Home and back

From my last post, it has been about 4 months. I have pretty much abandoned this blog, I guess, mainly because I didn't have anything I wanted to write. I lost the desire to write after a while. And I got busy too. But I am reluctant to totally abandon this blog. So here I am.
In February, for the CNY, we went home. It was for 11 days. 11 days sounds like a lot, but in reality, those 11 days passed by so fast that I wished we had more time back home. There were so many people I wanted to meet, so many things I wanted to do, so much food I wanted to eat. Too bad, perhaps during summer, then.
Back home, we basically managed to meet up with some relatives by going on our usual CNY rounds of visits. I guess I have begun to realise that if we don't visit some of these relatives, we might not see them again the next CNY. Life is that fragile.
Most importantly, I guess, being home meant we got to spend some time with mum. It must have been so hard for her being alone for the 6 months that we had been away. Without the boys around, the house must have surely been very quiet. I guess the good thing is that she has learned to be more sociable and made friends with neighbours.
My most wonderful friend lent us her car for almost the whole duration of our stay. I am so thankful to her and her family for lending us the car for so many days. We would surely have been inconvenienced having to go to so many places and did not have a car. She is definitely much more than "just a friend", someone who is always close to my heart. When over a year ago, I cried at her redeployment, someone asked me why I was so emotional, when she was "just a friend". He probably now realises that she is so much more than that. She is FAMILY. Not the kind you just call family but truly someone who is connected and involved in my life, in our lives.
11 days ... I never thought 11 days could be so short. Now we're back in Shanghai. We've been back for almost 3 weeks, the boys and I. My other half has only been in Shanghai a total of 5 days in the 3 weeks we have been back. He came back later than us, then he went off on another overseas assignment. I have missed him so.
We are back. Life has to go on, and routine works best. So we are back to the grind, for the boys, especially. We are back. But we are not home. Not yet. I don't know if those two words can ever be used interchangeably.