expat

Just a bit homesick

Posted on by evearound

Dear Joan,

Nothing deep or meaningful today.

I agree though, I too love how much you are writing. The best part to me blogging more is the correspondence you and I have. It made me realise how much of each others lives we end up missing. The best example is your country swap that looks like it is going to happen for you. It is quite possible you told me and that I have simply forgotten. Though, this forgetfulness, then has me going – oh wow, when did this come about? how long will it be for? when will it be for? what will you do there? can I come? ha!

Anyway, I write today just because I am homesick. Here are the reasons why:

  • I want to be around people that are easy to be around – no second guessing, no worrying about my inadequacies, no trying.
  • Figoli. Yes figoli. My aunty makes the best figoli and for the 2nd year in a row I miss out on it. Making it is quite an amazing process. I have done it once before. It felt so good. The ingredients – particularly the nuts involved would cost a small fortune here.
  • The Milbri – a coffee shop. A coffee shop that the husband and I would go to on a Friday before work. A coffee shop where I would meet other mates before work. A coffee shop, open on a Sunday afternoon. A coffee shop where a good coffee was guaranteed.
  • Freaky Tiki – a coffee shop. Ha! I miss the before school morning dates I would have with the big kid.
  • The Water – The beach. I don’t think that needs explaining.
  • The Water – turning a tap on and drinking or turning a tap on and getting hot water.

The majority of this reasons are first world problems (man alive I hate that phrase). I am ok with that.

Anyway, homesickness comes and goes. Where is home? Hmmm

I love this song: Home It is true. It is wherever my fam is.

Peace out Joan.

Love you.

Eve

The Prodigal Friend Returns – No Roast Pig Though.

Posted on by evearound

Dearest Joan,

I was talking with friends yesterday, whilst watching the highly anticipated but certainly disappointing, Gilmore Girls about how I wish I had time to write. I know the limitations of my writing. My lack of exact use of grammar – my missing oxford commas would attest to that, the rambling nature – refer to previous blogs and perhaps just the self indulgence of it all – BUT i do miss it. I often want to write book reviews, movie reviews, people reviews, life reviews – instead of writing any review, writing nothing reviews seems to be my choice. Apathy? No. Just a reluctance to share this myriad of thoughts that has consumed me this year. God’s ear has certainly been bent this last 11 months.

Knowing where to begin is impossible, so I shall just trust in these fingers and where this ramble may take me.

So here I am, still in KL. I knew I would be. I always knew it would be two, probably three years. The family relocated 8 hours by plane so that we could work in a somewhat dysfunctional workplace. That isn’t really what I want to talk about – not yet.

We make decisions all the time, don’t we Joan. And every decision has consequence, good or bad but it has one. Sometimes we don’t know the outcome till many years later. This year I have wondered why am I here. Answering that for the Borsz and husband is so simple – he needed new, a fresh take. The Borsz was never settled at her last school. It wasn’t the right place. She thrives on all the activities she does here. The Babu and I on the other hand, were loved and settled – we didn’t need the change. I think our paths were set and they were good.

Here my path is rocky, treacherous, not traveled. I have to be brave in decisions I make – in whatever capacity it is. I was naive and not prepared for this eventuality. Well why would I, when life was just peachy back in Oz? This September I was in a dirty funk. Not the first of the year. Somehow the universe sensed my struggle and it sent me this:

Mrs. R!! I believe you taught me in grade 6 I would just like to say thank you 😂 I remember you being a really good teacher and making the last year of primary school one of the best ever, I am now 17 almost a official adult in 2013. I left the MP and me and my family moved to Hampton Park. It’s a suburb near Dandenong and it’s as ruff as you think hahah but I liked it. Last year my parents decided that they didn’t like it there and we moved again but this time to another place. I went to WI high school for 6 months until I realised school wasn’t for me. I finished year 10 and didn’t start another year. I am now doing a carpenter apprenticeship and I’m loving it. I couldn’t ask for anything better. I’m 8 months in now and I love it so much. Through the years I’ve been doing boxing then I started training probably at a gym and I am now a ametuer boxer!! I love it aswell i just wanted to contact you to let you know you did a great job teaching us back in EB. We all loved you and was one of the best years 😂 thank you!

Where is the link? I just have to trust Joan, that I am here maybe not for me but for my family and for a kid just like the above one. Maybe there is a student like the one above, that just needed me this year.

Selfishly though, I wonder when I get to make choices just for me. When do I get to put me first? I imagine it is the eternal question that all parents ask. And maybe the answer is never. Maybe I relinquished that upon deciding to breed or when I decided to be responsible for children (even in a teaching capacity). Maybe that is ok. For when I wonder: What the fuck am I doing in KL? I think of this song:

Editors – Weight of the World

and these particular lyrics:

Every little piece in your life will add up to one
Every little piece in your life will mean something to someone
Every little piece in your life will add up to one
Every little piece of your life will mean something to someone

I trust in free will. I trust in fate. I trust in purpose.

Thanks Joan. Thanks for being patient.

Love Eve

Post Script

I have another friend that will read this, Ella. She is a good egg. You would like her. I just wanted her to know that I know she would read it too.

 

 

Square Peg in a Round Hole.

Posted on by evearound

Sunday 14th February, 2016

Dearest Joan,

Happy Valentine’s Day. People often talk about the commercialism of this day, that it is a sell out. I choose to not see it this way. In a world where days go so quickly, taking a purposeful moment to pause, stop and consider your chosen one isn’t a bad thing. As a couple, you don’t have to buy into the money side of it. Today my loved one let me sleep in (along with yesterday). I bought him a little packet of kisses. He spent half an hour looking for  a card that didn’t exist. All small things. All small gestures that actually mean quite a lot.

So I don’t write in ages and when I do I spout on about the day of love, when cupid is hopefully busy hitting targets! Or just simply getting lucky.

Where to begin?

Insert tumbleweeds here.

If you cracked open my head, it would just pour out and not necessarily in any beautiful manner. I would love to tell you everything is rosey. But I would be lying. The question, “Are you loving it?” is my most hated question. No, no I am not. But I didn’t instantly love the Uk when I moved there, nor when I relocated back to Oz. How can I? It is all so damn hard at first. I would like people to change their question. Perhaps the revised question should be, “Are you surviving it?” On most days, yes.

Yet, this email isn’t even about how I have settled.

It is about how I feel like I am in f*&^ing High School again. Oh, I loved High School so much….not. This isn’t even about work. It is about going poolside. Yep. Going to the pool is now my social anxiety moment. I don’t even care if I haven’t shaved, or if it is getting close to be disturbingly hairy in places that shouldn’t be. Nothing that a quick hop in and a dash to towel can’t fix. I also have two year old who is now at a good height to help out with concealing unsightly visions. It is the whole where do I belong crap.

The men sit together and drink. The women sit together and drink. Sometimes the men sit together in the pool and drink. Today I actually found women in the pool, possibly drinking. On the odd occasion,  the men and women sit together by the pool….and drink. I don’t drink. Have chosen not to since May last year. An inner ear, possible vertigo thing, not a ‘I am living a healthy crazy thing’ choice.

I am also a working mother. Not so many of those about. And if there are, they work part time, you know, just to keep busy. I also teach some of these people’s children.

I’m just not a cool kid. And it is my fault. I just can’t be bothered trying too hard. I just want to be normal. Daggy. Non drinking. Working because I like my job. Exist beyond the compound I live in. I want to embrace the non western things. Go for roti chani on the weekend. Speak to my Asian neighbours and get to know them OR speak to my expat neighbours who get that we are all out of our comfort zones.

It doesn’t help when I also cannot stand their poolside advice. Let me save that for my next email. You were right though. Everything is bigger in an expat community.

Joan, hope you are well.

Love you.

eve

p.s. I am failing to proof read this one. I will later.