For the last eight months I have been living an alternative version of the expat wife/partner story – the one where you live in the original home country. We made the decision in April that I would be based in New Zealand until at least the end of the year while the youngest finished his last year of school. This also had the advantage of being in Wellington for the birth of my daughter’s first baby and only being a short jump across the Tasman when my son’s first baby arrived.
After some initial short term contract work I have been on a six month full time contract managing projects I enjoy working with a great team of people. I have a decent car, am renting an old two bedroom villa with easy access to everything I need and am being paid well. When people ask me in New Zealand, I tell them I live in Malaysia and I have managed to be back in KL for 10 days or so on average every eight weeks.
Before the holiday closedown there was discussion about extending my contract beyond early March and for how long. Up until the beginning of December I was feeling quite disconnected from New Zealand and Wellington in particular. It felt cramped and constrained and then the pohutukawa started to flower and the Christmas parties began and in those weeks I was thinking that for Christmas, New Zealand will always be home. Even so I did make the comment in the contract discussion that as soon as I walked in the door of my KL apartment, I wouldn’t want to come back.
After a short stop over in Brisbane we arrived late enough last night to go out for dinner and crash. This is my third time back since May and I can now say with certainty that our apartment here is home in a way that my rental in Wellington can never be. This morning as I started going through the cupboards and fridge seeing what food there was, my instant reaction was to start spring cleaning the cupboards. I feel guilty that because I am away so much staples that I bought early in the year are well past their use by/best before dates and need binning. I’m thinking that I will buy replacements (or equivalent value of staples) for the big orphanage and refugee food collection bins.
Ironically I need to do almost exactly the same thing in New Zealand as I have containers with unused staples from our old house that moved to the boys’ apartment and are now back in my kitchen. While some of it is holiday mode – I think more of it is that this where I live, and my New Zealand base is somewhere I am staying, even if that place has far more of our furniture and things which in theory should make it more “home”.
When I talk about living this version of expat life people often comment that they know someone doing the same thing. Our logic is at the moment that a few more months in New Zealand is practical both in financial terms and being close by as our children move into different phases of their lives. Practical and pragmatic aren’t always easy to follow through on without at times wondering if I am fooling myself when I say KL is home. But I think that if this is the place I feel motivated to spring clean then maybe it will be OK!