mind games: anticipation

We live in San Francisco.  We love our neighborhood, inside of a national park, with trails, beaches, and historic sites.  The kids run free with their friends, playing baseball and kickball and street hockey and building rope swings and forts in the woods.  I don’t think I’ve seen a toy gun since we left Georgia.  For the first time we live in a vacation destination: we have seen friends from around the world- some as planned reunions, a few last-minute, and one completely coincidental, on a street-corner in Haight-Ashbury.

Ten months in, I’ve passed through the honeymoon phase, when I loved it fiercely, as if someone was trying to take it away from me, and the hating phase, in which I was constantly fed up with the traffic and most people and vigorously fought anyone’s suggestion that it might be time to put down some roots. Now I’m just living here, pretty comfortable but still learning my way around the parts of the city I don’t go to regularly.

Unfortunately, the hating period also coincided with the part where we realized that our finances in this very expensive city are very shaky, and my husband started looking for jobs that might support us all better. I have been looking too, but being a trailing spouse and mom and moving every 1-3 years doesn’t do wonders for a resume.  (More on that in a future post)

I’m trying not to think too much about the long term and the big picture, in favor of focusing on kids and home and sanity, but it keeps sneaking up on me.  I have to keep in mind our house in GA and when we should start trying to sell it.  I have to start touring public middle schools with my son so we can decide which ones we want to bid on for next year.  And now the organizations to which my husband has applied have started calling back.

Anticipation of a new home is a delicious feeling- finding it on a map, reading about it online, pestering friends who may have been there before.  Most of the cities I’ve moved to are places about which someone always says, “hmmm, I’m sure you’ll make the best of it…” or “you are so brave for going there,” but that doesn’t ever discourage me, I love that imagination phase of moving. It’s seductive, a chance to let go of the things about my current life that are getting me down and dream about how I will remake my self at this next, better, destination. 

The problem is not that my daydreams bear no relation to how my life will actually play out in my new home, it’s how it leads me to forsake my old home too quickly.  It’s hardest to stay in the present when my husband has applications out to multiple jobs in countries around the world.  I start thinking about moving to Uganda, Fiji, Geneva, and forget completely about why I might want to be grounded where I live for as long as possible.  It’s very hard to love my current home while preparing to move somewhere else, when I’m unlikely ever to return except for brief visits. 

In an effort to slow my disenchantment, I avoid looking at a map of the region until after the first interview.  I try not to look at online information on the expat scene or international schools until the organization makes an offer.  My husband and I have a deal that each of us has veto power.  We discuss potential jobs and countries together, and either of us can be the one who says “no” or, after we’ve gotten there, “it’s time to leave.”

Up until now, one or both of us have been ready to leave a place when it’s been time to move on.  This time neither of us is so sure we are ready to go, but the applications are going out anyway- experience has taught us to start this process up to a year before we think it might be necessary to find a new job. We hadn't expected replies so quickly.

I’d thought that we’d gotten in the habit of moving but this extended stint in the US has been disorienting.  As an expat abroad, I’m part of a community of transients.  People who have been in a city for five years are marveled at and all the

social networking is accelerated when your whole relationship may only last a few months or years, depending on how long you overlap with your new friends.  It was a shock to return to the US and try to adjust to the slow pace of making friends American-style.  After three years in Georgia I was still a newcomer- after three years in Hanoi or Dhaka I would have been an old hand, with most of my early friends already off in new countries. 

So far, we’re not going anywhere and our daily routines distract us just enough from the possibility that this time next year we might be settling into a new home on the other side of the world.  The atlases are hidden away, I’ve started a garden and am ignoring as long as I can the temptation to daydream about faraway destinations.    

Get involved! Trailing spouse advice from Mishka Cira

Mishka Cira is an experienced trailing spouse, having moved with her husband and daughters to at least four very different countries, including her home country, the United States. My very first impressions of her when we met in Hanoi, just days after she’d arrived in Vietnam, were of great vitality and great warmth. Over the next few months we became friends and have stayed in touch through subsequent moves. I have huge admiration for Mishka’s determination, organization, generosity, and heart. Here are her own words on her experience of various aspects of trailing spouse life and her valuable advice, especially for those who may be making their first international move. 

On Career:

I’ve made certain decisions based on knowing that my husband’s job would be moving us around.  I think I was preparing from shortly after we got married in 1999.  I knew we’d eventually go abroad with Dean’s career (World Bank), so I switched from non-profit management to massage therapy so that I would have a skill that could be transportable. However, I’ve also taken advantage of the ‘freedom’ of not needing to be a primary bread-winner, pursuing rewarding community service projects that had a wider community impact and developing a niche within the cancer field of massage, even though it meant working pro bono to accomplish this.  Being a trailing spouse has become part of what has defined me professionally.  I work on the ground in each country to either develop or support spouse networks for professional development and transition support.  In the case of Vietnam, I spent the first six months getting settled before developing work for myself.  Here in Nairobi, I’ve been working from the start because only now (4 months into the posting) we’ve moved into a house.  I told my contacts to give me the month of October and I would be back. They were all supportive, as I’m still on the pro bono side of things!

On choosing where we will live next:

My husband has definitely seen every move as needing full support of both of us.  I may not have a part in choosing where we move (because he has to apply for jobs in a competitive market), but I’m always an equal partner in the final decision.  We decide where to go based on quality of life as a family, professional development for Dean and potential work opportunities for me (not necessarily in that order).  Being affiliated with the World Bank will always place us in the developing world which is, quite honestly, a preference for us.  As for when to leave, with each posting we’ve wanted to stay longer.  We usually have a 3-year contract with the option to extend. He would stay longer in a posting, if the kids are settled at school and I’m developing work interests.

On transition:

I try to develop a bucket list of things to accomplish before leaving a place.  I do like to have some kind of goodbye for the kids, if not for ourselves.  I also try to engage the girls in learning about a new place so they feel a connection before arrival.  When I arrive in a new place, I try to get involved in the kids school and the World Bank spouse community immediately.  Knowing people helps so much with finding local resources, and with finding out that you aren’t the only one going through the emotional and logistical issues of moving.  Professionally, in advance of a move I reach out to my professional networks to try to make contacts in the new country and reaching out before we even move into a house gives me a positive sense of self!

World Bank has come a long way, and now almost every country office has at least an informal network of spouses to help you when you first arrive.   For the most part, I’ve set up the email networks in the countries where we’ve lived, and I did so with this recent move to Nairobi (for fully self-serving purposes!).  Each country office varies, but Nairobi happens to have a paid relocation specialist to help with incoming arrivals- having a paid position helps when you are negotiating staff contracts, selecting a house, etc.  Honestly, the on-the-ground referrals and advice from other recent arrivals are always the best.

Advice for new trailing spouses:

- Don’t be afraid to reach out to random people who you meet through school, your spouse’s work, the gym, etc.  People want to help others feel at home, especially if they love their adopted home-town

- Be proactive so you don’t fall into the ‘poor me’ mode, though be prepared that that may happen, too!

running- one of the ways Mishka stays grounded

- If there are parts of your daily/weekly routine at home that are important to you, try to find those aspects as soon as possible, to make your new home feel more like home- church, pets, running group, gym membership, etc.

- If you move to the developing world, get to know a local project/community as soon as possible.  When you are having a bad day, you’ll be able to see how minor our problems are compared to others, but also you will be able to focus on the work so you don’t get too down on yourself.

- See every opportunity as professional development – join school committees, start a spouse professional networking group, volunteer at a school/church/community project, offer workshops in your skill area – and document what you do.  My resume has an entire section on Board service/Community outreach.  Be creative in representing all aspects of what you do!