In 3 weeks I will be boarding a plane on a one-way ticket with my family, with extra luggage for Istanbul. My walls are bare in my house here in England, and a friend came to pack and bubble wrap all the pictures and a select small collection of sentimentally important items, like our wedding photo album yesterday. What does it feel like, getting ready to leave my passport country, my home, my family and friends? This post is probably going to be more therapy for me than insight for you but I hope it will be a bit of both as to what the grief of leaving feels like and why it is actually a good thing, and a 'friend'.
Tonight is our leaving party. And to be honest a part of me is dreading it. I will be seeing dear faces that I love all in one room, that in effect I am saying goodbye to for the foreseeable future. Those who know me also know I am an emotional person, for which I do not apologise. However as I have grown, I have had to learn how to manage those emotions. The thing about Grief is that it's a bit like the children's book 'We're Going On a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosenthall (I have a primary school teacher husband but the analogy comes from the brilliant book 'Looming Transitions- Starting and Finishing Well in Cross Cultural Service' by Amy Young). Like in the Bear Hunt book you can't go around/over/under certain terrains whilst looking for the bear. With our dear friend Grief it's the same. You can't go around Grief, or over it... you have to go through it (him?)! That's the only way to get to the other side of it. I think Grief is a bittersweet friend. Bear with me and I'll explain why. Some people are pre-grievers and some are post-grievers. I am definitely a pre-griever, which means I have been grieving the loss of my passport country and it's cultures and people and landscape, and even food, before I have left it. It's fair to say I have begin to 'feel' the pain of grieving 6 months ago and this has just continued to increase over the months. Heightened with all the hormonal/sleep deprived implications of having a baby, plus certain stressful headlines about the nation we are moving to, have made for a rather tumultuous summer. My anchor holds within the veil. Like King David from the Bible in his grief I keep landing on hope. I know that going through the Grief will bring me out into a place of hope. The Psalms have been such a comfort and a help to me. Such honesty I could identify with in certain ways. So why is grief a friend? Because going through it is the only way to get to your destination. Like David I know that eventually I will be on the other side of it. I will be okay. I just want to thank my friends and family who have borne with me these last months. I know it is hard to know what to say when I am a teary wobbly mess! One friend even expressed this saying 'I don't know what to say. I want you to stay but I know you want to go so I am trying to tell you how great it's going to be!' Let me just say thank you for letting me be sad. Thank you for accepting our decision to go even if you would rather we didn't. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for encouraging me and and giving me the pep talk I needed when I wavered. Its funny the places that I have bumped into my good friend Grief- the other day it was in Asda. I was with 2 of my friends.I saw all the 'Back to School' stuff in the front of the shop. And bam! I smacked bang into Grief out of nowhere! Ouch. The pain physically shook my whole being as waves of sadness hit me and turned my stomach to jelly. Funny the effect of a new packet of Bic biros can have on someone about to be come a Third Culture Adult! Asda and new school things are a massive part of my culture that represented Britishness, my childhood, habits, and my job... my life! So weird and I was completely unprepared for it. You could have found me sobbing in the socks aisle of Asda in Wakefield! Perhaps its hilarious!? Another time Grief popped up to surprise me was having dinner with a close friend. When she left my house we said 'this isn't goodbye. We are not going to have a long sad weepy goodbye, just a 'see you later'. No sooner had the door closed than the sobs emerged. She was the same in her car. She text me and told me. We all grieve in different ways. Some grieve after they arrive at their destination. Some before - like me. I make no apologies for the way I am grieving but I thank you for bearing with me. If you're coming to the party tonight I don't have any expectations I just want to enjoy spending time with you. My dear friend Grief is still paying me visits and the weirdest things can make him pop up to meet me. I am not always pleased to see him. But one day soon he will go away. I will do up my seat belt on the plane, take a deep breath and say 'enough now'. I will think 'I'm done with you Grief I have left you at airport security, you're not coming with us'. I will embrace the new adventure and enjoy the ride, the new home, friends and culture we have chose to love. And I will be okay. I will feel joy again. My family will thrive in our new home. We will be a Third Culture Family where the 'Asda' culture will be a fond memory and comfort and as time goes on, we will find comfort and normality of our new home.
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AuthorBHK, a wife, a mother, believer. Loves to swim, journal, create fantastic Shellac nails, shop and eat chocolate. Negotiating life, parenthood and community in Istanbul. Archives
December 2016
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