I am getting back in the saddle again after a long absence on the blog. I guess the globetrotting lifestyle can become overwhelming for anyone! Or maybe it’s just me. The great news is that as crazy as our last move was — thank you 2 and 4 year old! — I’ve got TONS of great ideas to share with you. I can’t wait!
But since the old writing joints are a bit creaky, I’ll start off with a fairly quick thought…
There are some of you globetrotting moms out there who are in your element. You LOVE the excitement and adventure of living overseas with your kids. The amazing places you get to see. The food you get to try. The people you get to meet. When you heard you were moving, you jumped at the chance. Or maybe it was even YOU who dragged your spouse or significant other out into the great blue yonder.
Then there are those of you who go kicking and screaming. Or silent and pouty. Or whatever your jam is. You’re being ripped away from people you love, a familiar place, a job that fulfills you. You are happy. Until you move. Then it’s loneliness. Or boredom. Or a lack of freedom. Or the unfamiliarity of everything. Or all of those things put together. And of course the homesickness – an unrelenting ache that starts the moment you wake up and doesn’t stop until you fall asleep.
I’ve actually been on both sides of the fence. There have been times when I’ve moved that I’ve been crossing the days off the calendar until we left. Times when I bought every travel book I could find and hung maps on my wall. Then there were times when the movers were coming the next day and I was still in utter denial that it was actually happening. Times when I was running around snapping one last picture of every room because I just couldn’t let it go.
{By the way… there’s a place for all ya’ll here at Globetrotting Mom. You don’t have love traveling to be a globetrotting mom. You don’t have to hate it either. Come one and come all!}
The funny thing is that in both cases, I had to radically adjust my expectations when I actually settled into living overseas. And the adjustment periods were largely the same!
In both cases I think it’s really, really important to *try* and hold off judgment about the country where you moved until you’ve settled in – no place is perfect and no place is the worst (ok, ok I know there might be some valid counterarguments out there on this point!). I guess maybe it’s better to say that no single place is the solution to all your problems and no single place is the cause of all your problems.
I say this from a humble place… our last move was more difficult than I had expected and like a lot of expats during a certain phase of the adjustment period, I started blaming the country where I live for my problems. I felt a little bad about doing it, but it also felt so good to have something to blame!
Now that I am looking (mostly) back on this, I feel shamed by some of my words and thoughts and I realize how unrealistic it is to blame a country for my problems. Many of them were issues that I brought with me. Many of them were caused by my own inflexible expectations. Many of them have largely disappeared now that I (and my kids!) have adjusted better to this life change.
I’m not going to tell you that the next time I move this isn’t going to happen again. It probably will! I’ll go in with rose colored glasses or a chip on my shoulder and it will take exactly 6-8 months (my magic number) to knock whichever one off.
But next time, I am going to *try* to be a little more aware of what’s going on. And maybe go a little easier on the poor unsuspecting country where I’m living. After all it’s not IT’S fault!