Mama told me there’d be days like this

So it turns out that feeling sorry for yourself alternated by general crabbiness are both symptoms of transition shock. I Googled culture shock. It explained a lot.

Last week I felt really, really far away from home.

My husband had a work thing and that meant no 6pm break for Mama and no help at all until we saw him again 48 hours later (he leaves for work before we get up). On days like these I’d usually head over to my parent’s place or organise a playdate to give all of us a change of scenery.

It sucks being new some days.

I didn’t really have anywhere to go. There was no back up plan. I had run out of ideas. The kids were irritable. I felt isolated.

Feeling isolated sounds little ridiculous considering the bigness of everything here. (If America had a special power, it would be biggering.) Sadly, it was a very very dark week for humanity so silver linings were in short supply.

Our adventure has had it’s tougher moments. Almost everything is different and although different is exciting, it can also be stressful. We try to take these challenges in our stride. But not every day is an episode of Friends.

Learning to drive on the right side of the road, for example, takes some getting used to. In fact, your entire muscle memory has to be rewired. Oncoming cars are not coming at you from the side you expect. You have to silently remind yourself “keep right, keep right, keep right”. Left turns are the trickiest! Add to that both kids choosing that exact moment to become desperately unhappy about a dropped bottle/blanket/snack/toy and you get the idea. Stressful. After six weeks? It’s a cinch. Now I have to (rather urgently) get my NC driver’s license. (Nope. International licenses don’t count. It’s the law.)

My lesson? I realized that while it’s ok to enjoy my adventure because I’m away from home, it’s also ok to have bad days because I’m away from home. It’s to be expected. No one can prepare you for “foreign-ness”. Another lesson: there’s a strength to be found in understanding (embracing?) a difficult emotion. I should do that more often. My final realization was that I need to plan some me-time too.

In related news, I submitted my X-man’s Kindergarten admission forms and started shopping for school supplies as there’s only about a month of Summer vacation left. At least they’ll all be new kids! I’ve also started researching preschool options for Little Miss Babybelle (they start preschool from 2 years old here.) They also have “mom’s morning out” programmes here that I am considering until then. These groups offer playgroup mornings for babies so moms can have a couple of hours for errands etc. I suspect it’s the only way that I’m ever going to get my hair or nails done (ever) again. Lots of research to do!

On a lighter note, I saw a hummingbird in my garden yesterday! Mama told me there’d be days like this…

TTFN.