Being an expat..the good, the bad, the ugly

I'm sure there aren't many people who haven't, at some point in their lives, thought about living abroad and becoming expats.

I was born in South Africa and lived there until the day I received my university results, aged 20. I decided, like most of my friends at the time, that life in London was way more exciting than the sleepy town of Pietermaritzburg in Natal. I moved not fully understanding what I was getting myself in for- and I never appreciated at the time that even then I was becoming an expat. Because I had British nationality through my dad I never quite saw myself as a complete foreigner. I was British when it suited and South African the rest of the time.

I only ever felt like I became an expat when my (British) husband and I accepted the opportunity to move to Singapore in December 2007. Being an expat wasn't something I ever wanted or longed for but at the time, after battling the UK system for months trying to buy a house and eventually breaking a long chain and upsetting a lot of people!- we decided that it might be the best thing for us. To get away.
I still remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen of my tiny Putney flat googling 'Singapore'. I had absolutely no idea where it was. And I thought to myself, 'I don't even really like noodles'
Now, 5 years later I feel I'm officially an expat and an experienced one at that too.

Four sticky hot years in Singapore gave us a lot of stamps in our passports, two beautiful children and some amazing memories but the lack of seasons, strange Singaporean culture and the feeling that we needed to get back to 'real life' made me want to leave. In November 2011 we luckily got offered the opportunity to move with my husband's firm to New York.

New York!!! Like anyone (any fashion loving shopping addictive girl) would turn that down! New York!! Seems my husband had little choice but to say yes.

And we moved. Again. We left our lovely life, our beautiful friends, our amazing helper and all the gorgeous beaches only a 50 minute flight away. At the time I never looked back. Even in the cold, dark, windy days battling the crowds of Times Square I never once regretted our move.
I love New York.
But sometimes things weren't greener and I often wondered why I'd left my beautiful life in Singapore. Days morphed into months and I spent much of my New York life alone with the two kids. I'm sure my husband worked more hours in one year in New York than he did in all four in Singapore. We saw him through sleepydust getting ready for work some mornings and then again on the weekends. But even then with his blackberry glued to his hand and ear he was never really around. Work consumed him. Work was ruining him. When he was home he was tired, moody and hated doing things with the friends I had become to rely on in my weeks of solitary confinement.

I began to realise a few things:

- Kids don't need to bath everyday
- Drinking wine from 4pm on some days and going to bed at 7pm with the kids is completely acceptable
- Fruit pouches of squeezie baby puree are really meant for babies, not mommies who can't be arsed cooking

Summer was amazing; full of beautiful hot days and cool evenings and with a great circle of friends and lots to do, we kept ourselves busy, oblivious to the trouble bubbling underneath us.

It's obvious that I LOVED, LOVE New York. I'd give my left leg to go back.
But I've learnt that with being an expat - or trailing spouse- sometimes, somethings are out of your control.
On September 19th 2012, only 9 months after arriving in the US, my life was thrown upside down.
We had suspected, but we never fully anticipated that after only 9 months they would do this to us. Would they really move us all the way around the world, spend thousands of dollars on relocation and then just wave us goodbye? Had they not invested too much to make it that simple?
Um, I guess not.

The last few months in Hoboken/ New York for me are a bit of a blur. My husband wasn't sad to leave his job and in some ways he looked forward to leaving the US, but for me, it was literally the end of my life. I had made some amazing friends and made myself a life that I absolutely loved and never wanted to leave. We had only recently sold our Putney flat and paid the deposit on a penthouse apartment in Hoboken. I wanted nothing more than to live there - forever!

Sadly as an expat I had little choice and we where given 90 days to leave the country. So we moved. Again.

Now almost four months have passed since my husband lost his job and after moving back to the UK, losing our flat, leaving my friends and my life, living through a hurricane and more recently losing a baby, I have started to wonder why I ever wanted to live abroad in the first place.
If I had opted for my little cottage with white picket fence in a small dosy village in the English countryside five years ago, would I be going through all this 'drama'?

Somedays now in our 'inbetween assignments lul' I feel completely and utterly lost. When I left South Africa, I never really thought about what it really meant, and despite living in London for a good nine years before moving to Singapore, and being married to someone British, London or the UK, isn't home to me. But then neither is South Africa. Am I truly nomadic?

On returning to the UK in December my husband got to business of trying to find a job, and I got to work trying to be positive about our move and the prospect of a life in London again. But only two weeks after arriving things took a turn and he was offered a job - abroad. This time in South Africa.
So we move. Again.
I'm not so unsure about this move. I mean, I know where it is, I like steak, braai-ing, beer and rugby and more importantly than anything I have family in South Africa. But is moving back to South Africa the end to my expat existence?

Expat life can give you many things. Good things: travel, amazing life changing experiences, friends you never would meet anywhere else; Bad things; stress, loneliness, isolation in foreign cultures, the feeling like you don't belong; uncertainty; and Ugly things: job loss, leaving a life you love, losing friends and everything that goes along with it. I think you have to accept everything and be prepared to have highs and lows you never would leading a more 'ordinary' life.

I love being an expat but I often have this feeling like ' God, do I really have to do this all over again'. Will I love Johannesburg as much as Hoboken? As much as Singapore? Will it better than London? Only time will tell.

You gotta baby in your tummy mummy?

I sat on the floor in my parents guest bedroom in front of one of those floor to ceiling mirrors staring blankly at my emotionless self for what seemed like hours. I'd gone upstairs to sort boxes. It's been just under a month since we arrived back in the UK and still half our things are stashed bagged under beds or boxed in the garage. I was trying to find a turtte and a suspected missing Kate Spade bag and instead beneath summer clothes and endless piles of socks, my fingers wrapped round the tiny heart shaped black board I'd bought the day before we left Hoboken.

When I was pregnant with William I overlooked so many things I wish I'd done. I forgot to keep a pregnancy journal and never bothered taking photos of myself pregnant, so now, almost 4 years later, my big bellied self is all but a distant memory. Thankfully being a boy he probably won't care about those sorts of things so I'm OK.
Then Emma came along. I knew she was a girl from week 17 so straight away I started creating, what I hope one day she'll appreciate, a journal of my pregnancy and everything about what I was feeling or experiencing being pregnant. Photos, keepsakes, timelines, memories you name it. But somehow again, self conscious me forgot belly shots.

When I found out I was pregnant with baby #3, whether it be boy or girl, I wanted to make myself take belly shots. If this was going to be my last child, and pregnancy, I wanted to remember in years to come what it felt like, and remember what I looked like every week I was expecting.

Sitting in front of the mirror with my little chalkboard it felt odd. Look at me. Nothing's changed. I still look exactly as I did two weeks ago. And yet everything's changed. I can't hold the board up and scribble 13 weeks because there's nothing in there. Last week I was pregnant. This week, well, I'm just slightly podgy really.

It's been one week and I still keep asking myself, has this seriously just happened? After everything else I've been through recently. Really?
Leaving my life in Hoboken was possibly the hardest experience I've had to live through yet. Life there suited me, and leaving my friends, the town, New York and the States will always be, one of the saddest memories I have. You only have to mention the word Hoboken to get a tear out of me. But behind all the sadness and the hurt was this tiny silver lining of hope that 2013 would be a better year. Because regardless of what happened next year, I was pregnant. I was going to have another beautiful baby....

In the run up to Christmas it was easy to pretend like we where on holiday. The kids where easily amused by the decorations, lights and the growing number of presents under the tree which William could easily identify as his. They love being with Granny and Gaga and despite the horrible english weather and lack of outdoor activity they seemed settled.
Christmas came and went and I looked forward to New Year. 2013 would be better. I was sure of it.

But mother nature had other plans and on Saturday 29th December, one day shy of 12 weeks, I lost baby #3.

What followed this discovery was a week of NHS (National Health Service - or free crap half decent medical service for all my American friends) torture. Three days in hospital, half a dozen doctors- two who didn't speak any English- and New Years Day in the Critical Treatments Unit ward- because after 16 hours in A&E (ER) they had no idea where to send me. New Years Eve 2013 has a lot to live up to.

Now, a week later, I'm almost back to normal, expected to get on with things as before, and yet, i feel completely different. I'm not pregnant. There are so many emotions I have, and don't have that I feel completely overwhelmed to write anything down. I am almost speechless.
When Emma keeps running up to me giving me cuddles and poking me in the tummy saying' You gotta baby in there mummy', I have to keep a brave face, force back the tears and try make something up that will change the subject. She'll soon forget. Me, I'm not so sure.