I ran in snow and rain and made mental notes about which layers worked best for which temperature. I’m from a winter place, I like winter sports. No. Biggie.

The day before the race was 12C/54F and sunny. Sun as far as the eye could see. On the morning of my race it was snowing, almost raining, and 1C/33F. By the time we drove an hour to the city where I’d be running, it was clear that this was going to be tough. It was incredibly windy, incredibly cold, incredibly wet. The snow had turn to freezing, pouring, sideways rain. I was excited, though. I stayed positive. I got my cheering squad settled in the gym set-up as a holding area near the start, and then I got myself ready. Icy-Hot rubbed on, layers layered, playlist on deck.

At the starting line I jumped around to stay warm with a few thousand other runners. A quick perusal of the list of runners an hour earlier had confirmed that I was the only non-Japanese runner, my name stuck out on the list due to it’s being written in a different alphabet. That fact came as no surprise, but in that seas of bouncing racers I began to notice how few women were with me there. In the past I’d hazard to guess the ratio at least 50/50, but in this case it seemed more like 80/20. I found this quite motivating, actually, right after finding it really annoying.

When the race started, I felt pretty good about things. The brim of my hat was keeping the water off my face to a reasonable degree. My ears were warm, my hands were covered, my music was raging. The pack thinned and we headed out into the countryside. And it was pretty. But exposed. And windy. And the rain kept coming harder and harder. Some of the low points in the road were filled in an became 6 feet wide puddles. Some runners tried to run around them, but eventually it became apparent that our feet were going to get wet. And by mile 2 mine were soaked. Each step made a squishy sound. Like running on sponges. Cold sponges.

On a positive note, since this race was being clocked in kilometers, there were signs showing our distance ALL THE TIME. I loved it. Miles can seem long but kilometers just fly on by.

Back to reality, by the turn at the half way point of the race (it was 2 loops of an approximately 11km course) every single piece of my body was wet. And cold. I was feeling motivated, but wet. And cold. Dave, Ves and my girl Katie were all there standing under an umbrella, shivering, and cheering me on. Seeing them was an AMAZING boost, and I could see that some runners were quitting at this point. Which made me feel like a bad ass. A  cold, wet, bad ass.

The weather got progressively worse as the race went on. The puddles on the course became slush, the rain turned to snow and back to rain. It wasn’t great.

Around mile 8, I started to struggle. My knees felt raw, my feet felt numb. When I told my toes to wiggle I couldn’t really tell if they were actually wiggling. Every inch from my shoulders to my fingertips was aching. My hands felt like one huge finger, I had no dexterity and could not manage a zipper or change the song on my iPod.

By mile 10 I was picking up my pace just a bit, using my mind to move my body in a pattern that resembled running because I wanted it to be over. I finished without a flourish, so happy to see Dave waiting with a coat and umbrella. 2 hours and 3 minutes.

Dave was genuinely concerned when he caught me at the finish. He said I looked pretty good, told me there were lots of finishers coming in just before me who couldn’t walk and were shivering uncontrollably. Just before I had come in, he had bought a bowl of hot soup for one runner who sat huddled and shivering after his finish.

When we got back to the gym to meet Katie and Ves I saw what he meant. I saw runners under those silver emergency blankets, just shuddering. I felt frozen. I felt sore. I felt wet to my very bones. But overall I was fine, and when I saw the others I felt really grateful for that. Some of the runners had actually been in tank tops or t-shirts, lots of them ran past the water stations. I was way too practical and too thirsty to behave that way, and it paid off.

Amazingly, the next day I only felt slightly stiff. It was my fastest race-recovery ever, possibly because of the heaping portions of healing ramen I ate that night.

I am now ready to set my sights on a new race: 10K on May 11. I’ve never done a 10K before, and I’m loving this challenge since it will have me training for pace since I know I can do the distance. Any tips for 10K training and getting much faster?

The truth is that it’s often easier to play down the difficulty of this task. Because the reality is that it has to be done, there are people who do much bigger things with much more difficult lives, and no one likes to hear me whine. I love the special time I get alone with my girl, with my pups, because I know this time has contributed to the incredible bond I have with all three of them. They all three love Dave dearly, they all three go out of their minds when he returns home, they have a special daddy obsessions. But when they are scared, hurt, upset, sad or out of sorts, they often come to me. The source.

I take my job of caring for these three very seriously. It’s exhausting but fun, tiring but hilarious. It involves a lot of sweating and hoisting and tugging and pulling and, on occasion, swearing. There is a reason why the phrase ‘Damnit, Falcor’ is in my child’s vocabulary. But seriously, is that dog trying to kill me by way of leash-tripping?

I get them all out, all together, a few times a day. With V in the stroller and the dogs on the double leash. With V in the Ergo carrier on my back and the dogs on their own leashes. With V on her own two feet while we walk around the block…one tiny block in 45 very long, very slow minutes. 

Sometimes the walk ends with me feeling relieved but satisfied, everyone behaved relatively well, we all made it home, no worse for the wear. Sometimes it ends with me exasperated, everyone pulled me in every direction, no one had a particularly good time and the freshness of the air was mitigated by the dampness of the mood.

But sometimes, just sometimes, it all comes together. Just perfectly. Everyone walks where they should, sits when I ask, listens to my directions. Everyone has a great time, no one cries for chocolate or lunges at a shih tzu or tries to eat rotten tidbits off the sidewalk. We all laugh and run and we take our time going home.

In those moments, during those walks, I really feel like I’ve done it. I’ve parented the shit out of this moment. Not just that I’ve fed us, dressed us and abated our cabin fever, but that I really had fun doing it. That V was so pleased with our adventure. That the dogs feel content. Because as much as I love parenting and dog ownership and all of this family life, sometimes the needs of others feel less like a privilege to bear and more like a burden to carry.

But not this day, not on this walk. On this day, on this walk, we were the happiest foursome in the world. We took our time, looked around and really saw what there is to see, were a team in highest sense of teamwork.

Also, I think this sign is trying to tell me something.

I’ve had these thoughts before. After my first half marathon, I found myself thinking…why? And during my second. The night before my third.

But on my long training runs, during the latter stages of a race, my mind always gives my body the same answer when it tries to slow down and threatens to quit.

There are those whose body won’t let them run, whose mind stops them from running, whose grief or pain is too heavy for them to run with. The universe is chaotic and I am subject to its whim and for no reason and with no warning, I could be stricken. My body can be injured, my mind can grow ill, my life could experience events that wear me right down.

But until then I am healthy, physically and mentally. I’m happy. I’m supported and able. I run for those who want to but can’t. For those who would if they could. For those who should but haven’t yet. I run because I can.