When I last left you I said I would talk about saying goodbye well and transition. While at training our instructors gave us a great image of what people who move to another place experience. It doesn’t matter if you are moving overseas or within your own country. When you move to another culture (which can be in your own country) the transition is more extreme.
If you can imagine with me two sturdy wooden chairs, the kind you would use to stand on to reach something in a high spot. Then connected to those two chairs making a bridge are two conference room style chairs, the ones that have the curved bowed legs that allow you to rock back and forth. Then comes three large exercise balls held together by saran wrap. After the balls are two more conference chairs and finally two more sturdy wooden chairs. Would you like to walk across this bridge?
The sturdy wooden chairs represent our lives when we are settled. We feel safe and have a routine and know the rules of our society (spoken and unspoken). When someone starts pulling up roots, packing up their belongings, and saying good-bye to people and places they become unsettled. This is represented by the not so sturdy conference chairs. As we get in that U-Haul or on the plane to go to our new “home” we are stepping out on very unstable exercise balls held together by saran wrap. This is the stage known as chaos. A person no longer has any identity in their community. They don’t understand the rules of society and possibly not even the language. As an adult it feels as if you become a two year again. The good news is there are chairs past the “chaos,” but it can take a while to get there. For some it can take them six months to a year to enter an unsettled stage again. On average it takes a person about two years to reach a settled stage. This is just a glimpse into what I’ve been experiencing this past year and what I have to look forward to.
As I started packing and making decisions about leaving the place I have lived for the past six years I started moving into the unsettled phase. When I left this place in June to move near family before I left I became even more unsettled. Here I am days away from departure and can feel the chaos starting to approach. It’s like walking closer and closer to a ledge and knowing once you get there you have to jump off. Here’s to 8 more days till my jump!
Disclaimer: I wrote this 10 days before I left and then didn't get it published. Now I am actually in the motherland.
