Stock Family Trip : Moving abroad

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Moving abroad - and the decision

Shortly after we got back to the U.S. from our road trip, we knew something was unsettling us here. For starters, the first world expectations for faster, bigger, and better run counter to the slower, easier lifestyle which we want to pursue. Prior to our trip last year, we questioned ourselves first rather than the issues effecting us. We usually started with, "We have so much and it is so easy, why not be happy here?" Predictably, we followed that logic by convincing ourselves, "Wherever you go, there you are." Fear had gripped us in far deeper ways than we realized or wanted to admit. Fear of financial loss, fear of losing friends, fear of our children falling behind in school, fear, fear, and more fear.
   There was a dis-ease within us regarding how we wanted to live versus how we were actually living. Our restlessness was a symptom of a much bigger problem. Early on, in our trip last year, we experienced tremendous guilt about our new found ease. In hindsight, though, we realized that finding ease is what made us happiest. Finding harmony and ease is among the most natural of desires, and yet, in our modern hectic lives we found so many trivial things to fill those voids of inactivity. Instead of working through and enjoying our quiet times, we were enabling our dis-ease by not allowing ourselves any quiet time to recharge. It was an eye opener, last year, when we admitted that much of our dissatisfaction in life was our fault and that our constant denial of ease would have to be reconciled in order for us to live happier, more fulfilling lives. We did not want our inability to relax to become a way of life and that was when we decided we needed something and some place different, and hence our decision to sell.
   Regarding our move, we are feeling all the emotions anyone would have with selling our home after almost 8 years of great friends and community. This time though, we have a better understanding of our own limits and possibilities. More encouragingly, we now question the things that give us disease first, rather than question our reactions to them. As we continue through the transition of selling and moving we realize the only thing more difficult than an ending is a new beginning.
   This entry marks the beginning of the second phase of this blog which will now focus on how a family goes about moving from suburbia to a foreign country and all the trials and tribulations that it entails.