I’ve just been reading another blog by an expat whose name is Kirsty Rice. Her post on expat happiness was great. It is just so relevant to me. Number 5 though really hit a chord. It is ‘avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness’. In his Kirsty writes:
“You’re going to have your bad days, you’re going to be homesick, lonely and lost. We need the bad days to appreciate the good days – it’s how we measure how far we’ve come”. (Kirsty Rice)
I’m here in my new home, semi reclined on the couch with food poisoning. I have had basically no internet access for five days so I am struggling to post what I write. More than that I feel completely isolated as my connection to home, friends and family is broken. I have cried today, from pain, feeling crap, feeling lonely and frustrated at how hard it was ringing the broadband provider, going through their trouble shooting before they finally agreed to send a techie – next Tuesday. As everyone here knows that is no guarantee someone will turn up. There are tears of desperation because the construction noise we live with is just soul destroying. That coupled with food poisoning is just hideous. Oh and there are tears from the fear I won’t be able to find what I need at the shops in the next day to bake FB a birthday cake and knowing her grandparents probably won’t get to Skype her for her special day.
Does this make me ungrateful – no. What this is, is normal life. Regardless of where we are we all have sadness, loneliness and struggle at different times. I am writing this post on my iPhone so goodness knows how it will turn out. Despite the lack of pretty pictures, I am still here. I am trying to figure this life out and most days it’s pretty exciting and I’m smiling. In writing my next post I was feeling something was wrong and I realized it just now. I gloss over the sucky bits because I want to focus on the good stuff. I don’t want people to think I’m a spoiled ungrateful expat wife. You know what though, this is me. I’m having a shitty time and if I was in my ‘old life’ I’d probably be whinging to my closest friends. I don’t have that joy in this moment so here is a plain looking and honest post about how an ‘ugly’ day can look. Tomorrow is a new day, and when you are adjusting to a new life it really is one day at a time. It is important to try hard to let go of what happened yesterday, stay in the present and smile at the prospect of new adventure tomorrow.
