We’re moving back to America in a few weeks, and I’ve been going through the motions. My friends have all been loving and supportive, but sometimes explaining expat life is like explaining having a baby to someone who hasn't had a baby. It's not challenging to understand the semantics, but truly understanding the experience isn't easy. Parts of me are fundamentally different than the person I was before I left. Our children have had experiences that most kids never have. We’re all feeling a little culturally out of place, and as if we’re straddling two lives while we say farewell to one, and hello to another.
We’ve repatriated before (hey, I’m not pregnant this time!), but this time feels different. I had a baby here, our almost five-year-old defines herself as Swiss, and our eldest understands that she’s American, but doesn’t define herself as one. Here’s the deal. I researched expat life and repatriation the last time we did this, and I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on these last few weeks, and here’s the reality. No one knows anything.
Moving to different countries makes you different in an undefinable way. The best way that I can attempt to explain it, is this. Imagine you are living in a house full of windows. Now imagine that the shades are drawn. That’s what I define life in the “comfort zone”, or your home country. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of life. It’s a good life.
Now imagine that all of the shades come up, and then the glass is gone. Totally raw exposure. That’s what expat life has felt like for me. I was raised with a very open world view, and then moving abroad twice has caused me to feel more open than I ever thought possible. More curious than I ever knew I could be. I want to know more. See more. Experience more. I want to KNOW what it’s like to visit exotic places and live in places that are different than where I grew up.
By nature, I’ve never been happy with inauthentic relationships. I’m not a halfway person. I believe that the people you surround yourself with are who you will become, so choose wisely and be aware of what you want in your life. Being an expat has enabled me to learn things about myself and our family that I don’t think we would have learned, had we not had these experiences.
I’m nervous to move back to the US for a variety of reasons- are our kids safe? (Switzerland has provided our girls with a very safe space to learn to be independent and self-sufficient), how will I fare without my best friend that I see almost every day, co-parents with me, and just understands me?, how will living in the States feel since we’ve been gone so long, and life has just kept going in the same direction (for the most part) for our friends at home?, how will our girls adjust to American schooling (our 8 year-old has never had homework, and gets a lot more time on the playground that the US allotted 24 minute recess.)? It’s the spinning web of worry and questioning that I rely on my expat super-mamas for, because no matter how well intentioned, relatively few, if any of my friends who have never had this life experience, will ever understand just how difficult this all feels.
At the end of the day, I know that everything will fall into place. I have a girlfriend going through a very similar experience, and I keep reminding her to give herself the same amount of grace that she gives everyone else. It’s SO hard to practice grace and patience without myself. So hard. I’m a perfectionist and I want everything to be the way I want it to be. I want Switzerland, Italy, and America to be an hour flight away. I want my best friends to live next door. I want our girls to grow up with all of the people that love them close by- but that’s not the life we chose, so I just have to be happy with frequent trips to rub pregnant bellies, hold babies, hang out with friends, explore, and show love as much as possible. I have to keep reminding our girls, as we always have, that the ability to show up is the best gift you can give someone. And we do. We always show up. We make time. Locations may change, but the love, the love stays the same.
Our Swiss Miss and I a few weeks after we got home from the hospital, when my eyeballs still felt like they were going to fall out of my head.