Finally - fruitful blog hopping

I eventually found what I was looking for! I may have the gift of gab (sure, my mother said so)....which is really just that...gab, but definitely not the gift of articulation and prose. I have these jumble of thoughts and emotions yearning to be put into words....coherently, I might add, regarding being an expat spouse. Why it works for me in mysterious ways - I do know that I will not exchange this life for anything, regardless of all my complaints, insecurities (self-doubt in perceived loss of identity) and the challenges I have faced in the process.

In acceptance of the fact that it is not something I can share to help new expat spouses or others in the same situation, while sounding intelligent and non-pompous at the same time, I have gone on a personal quest to hear (or read) what other serial expat spouses (those who have survived it) have to say about it.

Here's one that echoed my sentiments precisely:

"In the Foreign Service, as we routinely move to a new country after two or three years, we are given that rare opportunity to live many lives. If one doesn't appeal, chances are the next one will. With this opportunity comes the temptation to re-create ourselves, the idea that "this time, I will be different."

One can immediately see both the good and bad sides to this unique lifestyle. That neighbor who talks your ear off every time you pick up your mail, the principal of your child's elementary school who doesn't seem to share your enthusiasm for your child's "learning style," the house with the leaky pipes and the drafty windows and (perhaps the main complaint) the mortgage or rental payments -- before long, you can just walk away (well, fly, actually) from these and other problems with a sigh of relief, heading to some new, even exotic locale to start a new life. How many people can do that?"

An excerpt from:

The Trailing Spouse as Chameleon

By Francesca Kelly

Read the rest here.