K.O.ed

From 03-12 August

Sometimes, when tough things happen, it's easiest to sit on them for awhile before sharing them. I know my blog has sounded mostly positive so far, but the truth is that this "migration" has been as fun and exciting as it has been challenging and heartbreaking. Now that I'm mostly past the hardest parts, I feel more comfortable writing about them - a testament to the fact that I've pulled through!

In an already-stressful week, a fight with a roommate broke down my house of cards; I moved out for a few days so I could decompress a bit. That time was filled with immeasurable kindness on the part of my host, and after a few quiet nights, I was back in action... almost. In the 10 days that followed, I picked up a cold, the flu (not swine flu, thankfully!), and, lastly, an eye infection... in both eyes. I was tired, stressed, sick ... that perfect storm that doctors always warn us about in winter. Mostly, I was taking an emotional beating: I spent lots of time home from work, but still getting lots of "to dos" from work. There was the lingering stress of fighting with a roommate, feeling like I didn't have much of anywhere else to go, and - worst of all - I didn't feel that I had my good friends or family close by to help me through. I was also stressed about being too sick to take care of my remaining red tape tasks: getting health insurance, finding permanent lodging, setting up a phone and credit card, getting my own wheels for transportation, etc. Not to mention that I was still waking up in the mornings and asking myself, "What the heck was I thinking, moving to Australia?!"

I came to fully appreciate that this is different from studying abroad in Europe or going on a service trip in a third-world country. There is no built-in support system, no host family, no pre-planned hotel rooms, meals, or side trips. Staking out as an independent adult is much harder than walking into a host family and school/work schedule that is well-defined. My employer has never had anyone on my working visa before, so I struggled with "surprise" after surprise, feeling like I'd already given up enough to get here and "why didn't they ... before I got here?!" And when I felt like I needed to take deep breaths and count to ten, I was faced with the fact that it's a lot harder (read: overwhelmingly difficult) to just pick up the phone and call someone in the US to get their support.

In retrospect, I realize ways I could have avoided most of these stressors - laying off my email and phone would help with work, having more faith in the people around me who I now know certainly would've helped, being patient with everyone else's learning curves, and coming to terms with the fact that no one can fix my feelings of homesickness or the difficulties of "starting over" - they're part of the package deal. In all fairness, all these things would've been less overwhelming if I could have encountered them one at a time, but life just doesn't work that way! :)

From where I am today, I can use this time as a reference point of my lowest lows so far: emotionally, situationally, and professionally. I've also realized that I use words like "hate", "tired", and "$#!^" most often when I'm sick. I was more relieved to recover my positive attitude than anything once I started feeling healthier.

That's not to say that everything since then has been easy. It's just that now, I have a small luxury of a reference point to which I can say, "Well, if I made it through that, I can certainly make it through this."