You hit a wall around week six.
The rush of sorting, selling, storing, and packing; visas, tickets, credit cards, and documents; airplane rides, jet-lag, housing, bank account, and registration – all fizzle to hissing hush.
It’s quiet. You’re alone. Twiddling your thumbs. Checking your phone. Staring out a window.
All the firsts are over – first church service, first cappuccino, first deep breath of salty air, first grocery shop, first walk in the new neighbourhood, first attempt at driving on the left. All the firsts are over.
And things start getting under your skin. The internet that takes three weeks to hookup. Hauling your laundry to the laundromat. Not having a car to get out of the neighbourhood. The absence of furniture. People assuming you speak their language. It’s all getting under your skin and paradise doesn’t feel like a gift, anymore.
It’s Week Six, and your emotions are wearing thin.
You’ve come down off the exhaustion, the high of utterly disrupting your life. And now…now you have time to think about what’s missing from you. Your friends. Your job. Your neighbourhood. Your know-how. Your kid’s playmates and caretakers. Your church. Your furniture and books. A gaping hole is in your heart where your KitchenAid used to be.
This is a moment that can make or break you. A moment that will determine whether you adapt and thrive or dig your heels in and forever remain a stranger. And it is rough.
Having moved in and out of countries and communities so many times you’d think I would fly right through Week Six. But not so. To be sure, I recognize this moment (which is a gift in itself – if you don’t know what’s hitting you it can be quite the train wreck), and yet, I strain against it. I resist it. I dread it. I glare at it across the dinner table.
So I’m sitting down to remind myself of what I’ve learned through three decades of confronting Week Six.
1. Don’t pretend it’s not happening
Seriously, you will only annoy everyone around you and prolong the inevitable – a meltdown of epic proportions. Don’t say you’re fine. Don’t say how wonderful everything is here. Don’t drag God into it by going on and on about what a blessing it is that he stole you away from everything you knew and loved and dumped into a totally foreign context for his glory. Blech. Just admit it. You’re sad. You’re angry. You’re totally confused. You’re afraid. You are frustrated beyond reason that there is not a single bottle of mustard on the shelves that doesn’t have sugar in it. For the love of everything that is good, just admit it.
2. Don’t romanticize the past
As much as your old home was a really, really good life – it wasn’t perfect. You had deep friendships, but those people sometimes hurt you. You loved your job, but there were still boring days, frustrating days, defeated days. Your church was truly revolutionary, in the most healing sense of the word. But it had its shortcomings and some concerning tendencies. Your house was big but also laden with a never-ending list of unfinished projects. In short, life was good, but it wasn’t perfect. And if you went back there, you’d still have to deal with an imperfect you and an imperfect world (even if the mustard is sugar-free).
3. Do something “normal”
Something familiar. Watch your favourite movie. Lose yourself in a book for an hour. Read the news. Drink a beer. Knit a scarf. Get reprieve from all the change you’re trying to process. Give yourself a short and precious break from thinking about how different everything is and how lonely you feel. It might sound like escapism (because it is), but it’ll calm you down to feel normal for a change.
4. Let yourself be sad
It’s hard; I know. You want to be grateful and positive and joyful. But the bottom line is, you’re not going to get out of Week Six unless you sit down and have a good cry. Let yourself feel the pain of missing your best friends…your colleagues…your space…your sense of identity and purpose and security. Just let it all out. You’re sad. And it makes total sense and it is 100% okay.
5. Take back your competency
Put yourself in control, again, even if it’s in only in one tiny area of life. For me, it’s cooking. There’s nothing that makes me feel quite so competent as dicing an onion, frying ground beef, pouring in tinned tomatoes, and serving spaghetti. Maybe it’s driving, or engaging in some form of art, or running 5K. It doesn’t really matter what the activity is. What matters is that you feel confident, competent, and in control for one glorious moment.
6. Embrace new connections
Week Six tempts you to the extreme to cleave to your old friendships. You’ll want to write them, call them, spend hours scrolling through their Facebook, send them funny photos, text them in the middle of the night when you should be sleeping but they’re awake. It’s an incredibly strong pull, but the outcome is toxic. You’ll miss so many present opportunities by clinging to “elsewhere”. Instead, embrace new connections. Say yes to every single person who invites you out or over to their home (even if you don’t think you’ll become fast friends). Follow-up with new people you meet. Have them over for coffee or a meal (just because you’re new doesn’t mean you can’t be hospitable). Pay attention to what people tell you, pray into their lives, and check in on them. If there’s one thing that supersedes cultures and languages, it’s love. Push yourself to go out when you just want to hunker down at home. Learn names. Care about people.
7. Set small, achievable goals
Grocery shop – check. Laundry – check. Have a short conversation with one new person (coffee shop barista) – check. Learn to say one thing in a new language (good morning) – check. Do a workout – check. Small. Achievable. Goals. Check.
8. Exploit what’s good in your new environment
Sure, there may no longer be two awesome playgrounds within walking distance of your home but there is a pool just around the corner. Take your kid and have some fun. Not having internet at home has really sucked for us, but I have gotten a lot more reading and writing done. On Sunday evening we went for a walk on the beach before eating out for an extremely affordable price. What I wanted to do was stay at home and lay in bed; getting out and exploiting our new environment turned out to be a much better choice. The point is, don’t just sit around and think about everything you don’t have access to anymore. Open your eyes and see the new opportunities you’ve never had.
9. Get outside
When you feel disconnected and alone, hiding out in your bedroom is super tempting. In fact, it can be an almost irresistible compulsion. But it’s only going to make you feel more disconnected and lonely. Get outside, no matter the weather, and try to participate in the life happening around you. And if you can’t participate yet, at least observe. Chances are, someone will engage with you and that moment of connection will start
10. Steady as she goes
As uncomfortable and excruciating as Week Six might feel, it will eventually roll into week seven, and then eight, followed by nine and ten, and eventually you will be saying, “yes, we’ve been here for just over six months” and “that’s right, nearly a year”. At the end of the day, you’ve just got to muster your courage, steel yourself, grit those teeth, and keep a steady hand on the wheel. Deep breaths. Resist the urge to bolt or hunker down and disappear. You will make it through this. You will have friends, again. You will have a church home, again. You will have meaningful work, again. Your child will be happy, again. And one day you’ll be walking down the street and intuitively make the turn towards home and suddenly realize that you feel like you really are just that – home.
If all else fails, just walk into the bathroom, look yourself square in the mirror, and repeat after me: Fuck you, Week Six.