Building resilience or creating trauma (take your pick)

What can I say about the past few months and what it is to move 4 kids across the continent to a new home that we’ve never seen, a new city we’ve never been to, and a new country they have never been in. While I spent hours awake at night reviewing things like what to pack in our bag and what to send on pallets, I don’t think I thought through the intensities of the emotions we would be dealing with leading up to and after the move. I was unprepared for the amount of space 4 young humans would need us to hold for them. I can tell you I did not cry at all until my children all started crying. While it was easier to manage the bouts of anger and frustration, it was much harder to help with the sadness. I will not forget the wailing and sobbing of my 10 year old crying in the shower and hyperventilating the night before we left for the airport. It was just about enough to tear my heart out. Sean and I both know that for our older three kids this will be a hard part of their story growing up. That despite all preparations and the talking through it, it will in some aspects be a trauma we cannot heal for them right in this moment.

Despite all the best laid plans, extra expenses and international supply chain disruptions, as well as cargo shipping delays means we are currently living in a barely furnished home, mattresses on the floor etc… I intended to spend this first 10 days here in quarantine unpacking our pallets and doing everything in my power to make this house feel like home for our kids. However, currently it looks like it will be end of June or beginning of July before we have any of our things from home or any furniture other than what we have thrifted for locally.

For the last 3 months it has felt like wading through tidal waves of murky water. Details have been unclear, every next step reliant on the one taken before it, and more stress than I could have imagined as we tried to work full time, sell our home and all our things, move and repack for our final move to here. As everyone else was getting more and more excited for us, I was having trouble accessing any feeling outside of sheer terror and frustration. This has very much felt like my dream that our family has been along for the ride on, so I placed an immense amount of pressure on trying to make it smooth and seamless in hopes that they would not hate me for this later. As I have learned, there is nothing smooth or seamless about moving a family of six to a new country. Currently we are riding the waves of excitement and grief in tandem. I continue to promise my kids that this current setting is not our permanent life here. I know if they give it 6 months time relationships and friendships will blossom, the strangeness of every street will suddenly be our neighborhood, and eventually this house will feel like home. In the mean time, we are building lots of resilience, at least I hope that is what we are doing!