Thursday, March 13, 2014

T-minus 1 Day Until Takeoff



The wind is hollowing, the lights are flickering, and the temperature is dropping fast today – going from 64 degrees to 20 degrees within 48 hours. I think I am ready for some nicer weather! How about heading south?

Hello everyone and welcome to my CSC Brazil team blog! For those of you who don’t know, CSC stands for Corporate Service Corp and it is IBM’s corporate social responsibility arm where IBM sends its employees on a 4 week assignment to volunteer our skills, knowledge, and capabilities to emerging markets.  With this blog I hope to share my experiences as I embark on this once in a lifetime journey!

It’s T-minus 1 day until I head out for Recife, Brazil – the site for my CSC assignment. I am excited, anxious, stressed to my limits, and even sad all at the same time. If it weren’t for my long to-do list to still check off before tomorrow, my constant changing emotions are enough to tire me out! I am excited to start this amazing journey; I am anxious to know what awaits me in Recife; I am stressed about my final to-do’s for home and work; but I am also feeling sad knowing that I will be away from my husband, Dave, and 2 sons – Nathaniel (5) and Jackson (3) for 4 weeks. 4 weeks! It sounds like a really, really long time, but I am sure it will go by fast (I just have to keep repeating that to myself over and over again J ). What can I say - I am missing my boys today already! And yes, I am even getting teary eyed already, but you can’t blame me, I cry at the drop of a hat for happy and sad occasions. 

My to-do list was very intimidating a few weeks ago, but with the help and support of my amazing friends, family, and co-workers I am definitely leaving home and work in very capable hands. I actually thought I would be a much more of a nut case by this point, but lots of planning and organizing have definitely paid off. My husband has all the kids’ schedules and activities down (even set reminders for him to get green cupcakes for the kids’ St. Patrick day party); all the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are set to contribute with picks ups, drop offs and weekend activities. Now, will the kids have matching clothes when they go to school? Maybe not, but I am not picky. The more likely scenario is that they will end up wearing Redskins or Terp gear 24/7 while I am gone.
As I sit here, writing this blog, it just boggles my mind that I am actually doing this. Before kids, I would have said “Of course I am doing this!” After kids, not so much for the obvious reasons of 1) the emotional factor of leaving your kids behind for so long and 2) just the logistics of what it means to leave yours kids behind for so long. So I sit here on the eve of my departure thanks to my amazing husband whose first words when I told him I wanted to do this was “Of course you are doing this!”, thanks to my best friend who showed me that it was OK to be a mom and take this amazing opportunity of a lifetime, and thanks to my whole family for their encouragement and help while I am away.  

I am lucky and blessed to say that I get to have one of my life long goals come true tomorrow. Very exciting stuff, so stay tuned!

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