Last month marked the fifth anniversary of this family leaving Ireland. Five years - it sounds at once such a short period of time - a snippet, an ad break! - and yet the world we left behind us in Ireland seems like a murky dream, something from another lifetime.
These past five years have been eventful - life changing even. When we left Galway for Abu Dhabi back in 2008 it was with the idea that we might stay away for a year, maybe two at the most - you know, have an experience, open our minds, and all that jazz, before returning to the comfort of our lives.
However, the collapse of Lehman brothers shortly after we left - and the gory aftermath of that - combined with the realisation that this world was far bigger than our tiny part of south county Galway - meant that pretty quickly we knew we wouldn't be returning to Ireland any time soon. If ever.
In the UAE I never really thought of myself as an expat, never sought out Irish people in particular, didn't give any of it much thought to be honest. Apart from the 15% of the population who are indigenous, everyone else is from somewhere else, and nobody intends (or indeed is permitted) to stay long term. This is understood and so the only question is 'how long will you stay?' Most of the friends we made had lived in at least one other country, moving on when new and better opportunities arose. It was a way of life and we wanted in.
However, the nine months spent in Ireland after we were forced to leave the UAE (a long story) and before we left for Australia changed all that. I suddenly wanted to stay just where I was. Safe, understood, familiar; I could nail pictures to the walls of my house, order a black coffee without twenty questions, say things like 'I don't believe in God' without fear of nut-jobs reporting me to the authorities. Exotic was over-rated I had decided.
Coming to Australia wasn't thrilling. But like the many thousands who leave Ireland every day, Australia wasn't a choice, it was a lifeline. Suddenly I was part of a group, exiled from our home country by countless feckless governments and our own fecklessness too if I'm honest. The massive mortgage we'd happily taken on six years earlier now effectively excluded us from a life in Ireland, since it could only be serviced from the other side of the planet.
And in contrast to my light, excitable steps through the departures gate on the way to the UAE, this time I felt herded on to the plane, shambling along with all the other poor sods no longer needed in Ireland.
I sought out other Irish people, wrote articles about the experience of being part of this diaspora, read the Irish Time's Generation Emigration, and felt angry and frightened that I might never live in my own home again. How things had changed!
But as time went on I grew tired of this victim-hood, and found myself reinventing myself, I became an 'Expat', a 'Trailing Spouse', because these names suggested I'd chosen this life, that I had control over it - 'Look at me, we're off on our travels again! So very bohemian, such gypsies!'
'How exciting, and daring!' people would say to me. 'Yes yes, it is,' I would reply vaguely, fingers crossed behind my back.
Of course I was deluding myself - I still am! But having to live in another country because your own country can't offer you anything can be a humbling experience - shaming almost - and leaves you feeling powerless, like a plastic bag being tossed around on the breeze. And the question of 'how long do I have to stay here?' loses its urgency as time passes in favour of 'How long will I get away with being here?'
Does it lessen the experience of living abroad I wonder, this lack of choice? Are my children learning any less about the world because we didn't really want to come here? Probably not, although it is up to us to view this as an opportunity not a punishment. Sometimes it feels like neither, sometimes it feels like both.
Being on a 457 (temporary) visa makes this even worse, because should you lose your job, you have just 90 days before you are obliged to leave the country at your ex-employer's expense (that's if you even have savings to sustain you during this time). We've experienced the curse of redundancy twice in the past year. Twice we've sat, shell-shocked, frightened, trying not to contemplate the worst case scenario of our situation, because it's literally unthinkable. Return home to what? you'll say to those well-meaning people who tell you you're better off at home.
When DH's employer brought us up to the Pilbara, we were overjoyed to have beaten the loneliness of FIFO and delighted at our good fortune in finding another, better job than before! When two months later - a week after they agreed to sponsor us for a permanent resident visa - DH's employer told him 'sorry, no more work', we felt as if we'd cashed in all our chips. Our luck was officially up. Is it us? we wondered. Is it we just continuously make the wrong choices? Was the well-paid FIFO job which had been turned down in favour of the Pilbara job the safer choice? How can you tell what's best for your family when you're in a foreign land?
I wanted to get out. I wanted to leave Australia and once more seize the reigns of my destiny. Australia represented the lack of choices in my life and I wanted to just leave it behind.
We looked at Canada (very stable, liberal, boring?). We looked at Norway (excellent education, years of work ahead, funny language?), then we looked down the road - because like it or not, it was the easier option in the short term. Luckily 'down the road' offered a job. Perhaps a stable one, perhaps not, I don't know, I've given up looking at it that way now.
I suppose the point of this post is that in these times, in this economic climate, we can't second guess any more. We can't plan too far ahead. There's no such thing as forever. All we can do it keep going, try to make the right decisions. Take each week at a time and hope things get better. And today they are better.
What will the next five years hold I wonder? Will I still be here, plucking stray spiders from the walls without fear, the way my children do? Will I be cutting every word in half, sticking an 'ee' on the end of it without a thought? Will I be packing my eldest off to university in Perth? Only time, as they say, will tell...
These past five years have been eventful - life changing even. When we left Galway for Abu Dhabi back in 2008 it was with the idea that we might stay away for a year, maybe two at the most - you know, have an experience, open our minds, and all that jazz, before returning to the comfort of our lives.
However, the collapse of Lehman brothers shortly after we left - and the gory aftermath of that - combined with the realisation that this world was far bigger than our tiny part of south county Galway - meant that pretty quickly we knew we wouldn't be returning to Ireland any time soon. If ever.
In the UAE I never really thought of myself as an expat, never sought out Irish people in particular, didn't give any of it much thought to be honest. Apart from the 15% of the population who are indigenous, everyone else is from somewhere else, and nobody intends (or indeed is permitted) to stay long term. This is understood and so the only question is 'how long will you stay?' Most of the friends we made had lived in at least one other country, moving on when new and better opportunities arose. It was a way of life and we wanted in.
However, the nine months spent in Ireland after we were forced to leave the UAE (a long story) and before we left for Australia changed all that. I suddenly wanted to stay just where I was. Safe, understood, familiar; I could nail pictures to the walls of my house, order a black coffee without twenty questions, say things like 'I don't believe in God' without fear of nut-jobs reporting me to the authorities. Exotic was over-rated I had decided.
Coming to Australia wasn't thrilling. But like the many thousands who leave Ireland every day, Australia wasn't a choice, it was a lifeline. Suddenly I was part of a group, exiled from our home country by countless feckless governments and our own fecklessness too if I'm honest. The massive mortgage we'd happily taken on six years earlier now effectively excluded us from a life in Ireland, since it could only be serviced from the other side of the planet.
And in contrast to my light, excitable steps through the departures gate on the way to the UAE, this time I felt herded on to the plane, shambling along with all the other poor sods no longer needed in Ireland.
I sought out other Irish people, wrote articles about the experience of being part of this diaspora, read the Irish Time's Generation Emigration, and felt angry and frightened that I might never live in my own home again. How things had changed!
But as time went on I grew tired of this victim-hood, and found myself reinventing myself, I became an 'Expat', a 'Trailing Spouse', because these names suggested I'd chosen this life, that I had control over it - 'Look at me, we're off on our travels again! So very bohemian, such gypsies!'
'How exciting, and daring!' people would say to me. 'Yes yes, it is,' I would reply vaguely, fingers crossed behind my back.
Of course I was deluding myself - I still am! But having to live in another country because your own country can't offer you anything can be a humbling experience - shaming almost - and leaves you feeling powerless, like a plastic bag being tossed around on the breeze. And the question of 'how long do I have to stay here?' loses its urgency as time passes in favour of 'How long will I get away with being here?'
Does it lessen the experience of living abroad I wonder, this lack of choice? Are my children learning any less about the world because we didn't really want to come here? Probably not, although it is up to us to view this as an opportunity not a punishment. Sometimes it feels like neither, sometimes it feels like both.
Being on a 457 (temporary) visa makes this even worse, because should you lose your job, you have just 90 days before you are obliged to leave the country at your ex-employer's expense (that's if you even have savings to sustain you during this time). We've experienced the curse of redundancy twice in the past year. Twice we've sat, shell-shocked, frightened, trying not to contemplate the worst case scenario of our situation, because it's literally unthinkable. Return home to what? you'll say to those well-meaning people who tell you you're better off at home.
When DH's employer brought us up to the Pilbara, we were overjoyed to have beaten the loneliness of FIFO and delighted at our good fortune in finding another, better job than before! When two months later - a week after they agreed to sponsor us for a permanent resident visa - DH's employer told him 'sorry, no more work', we felt as if we'd cashed in all our chips. Our luck was officially up. Is it us? we wondered. Is it we just continuously make the wrong choices? Was the well-paid FIFO job which had been turned down in favour of the Pilbara job the safer choice? How can you tell what's best for your family when you're in a foreign land?
I wanted to get out. I wanted to leave Australia and once more seize the reigns of my destiny. Australia represented the lack of choices in my life and I wanted to just leave it behind.
We looked at Canada (very stable, liberal, boring?). We looked at Norway (excellent education, years of work ahead, funny language?), then we looked down the road - because like it or not, it was the easier option in the short term. Luckily 'down the road' offered a job. Perhaps a stable one, perhaps not, I don't know, I've given up looking at it that way now.
I suppose the point of this post is that in these times, in this economic climate, we can't second guess any more. We can't plan too far ahead. There's no such thing as forever. All we can do it keep going, try to make the right decisions. Take each week at a time and hope things get better. And today they are better.
What will the next five years hold I wonder? Will I still be here, plucking stray spiders from the walls without fear, the way my children do? Will I be cutting every word in half, sticking an 'ee' on the end of it without a thought? Will I be packing my eldest off to university in Perth? Only time, as they say, will tell...
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI just started a blog for trailing spouses here in the US and I found your expat trailing spouse particularly insightful. Despite the fact you are living in another country, some of the things you mention are universal to trailing spouses: reinvention of one self, wanting the safe comfort of the familiar, not having to worry about repercussions of announcing that you don't believe in God to name a few. Thanks for writing.
If you want to visit my blog, it is "Notes from the Trail" at
awayfromhomeagain.wordpress.com
Will do! Yes I particularly relate to the 'reinvention' - I have to say there's something clarifying about being able to start afresh each time, with no baggage, new slate, new start etc... and yes, reading the papers from home every morning online, trying to feel as if you are still part of something...
ReplyDeletewill check your blog now!