the catch

Being an expatriate is not for the faint of heart.

I have debated sharing or even writing down these thoughts over and over again, out of fear of sounding ungrateful, cowardly, or weak.  But the fact of the matter is that when I look back on these posts one day, I want to remember everything -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I want to be able to see how much I've grown, how far I've come, what I'm capable of, and that life wasn't always rainbows and sunshine (as oftentimes, the pretty scenes of life are the only ones that make it up on the screen).

For myriad reasons, the past year or so has been really tough on our family.  Our life has been full of great things but also not-so-great things and unfortunately, the not-so-great things have dominated a majority of my time, thoughts, and emotions.  (Hence a quiet blog and nearly a year's worth of memories missing.  I may go back and fill them in -- a backlog, if you will -- but I might not.  I had a friend tell me that there is no harm in starting fresh on the blog with this new chapter.  She may just be right.)

Every turn we have taken to get to where we are in this two-year adventure has proven difficult.  We honestly have had very few wins.  It has taken a toll on me.  I  typically see myself as a fairly(ish) optimistic person — someone who can usually turn things around pretty quickly, at the very least.  But when you keep getting beaten down, that specific quality seems to fade away.  I've caught unexpected glimpses of myself in the mirror several times over the last few months and each time I am caught off guard -- my eyes look so sad, so sullen.  I don't even recognize myself sometimes.

Basically, I’m just feeling pretty anxious and upset over leaving such a happy and wonderful life for something that’s going to be really hard.  And something that I never really wanted for myself.  For my family as a whole, yes, and for my husband, yes.  But not for myself, personally.  Personally, I had everything I ever wanted.  But I knew that this experience was a dream of Scott’s and I knew/know that having this time together abroad as a family would be a really unique and special time for us — for better and for worse.

Probably the biggest challenge I am dealing with is leaving the situation I had rather than getting accustomed to the situation I am in here.  A large portion of my lifetime was spent at home in Virginia and I have built tremendous relationships there — from my family and my friends I have had for more than a decade, to the people I exercise with, to my favorite cashier at the grocery store (Hi, Ms Sharon!).  I become attached very quickly — to people, to foods, to places.  So when I lay roots, it’s hard for me to pick them up and plant them elsewhere. But there is something especially difficult about picking up and moving everything from home.  This isn’t your typical military move.  I left home.  So you see, it’s not that I am unhappy about where I am, it’s just that I’m unhappy about everything I had to leave behind.

I wake up each day trying my best to put on a brave face and good attitude, but it's hard.  And many days — rather most days — I am unsuccessful.  We are in a constant state of adjustment and have been for months now.  Some people are meant for this kind of adventure.  And I truly wish I was.  But I'm not, so it takes awhile for me to get fully on board.  And it takes awhile to stop missing what I left behind and embrace the things ahead.  And it takes me awhile to become accustomed to a new way of life and the challenges that it presents — from grocery shopping, to being surrounded by people talking in languages I do not understand, to not knowing where in the heck to find things like cilantro, curtain hooks, and a swing set for my girl — feeling completely lost in my new world.  It’s such a strange thing to experience —  a new world.  Imagine waking up and everything has changed — your home, language, friends, food, environment.  It’s dizzying.

I was recently watching Chef’s Table and they were interviewing Slovenian chef, Ana Ros, who, without any formal training or commercial cooking experience, took over as chef when her husband inherited the family restaurant.  She said she felt like she was in an “abyss of ignorance”.  That’s exactly how I feel as an expatriate — in an abyss of ignorance, surrounded by a dense fog of challenging unfamiliarity.

And just in case you thought this European adventure was some sort of glamorous two-year vacation -- let me tell you that it's not.  We sacrificed being together as a family for an entire year in order to be together for two.  We said goodbye to our very happy life to welcome a life of uncertainty and challenge.  We kissed our families (and pets!) goodbye for the sake of adventure.  And our adventure, so far, has had little reward.  We will get to the other side and rewards there will be, but right now, it’s just so damn hard.  

It’ll be okay eventually.  But it’s hard sometimes not to question why we made the choice to do this and abandon such a great, happy, and fulfilling life.  I am going to have to navigate my way through this darker place before I see the light — and I will, I have no doubt.  It’s just that this storm has been an epic one.

All of that being said, we have been welcomed by a handful of extraordinarily wonderful families from all around the world who have reached out to us and have made this a lot less lonely, scary, and sad.  People who opened their arms to us and offered everything — from meals, to furniture, to invitations, to recommendations (and most importantly, friendships)— to make us feel at home here.

And truly, like I said before, Budapest is such a cool, lively, beautiful town and we really are enjoying being able to experience it.  The challenges that have come up with daily life will get easier, or at least be expected, and we’ll be able to better navigate them.

And we have really fallen in love with our new house.  I think the long wait was worth it.  We feel at home here and the view is spectacular.  Scott did a magnificent job picking it out for us. 

And the travel that we have ahead of us is something that we would never get to experience elsewhere, and for that, we are truly grateful and very excited to embark upon.  Especially with our family and friends who are planning to visit.  Our first visitors arrive next month!

When FaceTiming with some friends who are also stationed overseas in Europe this past weekend, one of them stated that being over here, the highs are really high and the lows are really low.  And that made so much sense to me.  For somedays, I find myself simply elated to be where we are.  And others, it hits me like a ton of bricks knowing we will be here for two whole years.  

We asked ourselves several times when we were first looking into applying for the scholarship, What's the catch?  Well, the catch is that it's really freaking hard.  We hear over and over again, This is going to be the best experience of your life!  And while it hasn’t quite been yet, we are optimistic that it will be one day.  But we also know that the entire experience is based upon years of hard work and challenges.  

So while, yes, this is in deed an adventure of a lifetime, and an enormous blessing to our family -- please also recognize that it's not one big beautiful and glamorous European vacation.  It has come with many sacrifices -- many of which we predicted, but most of which have been a surprise.