We four Curnetts and our dog Callie are moving indefinitely to Singapore in a few weeks. The kids are 11 and 9; we've been married 13 years and are both 42. The rescued dog's seven, we think. We have a finished basement as well as a butler's pantry and live on a cul-de-sac and drive a Volvo wagon to soccer games. I know Costco's layout like the back of my hand, and buying a box of 64 frozen taquitos (or 64 frozen anythings) there does not freak me out any more. I watch way too much "good" TV. All trashcans are green here and stand sentinel at the beveled curb every Thursday morning, except for holiday weeks, when we push the day back to Friday, and I chuckle at the poor fools who forget and have their trash out for two consecutive days. New moms pushing expensive prams along well-maintained sidewalks at 10 a.m. is commonplace in the neighborhood, as is the 6 p.m. ingress of high-end vehicles with mostly-male drivers wearing undone ties and straight-across mouths. 


I'm sure I've seen John Cheever's ghost at neighborhood parties.


I can see where all of this is going, I think. Hey, I'm an English major.

It's time. It's really time.

Now.



Singapore, lah! I've had the talismanic merlion (below), symbol of the Tiger City, on my desktop for six months. I really need to stand there, there beside the statue, maybe even on the blue base that looks like waves. I might stand there for an hour when I finally get there, really stand. I imagine the water spout to be very loud. I imagine my kids will shout over the spray, "Dad! Let's go!" and I will shout back, "No. This is the merlion. Stand and be awed."

There have been few challenges to get ready to leave. The hardest part of all was the decision itself. Everything post-decision has been fine--really manageable. Decision day, however, made me weak in the knees. Telling my boss that we were moving to Singapore and that I'd be leaving my job after 14 years was one of the scarier things I've ever done. I remember exactly the October morning light that was coming through the windows as I told Dave. I remember exactly what I was wearing. I remember thinking,  "This is real now. This isn't something we just talk about."

Days turned into weeks turned into months, and everything became ok. It wasn't scary any more. I remember running post-decision on a golf course early one morning in February through crunchy snow drifts and realizing that our future was going to be different and feeling absolute joy for the first time in a long time--maybe a couple of years. Fist-punching joy. Screaming joy. Weird guy jumping for joy on the 10th hole fairway joy. Joy. Freedom. Change. Novelty.

Singapore. Singapore! Singapore? Why Singapore?