A new role, a new life
Two months ago, I was a project manager, a mother, a runner, and even a mentor run trainer, with strong ties to a charity group that I had led in the past, ties to a few professional organizations from Cost Engineering to Public Transportation, local friends, active with my block unit and ward, working towards positive change for our neighborhood. Today, I am yet to create myself a new identity and I can't help feeling a little bereft.
Yeah, yeah, I've had the courage to leave it all behind and come to discover something new in a pond larger than the one I had grown in. But until I do, I'm nobody and with nothing. The courage that people seem to think it takes, it is this, isn't it ? It is this moment when I feel empty and anxious, excited, but nervous, and wondering will I actually create myself a new identity that is any good ?
Who am I ? Am I still the same person with none of the things that I did ? What is essential to me that I bring with me ? I am yet to discover it. Perhaps I am yet to define it.
Will I bring my skills and organizational abilities with me into my new life and role ? Will I be able to discover my new world well enough to take on all these roles again, or are my multi-activity, ass-kicking, got-it-all-figured-out days over, a vestige of American life only and something that I will not be able to fathom again in a new context ?
It takes courage to be willing to take the chance - the chance of finding out that I can't do it. That I cannot create myself the full life of multiple roles that I had in the past. It takes courage to be willing to shift gears and re-discover life and be willing to find the essential me in whatever new form it takes. But courage doesn't come without fear.
I don't know what it feels like to move as the wife of a man who finds a job opportunity, whose company moves him and helps pay for the move and the logistics. My domestic management is not in the context of having any company support or plumb expat salary to insulate ourselves with. The finances of this move and the new life are mine to create, discover and manage as well as part of "Home economics". And unlike what people may think, we're not coming from California tech wealth or some other amassment - just midwestern savings, with a considered decision to "invest" in this life adventure.
An old school-friend who's been through a lot lately told me I'm cribbing too much on FB and I should just figure it out. What if I don't ? Or cannot ? I know I need to be patient. And perhaps courage means trusting myself and time. Changing everything about one's context and way of life is big, and if I thought myself smart enough to conquer it before, then why do I have doubts now ? Are others around me just smarter than I am and have successfully conquered this sort of thing across contexts, or do they have no clue what a move like this means and are being glib in their advice ? Have I just become a pampered American without the skills to navigate different worlds ? Or can I find and flex them again the same way I did when I was seventeen ?
Some things have had continuity: Running, my investment and engagement with the children. But even these have pretty much turned upside down. I'm on a discovery of life, its essentials, and what it means to be me. Naively I did not expect this. And perhaps if I had, I would have been more scared to actually make this move.
I'm lost at sea, and am simultaneously confident about my ability to row myself and find a shore to land on, while being fearful that it will end up being some tiny little island and not exactly the big city that I came from nor the metropolis that I was hoping to get to.
Yeah, yeah, I've had the courage to leave it all behind and come to discover something new in a pond larger than the one I had grown in. But until I do, I'm nobody and with nothing. The courage that people seem to think it takes, it is this, isn't it ? It is this moment when I feel empty and anxious, excited, but nervous, and wondering will I actually create myself a new identity that is any good ?
Who am I ? Am I still the same person with none of the things that I did ? What is essential to me that I bring with me ? I am yet to discover it. Perhaps I am yet to define it.
Will I bring my skills and organizational abilities with me into my new life and role ? Will I be able to discover my new world well enough to take on all these roles again, or are my multi-activity, ass-kicking, got-it-all-figured-out days over, a vestige of American life only and something that I will not be able to fathom again in a new context ?
It takes courage to be willing to take the chance - the chance of finding out that I can't do it. That I cannot create myself the full life of multiple roles that I had in the past. It takes courage to be willing to shift gears and re-discover life and be willing to find the essential me in whatever new form it takes. But courage doesn't come without fear.
I don't know what it feels like to move as the wife of a man who finds a job opportunity, whose company moves him and helps pay for the move and the logistics. My domestic management is not in the context of having any company support or plumb expat salary to insulate ourselves with. The finances of this move and the new life are mine to create, discover and manage as well as part of "Home economics". And unlike what people may think, we're not coming from California tech wealth or some other amassment - just midwestern savings, with a considered decision to "invest" in this life adventure.
An old school-friend who's been through a lot lately told me I'm cribbing too much on FB and I should just figure it out. What if I don't ? Or cannot ? I know I need to be patient. And perhaps courage means trusting myself and time. Changing everything about one's context and way of life is big, and if I thought myself smart enough to conquer it before, then why do I have doubts now ? Are others around me just smarter than I am and have successfully conquered this sort of thing across contexts, or do they have no clue what a move like this means and are being glib in their advice ? Have I just become a pampered American without the skills to navigate different worlds ? Or can I find and flex them again the same way I did when I was seventeen ?
Some things have had continuity: Running, my investment and engagement with the children. But even these have pretty much turned upside down. I'm on a discovery of life, its essentials, and what it means to be me. Naively I did not expect this. And perhaps if I had, I would have been more scared to actually make this move.
I'm lost at sea, and am simultaneously confident about my ability to row myself and find a shore to land on, while being fearful that it will end up being some tiny little island and not exactly the big city that I came from nor the metropolis that I was hoping to get to.