23 months of travel. Countless pillows. Innumberable tables where we sat to write this blog. We have moved around so much and yet for me I have discovered a 2nd home in Bulgaria. Our last week in the country was hard as we met up with the great friends and family that we have been able to reconnect with while in Bulgaria. We had dinners with Neda’s cousin Gosho and his girlfriend Raya, slacklining in the park with our friends Joanna & Morgan, who we met in Thailand, and celebratory drinks with Neda’s old friend Kaloyan, who along with partner Rumiana, were celebrating the birth of their first child. And even as we raised our glass in cheers, there was sadness as our family had just visited Neda’s grandma Marika, who was lying in bed close to death.
The last picture Kaloyan and Rumiana took before little Kaloyan Jr. popped out!
How do we reconcile the closeness we feel for this place with our decision to leave? I tell myself that finally it’s time to go home, but I am no longer certain where home is. Zen teaches us that home is a construct that we are constantly destroying and re-creating to find stability in this changing world. And while that abstraction may lend some comfort, it doesn’t feel any better to know it will be too long before we see all of our friends and family in Bulgaria again. Our last dinner in Bulgaria was with Neda’s oldest friend Petya and Dimitar, another old friend from high school. As we caught up on our lives eating delicious Bulgarian cuisine and speaking completely in Bulgarian, I couldn’t help but feel that life here was just beginning even as we were preparing to leave.
But how do we choose to whom to say goodbye and to whom to say hello? My Mom gave us a thrilled hug when she saw us walk through the terminal doors and it was wonderful to see her after so long. Yet as we drove back to Lansdale Neda called her parents to find out that Baba Marika had indeed died the day after we had seen her. We had made it to one hello and missed another goodbye.
In Memorandum: Baba Marika with her family during a visit in 2009
As if it were the universe’s cosmic plan to remind us of this crazy cycle of birth and death, as Neda hung up with her parents with tears in her eyes we were only a few minutes away from my sister’s house. Sam and her husband Gary were waiting outside in the driveway, with a little bundle of joy in their hands, their new daughter and our new niece, Miranda Hope Koellhoffer. When I looked into her sweet eyes and heard her gentle cooing, the miles we had traveled melted away and I immediately noticed that familiar feeling already starting…here with this baby in my arms, I was beginning once again to create home.
It’s probably healthy to let go of our attachments and go through these changes in life in order to keep ourselves from growing stagnant. But I already miss my family and friends in Bulgaria, I miss talking in Bulgarian to little Marilenka, playing backgammon with my father-in-law, and discussing the nuances of Bulgarian language with my mother-in-law. I miss tomatoes whose flavor nearly knocks me unconscious and the view of the Bulgarian countryside when I run atop the hills bordering our neighborhood.
But I don’t miss not being able to be a part of my nieces’ lives. My other niece Ella is over 2 years old now and chatting up a storm. She already called us Uncle Jeff & Aunt Neda as she carefully made sure we had enough ice in our water at dinner. And so it goes…to say hello we have to say goodbye.
Lauren, Neda & Ella give us big smiles!
I never expected to feel so much a stranger in my own country. The accents sound strange, the lawns seem so big, and the clothes and bodies look so different (sorry America, but our bodies tend to be quite a bit bigger than everywhere else in the world!). I feel blessed to be given even the smallest glimpse of what it must have been like for Neda and her family when they came from Bulgaria to America 15 years ago. At that time they became a part of two worlds, a family with two homes. And now, in some small way, I’ve joined them.
We miss you Nadia & Petko!
To see all the pics of our last days in Bulgaria, click here:
To see the pics of our first days in the States, click here:
To see the pics of our first days in the States, click here:
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