10 (16!) years later, 12 months in: we made it!

This week Xman finished Kindergarten, my husband and I celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary (we’ve been together for 16!), and my kids and I have been in the US for exactly 1 year.

This confluence of milestones presents a good time to reflect on how far we’ve come.

A continental move has highs and lows and everything in between. There are four stages of culture shock, described as elation, resistance, transformation and integration. Everyone goes through these stages differently.

Elation is the honeymoon phase – you’re a tourist and your move feels a bit like an extended holiday. You’re amazed and enamored with living in a place where the predominant culture is pop culture.

Resistance (aka rage) – you are annoyed with everything and everyone. You accuse America of having the emotional maturity of a teenage girl. Your husband almost picks a fight with the IRS at the IRS office. Your son loudly complains that “these American crayons suck” because they keep breaking in his hand. You mutter under your breath that “Ariana Grande” sounds like the name of a Starbucks latte. You feel lost and alien in your foreign-ness.You panic and worry that you’ve made a huge mistake. Thank goodness it’s just a phase!

To help this phase along, I implemented a strategy I call “kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight*.” It’s amazing what exercise does for the mind, body and soul. You are stronger than you realize in so many ways.

We are currently somewhere in between the transformation and integration stages. We’ve reached the point where we’re no longer first timers or the new faces at everything. We are “restabilizing” (I don’t think it’s a word, but you get the idea.) We’ve created new comfort zones and routines. I can adapt my pronunciation when it matters (wah-DuhR). I have people I can call in an emergency.

I miss some of the stuff we left behind. We bought all the basics at the insta-house store IKEA (a retail experience like no other!) when we arrived. Everyday things, like my favorite mixing bowls and serving dishes or my sentimental trinkets are all gathering dust in storage. Maybe this is why I’ve been putting off decorating and buying a blender and mixing bowls. Do we really need two of everything? Even if they are on different continents?

My six year old now speaks with two accents, depending on the audience. He also counts in Southern. I suspect he gets that from his teacher 🙂

For a while there he refused to speak any Afrikaans (some people in the transformation phase go to the extreme of rejecting their own culture). A couple of days ago, he told me he sang the national anthem six times that day because he missed South Africa and rugby (fancy fact: Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika is sung in five difference languages.) I didn’t realize how hard the switch must have been until, the morning of his last day of Kindergarten, he tells me: “Mom, I didn’t give up once!”

We are so proud of how hard our boy worked this year. He had a lot of catching up to do. US kids learn to read much earlier than their SA counterparts. He jumped six months ahead because the school year isn’t a calendar year (i.e. we left half way through the SA school year). Plus, they teach things a little differently back home: in SA the focus was all lower case and letter sounds, but he didn’t know his upper case letters, which is where they start here. Thankfully he has good genes when it comes to numbers (not mine) and maths and science are his favorite subjects. We were blessed (not a word I used flippantly) with a great teacher and a wonderful group of children.

In the transformation phase, you review your identity and origins – kind of like an international identity crisis. I’m calling it our “what if” phase. I wonder, how American will we become? How American should we become? How much American is just the right amount? What if we have to go back and we don’t want to? What if we want to go back and we can’t?

I believe you will always be an amalgam of your past and your present. There’s also very little I can control about tomorrow. And if option A doesn’t work out, we’ll kick the shit out of option B**.

I put a couple of other strategies in place to help with acculturation even before we landed in the US. One strategy was to create a sense of normalcy for the kids by continuing activities that my son is passionate about. It also forced me to get out of the house, drive on the wrong (right) side of the road and speak to other adults during the very long hot summer days in those first months.

The second strategy was to not seek out other expats. A friend who had some knowledge of the extent of the change I was about to throw myself into gave me the best advice: don’t be afraid to put down roots.

I read recently that traveling is a journey into the self. Moving countries (for me, at least) has been like an extreme make-over of my life. If nothing else, it has been a journey into myself. I am pleasantly surprised with what (who) I discovered. I am also really lucky to be wandering alongside my husband and best friend. Cheers to the next 10 years!

xoxo

*Stolen from a song lyric about a reference to a song lyric:
Heard a singer on the radio late last night
He says he’s gonna kick the darkness
’til it bleeds daylight
I…I believe in love
U2 – God Part II.

This is the lyric referenced:
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight
Bruce Cockburn – Lovers in a Dangerous Time.

**Sheryl Sandberg – read her letter about marriage, grief and loss here.