Letters From an Expat Wife

You know how some people are made to travel the world? To live in the most exotic places, meeting the most eccentric people? Who pick up new hobby every two years and reinvent themselves? Who send postcards from everywhere to friends who always shout: “Oh man, she is really living the dream!”

I’m not one of those people. At all. To begin with, I hate change. I can, without any problems, order the same sandwich for lunch for a month. Listen to the same song over and over, watch the same movie a hundred times and still laugh at the jokes. I don’t get bored easily and love predictability and familiarity.

To add to these wonderful traits, I also loved my house, my family and friends and absolutely adored my carrier. So, when one day my husband came home with the prospect of moving abroad I was a little less than delighted. Above anything else I was scared. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be without my job. “What do you do?” was maybe not the very first question I asked someone when I met them but for sure it was within the top five.

After some doubts I decided that adventure is a good thing (isn’t that what they always tell you in fashionable women’s magazines?), maybe it’s time to reinvent myself (although the old version of me was perfectly fine, I thought) and this would give us a great chance to bond as a family and get stronger (at the time I hadn’t read about the divorce rates amongst the expats).

I kept going back and forth to the office until one day before we left and after a spectacular farewell from our friends I found myself on the plane to Greece. The first reality check came when I was supposed to fill in the papers for the customs: Occupation. Hmm… What was I supposed to write? Slowly I wrote: Stay at home mom. Just like that. I stared at the paper and tried to connect with the woman I was supposed to be.

The first few weeks I spent between the boxes with a year-old baby and without a phone (yes, I was indeed robbed within the first three days), internet and a tv, I succeeded to completely miss a global stock market crash which changed the world. I only found out about it during a party when somebody said HSBC might go bankrupt and I laughed. Everybody stared at me. Needless to stay I was glued to the news after that, amazed at how much I had missed trying to create our new home.

My days would be walking to the beach with my baby in the stroller, having coffee at my Italian neighbour’s house and buying groceries. How my meeting, deadline and stress filled days had changed into a yoga commercial. I was breathing in and breathing out and not much else was happening to be honest. For the first time in my life I was getting bored. I was listening to stories I didn’t care for, laughing at jokes I didn’t understand and in the mirror I was seeing a woman I didn’t recognize.  It was her: the stay at home mom. Surely this woman couldn’t be me?

During one of the uneventful coffee mornings by the playground I was sipping my cappuccino fredo and half listening to the other ladies when I heard one of them tell the group how she and her husband were seeing this psychologist who was helping them to get over some sort of a marital problem. Maybe that’s it, I thought. Maybe I should also see her. I had never been in therapy in my life. There was never much need really. I had my work where I could get rid of all of my frustrations.

I made an appointment before I would lose my nerve. Two days later I was walking in her street looking for the psychologist’s office. The numbers were not adding up. There was absolutely no logic and I was getting very frustrated. I kept on passing this jungle like garden surrounding a dump. I was about to give up when a friendly old man asked me what I was looking for. I told him and he pointed to the house right next door. I thanked him and walked to the house while thinking this psychologist couldn’t be much if it was situated next to a dump.

After the initial chitchat she asked me why I was there and I told her that I wanted to love the woman in the mirror again. Or at least give her a chance. She asked me about what scared me the most, why I had the feeling I had given up my life. How come I saw it as a sacrifice I made for others in my life instead of seeing it as a choice others had made to make me happier? Just because I was happy before it didn’t mean I wouldn’t be as happy or maybe happier in a new environment?

Yeah, maybe. It all sounded nice but would it be that easy to see everything differently? It sounded too good to be true. I paid and walked out. Just as I was passing the old man he handed me a beautiful red rose. He pointed to the garden. In the corner of the jungle dump next to the psychologist’s office there was the most exquisite rose garden. How was that possible? The whole place was completely run down. And how was it possible that I hadn’t seen it before? I had walked right passed it. Not once but a couple of times.

So, maybe there was someone in the mirror I wasn’t seeing either. Just because it wasn’t the same old me it didn’t mean it wasn’t someone worth knowing. For sure, change was hard. But not embracing change meant missing on so much more.

Ceren Taygun.