I'm feeling...

Many years ago I read a very poignant article about the life of an expat. An expat is someone who lives and works in a foreign country. The article was about goers and stayers, and explained that as an expat you are always experiencing people coming in and out of your life. I started to experience this during my second year in Kuwait, and while it is always difficult to say goodbye to people you care about, it just becomes part of your life. By the time I left Kuwait, I had lived there for 5 years and it was incredibly  difficult to say goodbye not only to the people, but to a place I had called home for so long. I knew it was the right decision, but still wasn't easy. I would miss this beautiful view:

After I moved to Lebanon, the excitement of being in a new place washed away all of my feelings of missing my friends in Kuwait. During my time while living in Lebanon I stumbled across an article about reverse culture shock. If you are wondering what this is, it is when you move back home after living abroad and basically you have a hard time settling back into life at home. This can occur for various reasons, and every person is different. Some settle back in home easier, while some can struggle for years. I am the type of person who said "this won't happen to me, I've only been away for seven years." Well as the summers passed over the last seven years I started to notice a change in how I felt as each year passed when I would return for summer vacation. It wasn't any big revelation or big event that happened, but over the past couple of years I started to feel more and more out of place.

Summer 2020 was probably when this hit me the hardest, and is still affecting me today. As you know from my previous post, at the end of July I made the sudden and difficult decision to return home. I had no idea when I left on July 10th, that I would not return to Beirut. Some of my friends had already left, and some were in the process of leaving, I had no idea that I would not get a chance to say goodbye to some of the people I had grown close to. It is has been so hard dealing with this and settling back into normal life in NH. I am feeling lost, confused and out of place.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I am loving spending time with my family. Living abroad, I sacrificed so much time with my family, so being home has been a blessing. But I am feeling a bit lost to be honest, and quite lonely. I feel like that I am a foreigner in my own country, and I feel like I don't belong. This has been something that has been weighing heavily on my heart for a while, but I have not been really able to express it. It is has taken me some time to understand what I am feeling, and to admit it to myself. 

The first few weeks were so fast paced with everything being new that I didn't have time to really realize what was going on, but now that things have settled I have started to really understand these feelings. I put on a brave face and smile, but deep down I am struggling and having a really hard time. I am lost. 

One of the hardest things is that aside from friends who lived and worked abroad, no one really understands what I am going through, and that's ok. They don't understand how it feels to loose your sense of belonging, in a place that was your home for 28 years. It is an incredibly lonely feeling. Most weekends I spend alone doing my own thing, running errands or going to the movies by myself. Most of you are thinking, why not spend time with your husband? Well he is stuck in Germany until his visa is approved which is looking like it will take around 15 months minimum.  I also don't want you to think that I don't go out with friends, I do, but it is not as often as I would like. You might be thinking why not invite someone to go out and grab dinner or see a movie? I do and I have seen some friends, but I don't want to be the one who always is doing the inviting. I want someone to reach out to me for a change and ask me to get together.

I am not asking for a pity party, I just want others experiencing these feelings to understand that you are not alone. There are so many of us struggling to settle back in home, and it's ok and it's normal. Things will get better, and you will be stronger for it. It's also important to me for those who have friends who have lived abroad for them to understand what your friend might be going through and to reach out to them and check on them, or invite them out. The longer your friends have lived abroad the more difficult it can be for them, so again please check on them. A message or an invite out can go a long way.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for another post soon. 

An Unexpected Return

 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

On June 19th, school finished for the year and the possibility of going home to NH for the summer was not looking good. The Beirut airport was still closed and the opening had been pushed back several times. I was weary that it really would open July 1st, and even if it did would I be able to rebook my flights? My chances were slim, but I tried to remain positive. I should also mention that Simon was stuck in Germany and we had not seen each other in 4 months, and rebooking his flight from a different country was another obstacle. My adventure to get home is not the focus of this post, so to cut a long story short, through a lot of phone calls and stress both Simon, myself, a friend Michelle and her 2 cats all made it home after a very long journey.

I was so excited to be home and to be able to see my family. It has been a really long and tough year to say the least. Not only did we face COVID-19 in Beirut but in October a political revolution began which spanned the remainder of the year. I was glad to be home and for the first time in months I felt like I was able to breath and truly relax. It was able a joy to be able to see my husband. Not to anyone's fault but in our first year of marriage we had spent more time apart then together and it was seeing Simon felt like coming home. 

After settling into NH I was able to put my thoughts of the past year and all that I had experienced in Beirut away. Things seemed to be great and I was really enjoying my NH summer. I got to spend my anniversary with my husband, I got to spend time with my family and friends and I couldn't ask for more. Little did I know that one email who completely change the course of my life as I know it. 

July 23rd, 2020 is a day that I will never forget. I received and email from my school, as did everyone else that changed the course of my life and career. Not to go into too many specifics but it stated that at the recent board meeting they had made the difficult decision that the school would no longer be able to send a portion of our salaries to the states and that we would be paid our whole salary in Lebanon. Now I want to clarify that this is a major perk that my school was doing for us, and was not the norm. Also in normal circumstances it would not have been an issue, but since the revolution had started no one was able to send any money out the country. The email went on to say that if we wished to break our contracts and resign we would be allowed to, they would work with us. The catch? We had to give them our decision by July 30th... one week.  As you can imagine my friends and I immediately began messaging each other and some were freaking out. Me... I was not surprised at all, in some weird way I could sense this might be coming. I spoke with Simon and my family and started weighing out all my options. Go back to Beirut, not be able to pay off my student loans and other financial commitments, or come home and risk not be able to get s job. 

To say that this was a stressful time is a massive understatement. Simon and I went back and forth and just weren't sure what we should do. We knew that in the future we wanted to settle back here, but were we ready to it now? Ultimately we made the difficult decision to not to return to Beirut. As you can imagine there were a lot of logistical pieces to work through. Simon had a roundtrip ticket to Germany so he would return there, and then he would fly to Beirut to pack up the rest of our belongings and then fly back to Germany. We also decided to start the green card process so he could come and live and work here in the states. Not how or when I thought I would move him, so an unexpected return for sure.

I went into job hunting mode, I revamped my resume, collected letters of reference and immediately started applying for jobs. I must have applied for a dozen jobs and only got 2 phone calls for interviews. One was in Vermont and it was a zoom interview. I followed up a few days later only to get the disappointing news "We loved you and you crushed the interview, but we are going with someone else." Feeling discouraged I kept applying but wasn't hopeful. About a week before Simon was set to leave, I received an email asking me for an interview. If I am being honest, I had applied for so many jobs and heard nothing I couldn't even remember the posting. I set up my interview and then looked up the posting again to realize it was only a part time job 2/3. This made me nervous but my mom and Simon encouraged me to go for it anyway. 

The interview was on a Monday and I arrived early as I was nervous. The interview went well, and I was able to ask some questions about the job being part time. The interview lasted about 45 minutes and then I left and drove home. A few hours after the interview I received a phone call from the principal saying they were very interested in me and if they were to offer the job would I accept? They were nervous that I wouldn't because the job was part time. The principal and I spoke for a bit and talked through the job being part time and they were able to answer some questions I had. I had no other prospects and the job did sound great, minus the part time status so I agreed to accept if I was offered the position. They said they would check my references and get back to me. Two days later on Wednesday I was trying to keep busy and I was test driving a car with Simon that I was interested in. I sat down in the showroom to find out more about the car and I got the call... I had gotten the job. I immediately accepted and an hour later I bought a car. 

I know this seems fast but I was to start school the upcoming Monday... I know, I had to start my new job in 4 days, but I was so excited and ready to begin. Saturday came and Simon left and it was extremely hard to say goodbye to him again, not knowing when I would see him again. You see the spousal visa is a long process with no deadline, and with COVID, the process has been made longer. 

I arrived at school on Monday with a lot of nerves. I have not taught or lived in NH in 7 years. I know it doesn't seem like a long time, and it did go by in a flash. I started my career abroad thinking it would only last two years and then it was... "well one more contract, ok "maybe one more" and that's how 7 years happened. Everyone was so welcoming and nice. When they introduced the new staff to say my resume stood out was an understatement. Shortly after my first welcome meeting I got an unexpected surprise. I was meeting with the district office, and doing paperwork when head of HR asked to chat me with. They asked me how would I like to made full time? I was shocked and was of course interested. They told me that the principal raved about me and were going to have me do some tech training, and AV setup as part of my job. I was thrilled! 

Fast forward, and I just finished week seven with students. It has been a whirlwind to day the least and it has been so much fun. I am really enjoying my position and working with the students and all of my colleagues. It has been a wild ride teaching with everything go on at the moment, but we are all doing the best and I can tell the students are happy to be back at school even if it's only two days a week.

This has been a long update, so I am going to end by saying thank you for reading and stay tuned for another post soon.