Fighting to stay and fighting to go

Moving countries is a funny thing - and quite often it starts with tears and ends with tears.

Humans are strange creatures, we fight to hold on whilst at the same time fighting to let go. We want to stay in one place and yet we wish to explore a million new lands, we yearn for our creature comforts and long for the unknown and strange.

When moving to a new country it may often not be a destination one would have chosen given a choice...but somehow - adversity breeds adaptability, and before you know it - that strange new place is 'home'.
 A language that once sounded strange is now one you speak with enthusiasm (albeit with an awful accent), those cultural oddities that annoyed you previously have now become endearing, and some of those foods you refused to try at first - are now part of your staple diet. You learn to live without things that you once considered vital and you adapt to cooking new dishes with different ingredients.

Along with the little achievements, and personal growth however, often comes incredible feelings of anxiety, sadness and sometimes, anger. Friends will be lost, family will be far spread, pets will not always accompany, sentimental items broken that cannot be replaced....it is inevitable and gut wrenching....it will ease with time, but with every move the feelings will resurface.

Fitting into new social circles takes time and living 'between two or more worlds' can be both exhausting and confusing. There are moments of excitement and moments of doubt, appreciation of the new people you meet and loneliness from being so far flung from many one holds close to the heart. These times will challenge you and they will grow you in ways you never knew possible. They will draw you closer to some people, and distance you from others.

Moving abroad has the potential to make or break a person - it can be an incredible adventure or a living hell. Whilst there is some truth to this being dependent on where one moves to - I think a lot is to be said of ones attitude in a new country. To start an entirely new life is a magical gift that often comes with a heavy price - so make the gift count.

Don't go on to try replicate your exact life somewhere else - whilst the 'typical expat life' is portrayed as rather glamorous - I guarantee you the adventure and surprise of your life if you put a little of that energy into 'going local'....There is wisdom, kindness and generosity to be found in some of the dustiest corners of our earth, if we are only prepared to step out of our comfort zone and try the unknown.

Child of No Land

Home...for a large number of people 'home' is a place. Its the house they grew up'in, or the dream house they purchased, or the little apartment they spent hours working towards putting a deposit down on.

Often 'home' includes a partner, maybe a couple of kids and a family pet. It is near to family and loved ones. It is a physical place one feels safe and secure, where one is familiar with all ones surroundings.

I've come to realize that for some of us, the above is not the case....and for many, especially the ones living the 'married with two kids, a dog, a picket fence and grandparents down the road',  this is difficult to understand.

Recently I commented to someone how I felt I was a 'child of no land' - reflecting on this statement the last few days I believe its probably one of 'the most accurate self descriptions I have ever made.

I come from a land where I was born to parents who each came from countries pretty far away,  I then married a man from yet another 'far away' country. I am influenced by African, European and Balkan culture. I love (& hate) things about all these places. I feel drawn to be protective towards all of them, yet feel firmly tied to none.

When I left my birth country for the Balkans many remarked how difficult the transition would be, some guessing that soon enough I'd be on the first plane 'home'. Once you move once, you'll never want to do it again' many remarked. That day and those feelings have never come...

You see, as I welcomed my pets off the aircraft from their long journey, and we returned to an almost empty house I realized something....my 'home' is mobile - send my husband, my pets and I to pretty much any place in the world and we'll be just fine, in fact - we will likely be pretty happy. See I'm a child of no land and my home cannot be found in a map, for it lies within me and I carry it with me wherever I go.

A hazy year

My husband has been home for 6 weeks, and in 2.5 weeks he will be leaving again, c'est la vie. After a year of being away from home, the 6 weeks he has been home for have gone by at whirlwind speed. We have been so busy that it has taken me a little while to realize just how much we were dealing with this time last year when trying to do all we needed to on opposite sides of the world...both expats in the countries we were living in...tasks like banking or renewing insurance are not always as simple as you would think.

Looking back on spending our first year of marriage on opposite sides of the world it seems a haze...probably because it was.

Trying to decide on re-homing or possibly euthanizing animals, packing up a house in a country you only relocated to a year before, moving across the world where it would take 3 days of travel to see family should any emergency occur.....its a decision that is particularly personal.

For the non-animal lovers its a simple 'why wouldn't you?!', on the swing side are the animal lovers who will say 'how could you even think of that – I would leave my husband before putting an animal to sleep!!!'.

For the people trying to escape their reality come the 'OMG Fiji – who wouldnt want to move Fiji!?'. For the people who are heavily rooted where they live comes 'Wow, I don't know that I could move so far away from my friends and family like that'.

Then come the work related comments 'well why cant he just get a job in Europe?' or 'surely that's not your only option' or better still 'why doesn't your husband just stop being a pilot and do something else?'.

Personal decisions are just that – personal...and so I found myself in a haze – locked in my own little bubble of trying to figure things out. I socialized little, took my dogs for long walks, and spent hours on Skype to my husband trying to figure out what the right answer was.

There were days of tears, days of hope, days of desperation – every option seemed to lead to a path of heartache. Days turned into weeks, then months – all a blur.

Looking back I realize that I learnt a lot in those 12 months, about myself, my marriage, my friendships – and in some strange way it was possibly one of the most intensely difficult and yet rewarding times of my life. When you know how much adversity you can face with any person, partner, friend, or family – there is enormous solace and gratitude to be found in that.

Everyone faces challenges, some are big, some are small, some are daily, and some are once in a lifetime. And when the battle is over and so much has changed, so much of ourselves has changed (some good, some bad) – that we cannot go back to what we were before....that's ok, because we are all just trying to survive this glorious, messy, beautiful thing called 'life'.

Home coming...and reflections

It's hard to believe that after just over a year (quite literally) on opposite sides of the world, my husband is coming home :) It has been a long, hard 365+ days - but it has also not been without many a life lesson.

Fiji is not a place that many from Europe or Africa visit - there is the enormous distance, the cost of flights, the over inflated tourist hotel prices etc etc So for all the difficulties, I do feel privileged for the opportunity to have spent some time there - albeit only for five weeks. The people of Fiji have a fascinating history and an old culture that is slowly being stamped out by the modern world. There is deep embarrassment over their past - over cannibalism and believing in a variety of Gods and Deities. I find this rather gut wrenching - I would really rather learn about another culture than be told 'Look how far we have come - we have a Mcdonalds'.

Postcards of Fiji show the tourist hot spots, five star resorts that are so exclusive one has to take a second mortgage on ones home to pay the bill. However beyond the glitz and the glamour lies the real Fiji. The Fiji that reminds me of Africa. A country split in two with little in the way of the 'middle line'. There are the 'haves and the have-nots'. In Africa, in general, this has resulted in conflict, desperation, soaring crime, and general misery. Yet somehow Fiji manages to fight through the same difficulties with many still holding a smile on their faces. Yes there is crime, health problems, too many stray animals...but people still seem to try and look for the good.

There is a lot to be learned from that....is it really a crises that when you went to the shops and out of the range of 40+ brands of cereal they didn't have your favorite sugar-laden, mass produced, box of zero nutritional value food? Is it not a somewhat surreal feeling to know that whilst you bemoan this, someone, somewhere in the world is barely getting by with a couple of pieces of fruit and water from a river that is also used as a bath? Personally, I often wonder, what would life have been like if I had been born into a different family, under different circumstances....Perspective - unfortunately it's something that is often not easy to obtain when sitting in one place, especially in a comfortable place.

One million and twenty eleven flying hours

Ok so the heading of this blog post will really only be understood by South Africans, but I couldn't resist.

My husband is home soon from a really, really, REALLY ruddy long 'tour' on some exotic island in the Pacific. When I say long, I mean 310 out of 365 days away from home long. He went, because well, it was a pretty decent job, in a pretty decent company, on a pretty decent aircraft that he...you guessed it, had the opportunity to build some good hours on.

I worked in aviation and I am married to a pilot, and I really have to say that I have come to believe that if there is one absolutely unobtainable thing in this world - it is the perfect number of flight hours on the right aircraft at the right time. There seems to forever be a requirement to chase another number, get more flight hours on a turbo prop, get more command hours, the hours need to be on a heavier aircraft, you need jet time. Hours, hours, hours - the more you get of them, it seems the more you need. Only to get the jobs you need to increase your hours or to get onto the aircraft you want -  you need to have a certain amount of hours in the first place. It reminds me a little of our presidents attempt at reading numbers...a real struggle, with success generally only ever coming from a huge smattering of good luck!

I have the privilege of knowing a couple of guys sitting on 15 000+ hours on a variety of aircraft and I can pretty much guarantee they have at least once in their lifetime looked at a job posting for their dream job and gone 'Well dammit, I'm just 20 hours short to apply for this'