Being an expat is weird. There's nothing that can really prepare you for it, and once you've taken the plunge, it's not what you expected. Before we moved, we had to talk with a company psychologist to make sure we were, I don't know, mentally stable enough to move, and she showed us this chart about how your emotions go up and down for the duration of an international assignment. Most of our chat with her was spent trying to contain my eye-rolls, but it turns out that her chart is pretty spot-on. In the grand scheme of things, I feel like I'm handling life in England pretty well. But then I have these weird emotional pendulum swings, where I go back and forth between my two greatest fears since becoming an expat.
Fear number one, obviously, is that I might die of homesickness. There are so many things that I miss about home, plus living here has it's own set of challenges that make life difficult.
But then we have fear number two: I'm afraid that, once this assignment is all over and we've moved back to the U.S., I will leave part of my heart in England. Then I might never get it back and never feel "at home" again. I might never even get to come back and visit this country that I'm beginning to love, and that is a sad thought indeed.
So, back to fear number one: what do I miss the most, and what are the challenges? That is a long list.
PEOPLE. My family and friends, obviously. Most of our family lived within an hour radius of us, and there was always lots of visiting to be done. I miss my sister dropping by on her lunch break and brightening up my sometimes monotonous stay-at-home-mom day. I totally took for granted free babysitting anytime we wanted from family (date nights are few and far between now!)
I miss my fellow stay-at-home mom friends and our impromptu play dates while we talked and our kids went crazy and we didn't judge one another's unclean floors. I long for the breaks that MOPS and Mom's day out gave me.
I miss the open friendliness of strangers. To be fair, I have met friendly people here too, but there is an openness to midwest/southern Americans that is distinctly different than anywhere else on earth.
FOOD. I could do a whole post on this. Now, there is a lot of good food here. The produce is amazing and we've had some great home-cooked meals with new friends. And I love pubs. But the food is a little...bland. What I wouldn't do for some good Mexican food or Dink's BBQ or a green chili burger...or any burger for that matter! One hot off my dad's grill or a nice juicy steak from Clint's parents. We hardly eat any red meat here because it tastes so vastly different. I miss my freezer full of a side of beef.
CHURCH. This is a big one that I wasn't really expecting to be a problem. Though my places of worship have varied through the years, meeting with other Christians has always been a big part of my life. But since we've moved here, we haven't really been settled anywhere, just floating around and visiting different places. At first I kind of had a bad attitude about it, because church here is different than what I've been used to. The British, as a culture, are a bit more reserved and sort of non-emotional (I hope that doesn't sound offensive, but generally that seems to me how they present themselves), and that style comes through during church services. Kids are also always with the adults during the worship part of the service and then go to classes during the sermon...and if you know my kids, it was difficult for anybody to focus on a "worshipful" attitude! Added to the challenge is Cbear's extreme shyness and her not ever wanting to go to church or with her age group. But now Clint and I have had extensive talks about our attitudes and expectations, and have settled on a place for our church "home"...the church that was actually the friendliest place we've been in all of England, so I'm pretty excited about that. I feel like I've learned a lot visiting different churches, and I have to say it is wonderful and humbling to know that Christians around the world are meeting together, learning and worshiping one God, regardless of our personal preferences and styles.
WIDE OPEN SPACES. The cities and towns here are all very crowded. I mean, this is a small island and so everything is built vertically so as to not take up so much space. And although there are places to visit outside of town where one can really breathe, it's different than the sprawling countryside I've known all my life. I miss the huge Oklahoma and Kansas skies, beautiful sunsets and endless blue. I could really go for a nice long nature walk through my dad's woods right now, climb a tree and read a book or just watch the animals creep by like I used to do when I was a kid.
FRUGALITY. I'm cheap, things are expensive here. I get a thrill out of getting a good deal (almost never clothes shopped without a coupon code back home!) and I'd rather not fork over my left kidney to buy groceries, but hey, you win some and you lose some.
DAY TO DAY "STUFF". Figuring out grocery shopping, getting gas, and running errands all came with their own set of complications. I'm just now getting to where I have my favorite grocery store, and I don't have to walk through the store at a snail's pace scanning the aisles to find what I want. Oh, and grocery carts ("trolleys") have these weird swivelly non-locking wheels that make me look like I'm trying to ice skate and steer at the same time. If I don't wear shoes with good grippy soles, I'm a danger to myself and others.
We Americans are so spoiled, and I never even realized it until moving here. And moving to England is almost as American as you can get, as far as expat assignments go (except for maybe Canada). But for example, a couple of weeks ago I found a pay-at-the-pump gas ("petrol") station FOR THE FIRST TIME since we moved. No more late night runs to get diesel (both our cars run on that) so that I don't have to take the girls inside to pay!
Parking is a nightmare, and you almost always have to pay for it. I purposely chose a smaller car because parallel parking is not my strong suit.
Toilets have very little water in the bowl, which isn't really that big of a deal, aside from the perpetual poo stain above the water line. Bleh, I hate scrubbing toilets.
One more thing: you know how when you buy a food product, and it comes in a plastic bag that you tear the top off of and then you can reseal it? Well, here, instead of having a tiny perforation to start the tear, there is nothing and you have to find some scissors to cut it off. Yes, I realize how utterly ridiculous I sound. But that perfectly illustrates how there is one tiny extra step with every day-to-day task that make life here just a little more difficult. I mean, someone is always stealing my scissors and not putting them back.
MAKING FRIENDS. There are loads of opportunities to meet people here. Making friends, however, is difficult. Not only is it hard for me, an introvert, to "put myself out there", but it's also hard to crack that British exterior and truly get to know someone. I know that friends are important to our well-being on this assignment, especially with the absence of family. But part of me subconsciously holds back, because I know I will have to leave these people in a year and I hate goodbyes. I'm glad to say that I do have a few friends, though, and that they make life here much more pleasant. Here's to continuing to push myself to get to know my new friends and neighbors!
Wow, looking back it seems that this is just a post complaining about my current situation. But, now we come to my second fear, that I will love England too much and miss it terribly when we move back to the States. Clint's parents and grandparents recently came for a visit, and I found myself feeling proud and excited to show them our new home. There is so much to love about England, and I feel like we have only scratched the surface in our first five months here. What do I love the most? Here we go:
TEA TIME. The solution to every problem is to have a nice "cuppa", which means hot tea with milk, and sugar for some people (me included). Clint and I love to do this to relax after dinner, or on a rainy morning, or chilly afternoon...anytime, really. And you have to have tea biscuits with it, which are small cookies that taste kind of like animal crackers. The girls love when we have tea and they get to dip their biscuits in it.
PUBS. You could just call a pub a restaurant, but it's really something different entirely. The pubs here range from the quintessential old British pubs, with exposed wooden beams and complete with a dog lying in front of a crackling fire; to the pub chains scattered around town. But either way, the British view them as an extension of their homes and people gather to watch sports on the telly, visit with friends, or watch their kids play while they enjoy a drink on the patio or in the beer garden. And unlike our restaurants back home, which are often all crammed together in one area of town, a pub can be found on just about every neighborhood corner, so often for the locals their pubs are "where everybody knows your name". "Our" pub is just a couple of blocks away, and it's nice to be able to walk there whenever the mood strikes us (although it's newer and there are no old wooden beams or creaky floors...but we did have that in the pub near our temporary flat!).
CASTLES/RUINS/HISTORIC SHTUFF. This place is a history nerd's dream. England is full of castles, palaces and all sorts of ancient ruins. Hearing the stories about what happened here hundreds of years ago the people who called this home back then is amazing. Warwick itself is over a thousand years old, which blows my mind. I get a little thrill every time I drive past the medieval castle, or climb a winding tower staircase, or see St. George's flag flying at the top of an ancient church (he was a martyr who also, legend has it, slayed a dragon). There is so much more I could write about this. I mean, I haven't even delved into London's history, but that is another post for another day (and besides, I have found I much prefer our area of English countryside to the big city).
TRAVEL. There are so many opportunities to travel throughout the British isles and the European continent, and we intend to take full advantage of it. We each have a whole bucket list, and although I know we won't get to do everything, I've already seen more of the world in the past few months than in my previous 28 years. Of course, traveling with kids takes a little more effort and comes with it's own set of challenges, but we're slowly and surely figuring that out as we go.
LOADS TO DO. There is always something going on around here to do. For example, we happened to go into town a couple weekends ago to visit the farmer's markets, but not only did they have all the stalls packed with goodies, but there was live music and Morris dancers everywhere (folk dancers...look them up and tell me those dances didn't result from drinking too much!), and Cbear got to wrap a maypole with other little girls. Lots of the old estates are open to visitors and have amazing gardens to explore. There are museums and tons of kid activities.
BRITISH WORDS AND PHRASES. I love learning and deciphering the different phrases and the way the British speak. It's probably the aspiring writer in me; I love words. Clint uses them probably more than I do because he is around local people every day and has to communicate effectively, but there are a few that I've picked up. Here are a few favorites off the top of my head:
"You all right?" or just "all right?" as a greeting, does not mean they are concerned that something is wrong; it's more like, "Hey, what's up?" or "Hi, how are you?"
"Bits and bobs" means you are doing a few chores around the house or running some errands...in contrast,
"Bits and pieces" are the things you need to go buy at the store.
"The loo" is the toilet/bathroom.
"Knackered" or "nackered" (I don't know how you spell it) means you're really exhausted. We were using that phrase freely but a fellow American told us he thought it also had a sexual connotation, as in that's why you're tired, so we don't really know if we should use it now...lol.
"That's pants" means something is really sucky or disappointing. But
"pants" the clothing means underwear; what you wear on your legs are called trousers.
"Get it sorted" means to take care of business and get things worked out.
"Me mate"= "my friend"
"That's it", said when agreeing to just about anything.
This isn't really a phrase but British spelling is different than American on a lot of words. There are a lot of unnecessary "U"s, but it makes everything look more elegant (neighbourhood, colourful, favourite) and they use "S" a lot more than "Z" (which incidentally is pronounced "zed" not "zee"when saying it as a letter) (organise, recognise, cosy).
MEETING NEW PEOPLE. Probably the best thing about being an expat is getting to experience a totally new culture and meeting people who are different from you. It broadens your horizons and opens your mind and makes you see the world just a bit differently. I'm so glad that the girls are getting to see and know people that look, act or speak differently, and we're trying to teach them that we can be friends and treat others with kindness even if, or especially if, they aren't like us. And even though there are a lot of differences, there are also many similarities. We all like to laugh and love and be with our families, friends, and neighbors throughout this crazy ride of life.
So, there you have it: the two fears I'm dealing with on the occasions my emotions get the better of me. I think I've figured out how to conquer them: I just need to build a teleportation device. Where is Doctor Emmett Brown when you need him?
