Starting out
My first blog...here goes!
I wanted to start a blog not just because I’ve become a mother and have found that I have lots of thoughts on motherhood that I would like to share. Its more than that, its about sharing my thoughts and experiences generally.
I’ve paused my career for a while, I’m in a fortunate position where I don't have to work and my husband has been given a fantastic opportunity to work in Singapore for a couple of years so we thought, “why not?”, lets have an adventure whilst our baby is still young. And its been great so far, everything we wanted it to be and more. However, its also been much harder than either of us anticipated.
We’re not ‘young’ any more, we’ve bought a house, established our careers and made our friends. In fact we had just made the last set of friends we thought we would be making when we joined a local prenatal group. They are/were the first ‘local’ friends we’ve made since setting up home and in the first few months after our baby was born we couldn't have needed them more. I spent hours with my fellow new mums, in person and on whatsapp, sharing our triumphs and woes as we navigated the unchartered territory of motherhood. The dads have inevitably been less active in their chats but they do get together frequently and the fact that everyone gets on together is more than we could have asked for.
I was blasé about leaving all of this. We both felt ready for a new challenge and a new adventure. I hadn't been happy in my job for some time and the opportunity offered to my husband represented a significant promotion. I’d like to think I’m pretty flexible and robust too. However, nothing prepared me for the loneliness and the realisation that we were actually a long way from home.
The beginning was a bit of a whirlwind, organising our packing, shipping our dog out, surviving our baby’s first flight and unpacking. My husband took some time off and we slowly started to embrace our new lives. After a week or so though my husband obviously had to go to work, it is of course the reason we moved, and suddenly I was on my own with our baby.
It wasn't until then that the decision to move really hit me. Our baby was out of the newborn stage and needed entertaining a lot more. I realised early on that the only way I was going to stay sane was to get out and about and meet people, effectively starting over again. I won't lie, it felt like a chore. I really didn't want to have to put myself out there, it was like starting a new school and I didn't want to deal with rejection. However, I equally knew that although my friends were still my friends the reality was that they were miles away and for a good percentage of my day they were also asleep. I needed proper face time and interaction with like minded people.
It took time. I’m not proud to say that for a while at least I was a bit of a nightmare at home. I was one of ‘those’ wives who nag their husbands to come home as soon as possible after work, I yelled at my husband for not understanding our baby’s habits and needs as well as me and I was bitter about the fact that he got to ‘escape’ our condo to go to work (despite his assurances that he would much rather swap!). However, after joining numerous baby groups and mums coffee mornings I started to make friends. Not all of them made it, you can't be friends with everyone you meet after all, but gradually I’ve managed to create a circle of friends I can call on to for play dates, dinner dates and gossip. I’ve even managed to get my husband to make friends with their husbands!
I have my baby to thank for this and the fact that Singapore is full of people who are in exactly the same boat as I was. I’m not sure it would have been so easy to make friends in another country.
There are times when I think about what we’ve given up (and I’m sure I’ll write about it in more detail at some point) but the better way of looking at it is to think about everything we’ve gained. I get to spend every day with my gorgeous baby. When I worked I used to get up at 5.30 and be sat at my desk by 8am. I would rarely take a lunch break and an early night would see me getting home around 7.30 (still checking my emails). My husband is over achieving in his new role and his hours are great so we have lots of quality family time. Our baby spends his days running around outside playing and getting grubby with his little playmates (like all little boys should) and he swims almost daily.
We’ve not lost friends so much as gained friends and our lives are richer for it. Its undoubtedly harder to stay in touch with everyone at home but with whatsapp and social media its a lot easier than you think. Frequent trips home have also helped. Of course some have fallen by the wayside but thats just shown that the old adage is true, moves like ours demonstrate who your real friends are.
So maybe I did enter into all of this without fully appreciating how big a change it was but in hindsight I am not sure I would have done anything differently. Going through everything we’ve gone through has been hard and challenging but its also been fun and an amazing adventure. We’ve made memories we’ll talk about forever, enriched our baby’s life and become so much stronger as a family. The moral of my post? Take a leap, change your life, it might not be easy but life is what you make it.
