He says... Every journey begins with a single step.

A well-worn proverb says that every journey begins with a single step. For us there have been several hops, skips and jumps en route to our next adventure.

Our journey began with a week in New Zealand. We celebrated 'Christmas in November' with her immediate family and several aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces. It was a joyous week of family, friends and great food although the pork accompanied by cabbage and polenta may have been a bridge too far for some of us?

In between all the people and celebrations, the introvert inside of me (and her) has had very little time to reflect on the past three years in Australia and the journey that lies ahead of us. Packing up our flat, finishing up my job and saying good-bye to family, friends and colleagues has been harder than I thought. This has been a year of incredible change in my life and there is a part of me that is still struggling to catch up. I had become very comfortable in my (then our) lifestyle in Melbourne and it has been more difficult this time to step outside my comfort zone and accept this new challenge.

We find ourselves geographically dislocated in a quaint little village in the middle of the lowlands.The days are short, the skies are grey and the weather is icy cold. She has already shared the details of our daily routine so I need not repeat them. I feel like we are neither here nor there. A certain sort of purgatory that has no definite end. I don't particularly like it.

Despite a bumpy start with our new employer, the work has started well. I have spent the past two weeks in endless meetings, learning about the organisation and having people tell me what they think I should be focusing on when we arrive in our new home. Thankfully my role reports directly to the CEO, which means I am free to take on or ignore most of their advice.

Not speaking Dutch means I am a little on the outer in the office. All official business is conducted in English but all the little conversations on the side, the ones that matter, are done in Dutch. It is frustrating, but I am doing my best to bring some humor to the office...

Writing this blog I am aware that this present dislocation I/we am/are experiencing is more than just coincidence. The saying goes that if you want to understand someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Whilst I will hopefully never have to fully walk in the shoes of the communities that my organisation partners with, it is a timely reminder of what it is to be displaced from our home. The difference is that we have chosen this dislocation, whilst for many people around the world (estimated to be 27 million at the end of 2009) they are forced into this same dislocation due to ongoing conflict, political instability and in some cases natural disasters. For many of them, the choice of going home is not an option. Their life is where they find themselves. This is something I am learning to accept.

These are the first baby steps of the long journey ahead. As much as I am looking forward to stepping into warmer and sunnier climes, I am also learning to take each day one step at a time. We are looking forward to Christmas with friends in Luxembourg and then a short break in Brussels.We are fortunate and happy to be here, but I can't help but look forward to what lies ahead...

She says....Our temporary home and unemployment

I took this picture walking home from the train station yesterday. I was stunned by the perfect shape of the tree and then noticed the bird sitting on a branch in the middle, resting with no shelter whatsoever from the cold. It prompted me to think about how home is where you make it, no matter the season, the location or the people present. Having moved so many times over the years, within cities, across countries and across the world, the word home is something I define loosely and use inconsistently!

For now, home is a quaint little town, half an hour by train from Amsterdam and an hour in the other direction to his office. Naarden is most famous for being a fort and stronghold, complete with a moat. During the WWII, the English used it as a rally point between Germany and the UK. There are pipes around the edge of the fort, approximately a foot in diameter that stick out of the ground, which our host informed us act as sound-carriers, so those inside the fort could hear what was occurring on the other side of the moat....pretty cool! You'll note the antlers attached the wall of the lovely Naarden home in the pic below.

He leaves for work at 7 and returns at around 6 each day, meaning that I have a lot of time on my hands. Unusually, my knitting hasn't come out of my suitcase yet, but I have enjoyed some reading, playing the piano in our home, short train trips in the area, lots of cooking, and navigating the local supermarket (which only takes cash....not a great discovery after putting 70E of food through the register). It's also given me a lot of time to think, and I've been gradually drifting down in mood and energy as I feel frustrated at the lack of work or study. It's very unfair as I know so many people who would love to be in my shoes right now - in Europe with all the time in the world! So I'm trying to work through it with the big man, figure out how best to utilise my time and to enjoy the gifts I've been given.

 In particular, I'm finding the transition from single, independent, hard-working to married, inter-dependent and unemployed energy consuming. I'm very thankful to the big man that the single to married transition has been extremely smooth thus far. I think my struggle over many years about deeply wanting to be dependent on the big man rather than entirely independent has softened the transition to interdependence in marriage (though I'm confident I (and we) still have a GREAT deal to learn about this).

 The unemployed status is one that I want to wrestle with a lot more because I think that the dissatisfaction I feel is unwarranted, disrespectful of the big man's goodness, and if I'm honest, whiney. I'm incredibly fortunate to have never been without a job when I've wanted or needed one. I have a number of friends who are desperately trying to find work, any work, at the moment and whilst I am really sad for them and supporting them with talk to the big man, I can't empathise as I've never experienced it. With my new status as a woman married to a highly-employable and hard-working man, I'm even able to remain unemployed, at least for a time. Yet I have this attitude that is dragging me down and impossible for his kindness and generosity to penetrate. As part of my interdependence in marriage, I feel a duty to sort it out.

 I can convince myself that being unemployed in our new home will be much easier to enjoy as I'll be busy working on my language and trying to make new friends....whilst this is probably partially true, it doesn't address my dissatisfaction with having nothing formal to do here and my inability to enjoy that. I heard today that there may be an opportunity for me to help him out with some of his work both here and in our new home. That excited me instantly, but once again it allows me to skip over addressing my whiney attitude.

 I don't have a conclusion yet, but I've opened the discussion and I'm going to spend some time with the big man confessing my attitude and re-righting my thankfulness for the good position I have.