To blog or not to blog....

Right. Here I am, sitting at my desk for the third evening in a row, glass of wine at arm’s reach, trying – once again – to blog, I’ve written & re-written too many times. It’s all about choosing a theme, for me.

Blogging is just not blogging if you don’t grab a theme of the last few weeks and ponder on it. That’s the problem though, that’s been the delay; the theme of the last few weeks has been a sombre one, not all lows but a considerable amount more of the low stuff than has been so far in our blogging history.

It’s not that the shine has worn off, nor that the people have become less friendly, less unbelievably generous with their kindness, nor is it that the house has become small or the scenery less dramatic or awe inspiring, it’s none of the above, Canada is still amazing Canada and we’re still blown away by our move… but. You knew it was coming, that ‘but’, it was staring us in the face too and quite ridiculous to think the bed of roses would smell so beautiful for every second of every day. This is real life, right?

Through those perfect rose-tinted glasses, every now and then a shard of loneliness seeps in; we are, in the truest sense of the word, pretty lonely at times. We have some good friends already – goodness only knows what we’d do without them, but there is no way of avoiding the fact that we tucked our lives up into ten previously-owned suitcases and left our comfortable lives, our family, our friends, oh so many wonderful friends, and moved half way across the world to a rather lesser-known world with only each other for comfort on ‘rainy days’…

I guess that Christmas and all it’s ‘familyness’ (I’m allowed to make up words, it’s my blog) was always going to bring it home rather rapidly that we didn’t actually have any family close by, and I also know that after the last year of preparation and the last three months of screeching through life in top gear was bound to slow down at some point and reality was going to hit, we just didn’t duck in time and some days in the last week or two have been pretty hard for the grown- ups in this equation… the smaller ones (with one or two emotional exceptions) seem pretty unaffected, so far.

The book (our emigration ‘bible’)(don’t snigger) says we all experience Culture Shock in one guise or another, let me elaborate, if I may. I’ll try to keep it brief:

Stage One. The honeymoon stage, lasting from a few days or a few weeks, uses words like ‘positive’ and ‘euphoric’ ‘insulated from everyday life’… I think we can safely say we experienced this stage.

Stage Two. Rejection or Distress stage. The complete opposite of the above. A period of crisis. Starting to deal with the normal pressures of life – except that this life does not resemble your life. Possible regression into your culture (what do they mean, like my desperation to find the equivalent to Jonathan Ross & a curry on a Friday night, never..…?) Seeking out other expatriates (not on your nelly)… only good things back home are remembered…

Stage Three. The flight Stage (“because of the overwhelming desire to escape”). This section uses words like ‘Depressed’ ‘Angry’ ‘Impatience’ ‘Focus on negative aspects’ ‘Sadness’ ‘Incompetence’… I’m not going to go on, you get the picture… it’s not a nice place to be.

You see, Andy & I have discussed this at length (as you might imagine..!) and we have followed this ‘stage’ path, albeit on a fairly minor (although still quite distressing) level… We accept that we are not coming into a brand new culture, with a different language or an entirely different way of life, it is, however, still unbelievably exhausting to have to re-learn everything you took for granted. We are quite firmly, placed at Stage three, having experienced one & two almost in-sync over the last eight weeks. Somebody said to me recently (in jest… don’t want to make them feel bad!) that some people are never satisfied… we are so satisfied, truly, we are, satisfied, fortunate, living life to the full, don’t want to come home, but still we can feel frustration… incompetence – (that’s my one, Oh yes, I forget by the hour that I am a competent business woman, wandering around here sometimes like a ditsy blonde without even trying to engage my brain, it’s so befuddled with everything else), and homesick. That’s Andy’s department, and mine I suppose if only I was to admit it…

So there you have it. What’s that? You want to know about Stage Four? Oh yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel, in fact we’ve even been tasting the air over the last few days, yes, Stage Four is much more like it… and we know we’re nearly there;

Stage Four. Recovery Stage. Integration, adaption, “the environment doesn’t change, what changes is your attitude towards it..” You attain more competence in your surroundings (I’m still not measuring my butter in ‘cups’ for goodness sakes.. what’s up with weight??!, OK, perhaps I’m still at Stage Three..) Feel more ‘at home’ realise the place has good and bad points like any other…

Yes, we dip in and out of Stages Three & Four, at ease, no real stress but just a realisation that this is kind of ‘it’, what we worked for, saved for, fought for no less, you all know what a struggle it was, we did it & we have it, so no more complaining (that’s what my book says, think yourself positively out of the negative.. it works, really) we just wanted you to know that there are lows to these highs, what goes up must come down and eventually re-balance ( – I made that bit up) – it’s the law of physics and we’re at its mercy…

Now what is that scratching under my house? I think we may have visitors… large visitors… tune in again soon :)