Home

I was writing an email to my sister-in-law this morning, when I suddenly realized that I used the word home in reference to three different places: Minnesota, Texas, and Japan. I had to go back and edit my typing in order to not completely confuse her.

I’m pretty sure I said something to the effect of: I can’t wait until we get home (to Minnesota) to visit!!! (I use a lot of exclamation points.) Then I am sure I rambled on about something else that you all don’t care about before telling her that we are planning to make a stop at home (Texas) for some barbecue before heading home (to Japan).

I told her that I am really looking forward to going home…and then stopping at home…before heading home.

Seriously.

The hard part is that each use of the word home felt 100% appropriate. It wasn’t until I did a quick skim to proofread my email before sending that I realized that I made absolutely no sense.

Side note for context:

We are spending two weeks in the US in December/January. Yes, we are planning an overnight layover in Texas in order to get our barbecue fix before heading back to Japan. We’ll see some friends in Texas, too, so we’re not completely food-obsessed. Scratch that, we totally are. But so are the people we are going to see, so it’s all good. These are people who don’t bat an eye when you invite yourselves to stay at their house for one night so that you can eat amazing food together before jetting off. And this is why we call them our friends.

But the thing is that all of those places really are home to me.

Where is home? Where are you from?

Anyone who has called more than one city home can relate to this, but when you jump from state to state or even country to country the answer to that innocent question tends to get more and more complicated.

So when people ask us where we’re from, the answer looks a little different each time.

From my point of view, it tends to go something like this:

“I’m from the United States.”

“Oh, where specifically? Well, we moved (to Japan) from Texas. But we’re actually not from Texas, we’re from Minnesota.”

“No, not, “like, Minneapolis”…from a tiny town about 300 miles north of there.”

“Nope, not Canada, but almost!”

“No, Fargo isn’t in Minnesota. That would be North Dakota. I lived there, too. Yeah, I guess some people talk like that. Hmmm…I’m not sure why I don’t sound like that, too. I guess my accent has faded a little. It comes back when I’ve spent a bit of time back there, though…”

Basically I tell my geographical history backwards until the person seems satisfied.

The most important gifts you can give to your child are roots and wings

Have you heard that saying? I am not sure who originally said it, but I get it. I think we’re all doing okay on the wings front over here, but what happens if you raise a kid who can’t look back to see her roots in exactly one place? What if her roots are in lots of places? We’ve had 7 homes – in 4 states, 5 cities, and 2 countries – since Miss E was born. She has become an expert on saying goodbyes and on making new friends, and I am certain that it has made her a stronger and more adaptable person. But at the same time I’m sure it’s given her a lot to discuss with her future therapist.

Feeling Guilty

Sometimes I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt because we haven’t given her a life where she could give a one-word answer to the question of where she is from. When someone asks her where she is from (pretty often now that we have moved overseas), I can see the wheels turning in her head when she tries to make out the best way to answer. I can see the tiny flicker of panic that comes from not knowing if you can get away with telling this particular person which country you come from and leave it at that, or if they want your entire life story. Since she is more like her father than her mother when it comes to talking to other people, I know that she is always hoping for the former rather than the latter.

So even though I feel guilty for not giving my child a simple life where a one-word answer would suffice, I am pretty sure I would feel guilty if we had stayed in the same place for the past 13+ years and hadn’t taken the risks that we have in order to give her the life that she has. Parent guilt is real, and I have found that it’s pretty much going to be there no matter what I do. So here’s hoping that the places she’s been, the people she’s loved, the experiences she has had, and the memories she has made will make up for the feeling of being from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Hopefully she will come to discover, as I have, that home is a lot of different things rolled into one:

Home is a location.

It can be a town/city/state/region/country/continent/hemisphere. It can even be a different place each time you picture it, or it can be the one place you picture over and over again, no matter where you actually live.

Home is a feeling.

It is the comfort you feel when you return from a long day, or from a trip. It’s where you want to pull the covers over your head when you’ve had a rough day. It’s where you walk around without any pants on, and where you give yourself permission to drink juice out of the carton because you’re too lazy to grab a glass.

Home is the people we surround ourselves with.

It is those people whom we have the privilege to miss when we leave. Home can be family, friends, and those friends who become your family; and it is the people who we become in each place that we make a home.

It is our little family, wherever we’re together.

This week marks six months since we left the United States and moved to Japan. It is strange to realize that I have been an expat for 6 months already. 6 months feels like an eternity, but also like it went by in the blink of an eye.

expat life 6 months

Before moving here – during all of the planning, packing, and goodbye-ing – I spent very little time thinking about what it would mean for us to finally step onto that plane – to leave behind our life, our family, our dog, and everything we were familiar with. I spent approximately 0% of my time thinking about the fact that walking through that airplane door would actually change the trajectory of my life and the lives of my immediate family members.

Instead of thinking about the magnitude of stepping onto the airplane, I focused on the details: the passports, the tickets, the visas, the packing, the hotel reservations, etc. I distracted myself with those details so that I wouldn’t think about the rest.

The First Weeks as an Expat

Like any move, the first weeks were all about checking off the most necessary of tasks. We found a place to live, we enrolled our preteen daughter in school, we bought cell phones, we picked out furniture, and we navigated our new city’s transportation system. Those tasks acted as a nice little distraction from the big stuff. There’s no time to question whether or not you’ve made a huge mistake when there is an apartment to furnish!

We spent our first month living in a hotel, another distraction. Hotel living certainly wasn’t terrible; it was a most welcome distraction that came with English-speaking staff, executive lounge access, endless food and champagne, and laundry service. This wasn’t our new life, it was too comfortable. It was the in-between of our previous life and our new one. But when you uproot your life and transport your family to the opposite side of the globe you learn to cling to any comfort you can get. Especially in the form of laundry service. And champagne.

In reality, I needed the distractions in those early days. After those first few weeks – filled with travel, jet lag, and mini-tantrums – the magnitude of this change would start to creep in.

We are expats.

We are living in Japan.

Holy shit.

Expat Struggles

The distractions were fading away, and the discomfort came roaring in to fill the void. The struggles came in many forms…like not being able to read labels at the grocery store.

…and not understanding that the person at the checkout is asking you if you need a bag, so you just say in your terrible Japanese that you don’t understand (because you definitely do know how to say that) while trying to look repentant.

…and having to play a game of charades in order to buy tickets to a baseball game.

Embracing Discomfort

If I had to choose to share just one thing I have learned during my first six months as an expat it would be this: that discomfort is necessary. In fact, I would argue that it is actually good for you. It has been my experience that living life in a near-constant state of discomfort tends to cause a person to get used to it. And when you start to feel okay with feeling uncomfortable, you begin to take risks. When you spend your days doing things that scare you, you actually end up doing some pretty amazing things.

And perhaps the best part is that once you are so used to your life being uncomfortable, then you actually take notice when things start to become a little bit comfortable again. The day you don’t shed any tears in the grocery store is a momentous occasion. You notice the first time you are able to ask the train attendant if the train you’re about to get on is actually going where you need to go, and the first time you leave the house and return without getting lost is cause for celebration. I have found that spending my days being grateful for the things that seemed insignificant before is actually leading me to become a happier, more grateful person.

The First 6 Months Will Make or Break You

I have heard that how a person handles the first six months of an expat posting will make or break the overall experience for them, their spouse and/or their family members, and their coworkers.

Many companies, my husband’s included, will send their overseas employees home for visits each year…but not before that six month mark. The belief is that if you go back “home” before that six month mark there is a pretty good chance that you may not come back. I had read about it and knew that was the case, but I never really understood it until coming here.

It Hasn’t Always Been Easy (and it Still Isn’t)

I will admit that there have been a few times when, if someone had slipped a one-way ticket to the US under my door, I would have been on the next train to the airport. But I am extremely glad that that didn’t happen. Because getting on that Japan-bound plane a second time when I knew what was waiting for me on the other side would have been more than I could handle. I also wouldn’t have known that it would get better than those early days and weeks if I hadn’t gone through it and come out (mostly) unscathed. I wouldn’t have known that I could be okay with being uncomfortable. And I certainly wouldn’t have known how amazing it feels to be comfortable again.

So here we are. Six months in. Life is becoming more comfortable each day, and in turn, we are feeling more grateful than ever before. We’re feeling (mostly) settled in our Japanese apartment; eating our Japanese food from the neighborhood market; paying our Japanese bills with Japanese yen; learning this new language — some of us more quickly than others.

The homesickness comes and goes, and the culture shock is a real bitch sometimes. But I couldn’t be happier with where we are at this moment.

Here in Japan.

Posts Tagged ‘expat’

Home.