I have moved into phase two of my expat and mothering life. No more baby groups or coffee mornings with a toddler at my knee. My children are sometimes out the door as early as seven in the morning to start school. They’re pretty much left to their own devices when it comes to remembering to pack their clarinet or swimming gear (until someone can’t find something). As they wake and head down to breakfast they walk into my home office to kiss me good morning, and because of my perpetual headphone usage while speaking on the phone they have learnt to mouth the words good-bye as they head out the door. This is the life of a parent who works from home.
My day begins at 4.45am with the sound of a Skype message, either a “Hey girl!” from Georgia in the US, or a “Yo” from Melbourne, Australia. From the moment I wake I’m transported to another country. As I make my way downstairs in the darkness towards the coffee machine in my Doha kitchen I read what’s been happening in Australia while I’ve been asleep. The headlines from various news sites followed by video streams of leading stories of the day. My eyes narrowing in on a finance story, something that would affect the average Australian. I read emails from colleagues who have ridden and driven to work on Australian roads earlier that morning. We talk via speaker and I can hear Australian birds tweeting in the background. I listen as my boss orders his lunch at the local deli “thanks mate” “onya” “no worries” in one ear while the sound of the mosque echoes from my backyard.
This is the new expat life; connected, online, networked, streamed and plugged in. It feels light years from my expat beginnings sixteen years ago.
“Can you remember when there was no internet?” a girlfriend asked me over the weekend.
“We’re not that old?!” I snorted.
“Yeah, I know, but remember when you couldn’t book flights, carry your friends in your pocket via your mobile phone, or load this morning’s newspaper onto your iPad?”
I thought back to a hotel room in Indonesia, my first day of expat life in Jakarta. While I owned the latest clunky Toshiba laptop, the dial up connection was prohibitively expensive. In the foyer of the hotel I read newspapers from Australia with yesterday’s news. I’d left my career behind only weeks before and was now on count down, waiting to give birth to my first child. And while motherhood was something I was intensely excited about I couldn’t shake the feeling of panic at how removed I felt from my career. There would be no dropping in to my old workplace with my newborn after the birth. With the price of an international phone call somewhere in the range of my first car there were no ‘quick catch ups’ to find out if we’d won the tender I’d been working on before I left. I was nowhere to be seen, gone, remember Kirsty? I think she went overseas?
I was back in Australia over Christmas and New Year for the holidays. My stay was then extended to factor in six weeks of “just to make sure it doesn’t come back” radiation. While that was happening I went through the process of settling my eldest into her new school. After a nine week stay I’ve found it incedibly hard to settle back in to Doha.
“I’m finding re-entry really difficult this time” I told my husband G.
“That’s because you haven’t really come back – you’re kind of still there. Your head is in Australia all the time.”
He was right. From the moment I woke, right up until my last thought before going to sleep, it was all about Australia. The news items, the publishing schedule, the social media, the team that I worked with. I needed to get better at switching off. There was a scheduled work day, a plan to work around. That part was easy.
The other, I don’t have an answer for. Any mother will tell you that each of her children carries a piece of her heart wherever they are. Right now a piece of mine is sitting in a school library finishing her homework. I can see her face as I type, how she’s holding her pen, the music that she’ll be listening to through the earbuds we bought together in January. I will follow her throughout the day. Whether it’s Math or French or a visit to a friends house. I think of her as she walks to softball practice, picks up sushi from across the road or buys a friend a gift card for her birthday. I’m there constantly, my heart somehow beating along with hers.
“You haven’t really come back.”
I’m not sure I ever will.
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While technology is amazing and so helpful to us expats, it’s also a dangerous thing to have as we spend time ‘there’ rather than ‘here’
I also find myself waking half an hour earlier each morning just to scroll thru FB and read the news from friends on the other side of the world, check out the headlines which really don’t affect me anymore but help in keeping connected to friends in Australia when we chat. We know more about Australian news and the upcoming US Election than we do UK (which is where we are living) news – how odds that?
Not commenting on No1 Traveller being in Australia as I’ve no experience. Just sending you huge hugs as my imagination tells me it must be bloody hard.
x
And when your little parcel of land has a proper ‘Home’ heart on it, that you’ve put your heart and soul and imagination into, the pull will become even stronger… I had tears in my eyes reading about your heart being with DD1, I know I’ll be in your shoes in a couple of years time with my DS1… I worried about this when I went from one child to two, I asked DH “How will my heart make enough love and time and energy to do this for two?”, when I did it for three I already knew the answer….. and now I Wonder how will my heart split into two, then three, how do you live away?? It’s a learning process for everyone concerned and my head is beating a warning sound out and my heart is answering before we’ve even started…. You’re a gem, I love work girl!
Having grown up overseas, I definitely see a HUGE difference between how it is now and how it used to be! When I was growing up , our main contact with home was through the mail; phoning was way too expensive to do at any time except Christmas or a birthday. by the time I headed to the US for University, I had spent the majority of my childhood (at least, the part I could remember) overseas, and I had some serious culture shock. I don’t think it was nearly as bad for my boys – they had been in constant touch with US culture the whole time we were in Korea and later when we moved here to the UK.
Me too. When I first moved to the US I swear I spent half my day writing letters and the other half waiting for the mail.
Since you have four children, it will be a while until you ask the question, “What am I doing as a mother” question. We have one child, and going from a full-on expat mum to a mother of pre-teen, then teen, then young adult, then fully hatched adult means the job I once had is less defined. This was especially true as I gave up my full-time career to become a trailing spouse and then mum. Many of my expat friends have ‘left’ their hearts and children in other places while they move on to different locales. My husband just retired, and we moved back to the US, while my dear son is now finishing up his undergraduate degree in England. This might be the perfect opportunity for him to join us in the States, but he has opted to stay in the place he now considers ‘home,’ as he landed a doctoral studentship that begins in the autumn in Cardiff, Wales. How can we be so proud and ecstatic at the same time that we’re sad that he’s so far away? Even though we are ‘retired’ from the expat life, it has not released us from all the complications, joys and heartbreaks!! Your blog gives me that weekly dose of contemplation of expat complications! LOL. It also reassures me that I’m never alone. Thank you, as always 🙂
You are absolutely right – we do have the benefit of the internet to connect us but the price we are paying is that we never properly sever that connection and we are always tied back to another place. I used to pride myself on my ability to live in the moment where I was but I struggle now that other times / other places can nibble away at my atttention
I tend to spend a lot of time on social media with folks in Canada. My kids and grandkids are there and many friends. I wonder if I am missing out on my experience in Spain by being on the computer so much. I can imagine how much you miss your oldest daughter. You will always have one foot in each country. Sending hugs.xo
“Any mother will tell you that each of her children carries a piece of her heart wherever they are.” So true. My oldest graduated this past summer and started a job a thousand miles away – and packed up and left while I was in England too! Sob. (Expat Mum)
Okay, this post just made me weep … our babies are growing and the nest is changing. In our blogging years we are rather old I guess – but the seasoned me is not ready for the new season of them … my heart sympathizes with yours xxx