Bringing Back The Wonder of Life Abroad

Does this story sound familiar to any of you ladies out there? You decide you are moving overseas; you plan, prepare and pack for the big day. You are scared of the unknown but mostly excited about the adventures ahead. You board the plane with what is left of your personal belongings and land in a foreign country, ready to start a totally new life. You find a place to live, taste the traditional cuisine, immerse yourself in the culture, and start learning the local language. Nothing goes as planned in those first couple of weeks but you don’t really care because you are loving your new life.I remember when my husband and I drove fifteen hours from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to our new home in the north. I loved every minute of the heat, the god-forsaken hotel, and the lack of water when we arrived at our new home. I vividly remember thinking, “I am the luckiest person in the world that I get to have this life.” Fast-forward six months to a year later, and guess who was crying? ME.I have a group of expat lady friends that I get together with regularly, and one of the newer women that has been here for about six months, mentioned—not-so-casually, “I am not sure how much longer I can do this life. I am honestly not able to see the adventure in it any more!”We all nodded our heads like, “Girl, yes! We get it.” Not one of us told her that she needed to buck up and get herself together. Losing the wonder for the adventure is normal—it doesn’t mean you have made a wrong turn. But can we get that wonder back? Can we thrive in the adventure again?At the beginning of this year my husband and I talked about what we needed from life and marriage in the coming year. There was a lot of dreaming and planning, but my husband also said something that struck me so profoundly that it is dictating much of my current perspective. Sitting around the Christmas tree, dreaming about the future, he asked me if we could get creative on: “How to bring the wonder back to our adventure.” I thought, “Wow! That is what I want too.” So we have been working on bringing back the wonder in this adventure we are on.Lately I have been trying to think of my life in the form of #HashTags, to remind me of the wonder. Here are a few of my favorites.#PutThoseAdventureGlassesOnWhen I am frustrated about the power being out, or stray dogs barking and waking my child up for the third time, I try and remind myself to take off my ‘survival glasses’ and #PutThoseAdventureGlassesOn. When I have ‘survival glasses’ on everything is out to get me, but when I have adventure glasses on, I am out to get the world. Who else responds differently to a spider that they find in their home verses one they find while camping? Why is this? When we are camping we have invaded the outdoors but when we see a spider in our house the outdoors has invaded us. In our expat lives we have chosen to invade the outdoors every day, so maybe we should see all spiders as camping spiders.#GetUnstuckMy husband and I can get into a routine of work, home, dinner, TV show, and bed—we love to stay in our little oasis of comfort. I joked with someone recently that it is best for me to stay in my compound, otherwise I might get frustrated—but there was sadly a lot of truth in this. When I stay in the compound all the time though, I forget about the bright colors, vibrant characters, and vivid adventures awaiting me on the streets of this town. I am trying to #GetUnstuck daily by taking new risks.#WeDontGetToBeHereLong and #BeNostalgicNowI stole this idea from my new favorite NEEDTOBREATHE song ‘Be Here Long.’ First, we don’t get to be on this earth long, and I need to soak it up. Second, we don’t know how long we will get to be on this adventure. At any time I could be back in America, missing injera, ancient rock churches, and broken toilets. Whenever we move back home I will be so nostalgic about this crazy life, so I am working to #BeNostalicNow.#StopDropAndRestThis is a hard hashtag for me. My psychic income is based on productivity, and I can forget that there is another currency called ‘rest’ that can help bring perspective and give me more energy for all these other hashtags. This week I took a few naps with the baby instead of trying to tick more things off the to do list. I noticed that when I did this, I enjoyed the evening so much more with my husband and my baby making pizza.#EyesWideOpenHonestly, I am not that phased by the poverty right outside my gate. I get so annoyed with kids asking for money, and with loitering young men. I don’t even see it anymore, and I have very little compassion—I know, I am a horrible person.  But yesterday I walked out of my gate with my baby on my back and immediately saw a woman that was obviously from the country-side, sitting on the ground in a tiny sliver of shade, while nursing her child. I was instantly gutted. I asked my friend, who is an Ethiopian, to take her food and a drink, (just because I still struggle with the perception that foreigners give away free stuff,) because this woman was obviously in need. The whole experience awoke something in me, and reminded me of why I am here in this country in the first place. I am working on keeping my #EyesWideOpen to what is around me.Have you lost some of the wonder in your overseas adventure? How can you bring it back in 2018? Feel free to comment below about how you keep the wonder alive in your expat life.SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave