Part 1: The Build Up
When I knew the possibility of moving overseas was more likely going to become my reality, I became excited but also nervous about all the logistics and changes our family was about to endure. My husband assured me that his company would be handling the expat move, so what was there to be nervous about? After all, we are both pros at the moving thing and adjusting to a new place is practically in our DNA.
What I hadn’t prepared for was everything else that tested my inner strength that summer.
A year ago I was working my tail off trying to manage my leadership team responsibilities, several large projects, insane ecommerce financial goals of a $3B+ company and running from meeting to meeting with barely time for a pee break. That’s pretty much been my life for the last 20 years.
Though my career was always pretty good to me, I struggled with priorities and wondering if I was ever really giving a 100% to either my family or my job. The expat opportunity was the perfect opportunity to let the career go and try to be a stay-home-mom.
While we waited for the official offer letter from my husband’s company, I started to mentally prepare my resignation. The opportunity came at a great time where things were rough at the office, with the downturn of retail and struggling markets against Amazon. It seemed like the right time for a change. It seemed like the only time for an opportunity like this to come along.
At this point things were looking really positive – my husband was getting a fantastic job opportunity, I get to try the stay-at-home-mom thing, our kids get to be exposed to an entirely new country and culture. It all seemed too good to be true.
But something was off.
During this time my mom had become quite ill. I really had no idea how ill she was. It was one of those things that because you can’t physically see them you can’t quite comprehend the depth of the illness.
Then it happened. About 5 minutes before I was leaving my office on my very last day of work, my dad texted me.
“Your mom has cancer.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t say goodbye to my team. I just had to leave. And that’s what I did. I don’t know how I drove home that day. I don’t know how I got through those painful minutes and hours. My husband was in Indonesia so I couldn’t even talk to him. My neighbor got me through those devastating first hours till I could talk to my dad.
Everything that day changed for me. I quit my job to move overseas. I was going to be an official stay-at-home Mom. My mom got cancer.
The next couple of months were incredibly stressful. Our house rented quickly and we had to move out within 2 weeks. The moving that I thought would go so smoothly became more accelerated and overwhelming than I imagined. I spent every day organizing, decluttering, selling, packing, color-coding and worrying.
When I didn’t think I could handle one more night of packing, I broke down to my husband. He looked at me and said, “Honey, I know this is hard. It’s way more difficult than I ever predicted. But we’re so close. You’ve got to dig deep. Dig way down and find that last bit of inner strength to get us over this hurdle. After tomorrow this part will be over.”
We packed and moved out of our house that week. We flew to Maine to spend as much time as possible with Mom, which were the best 3 weeks of our entire summer.
What we didn’t know was that another test was yet to unfold.