Are we settled yet? (2019 in review)

I’ve realized this week that I’d much rather write a thousand words about a single conversation than an entire year. There’s always such texture and nuance in a moment, but hand me a whole year to cover and it all seems to collapse into a flat litany of facts.

But I guess facts have their place in an end-of-year update—both for everyone who’s interested in the bigger picture of this year for us, and for me down the track when I’m struggling to remember the shape of that bigger picture and the general arc of what we did (so, anytime from Feb 2020 onwards).

If I had to pick one word to sum up that bigger picture it would be CHANGE. So many things changed in 2019. We changed countries, and schools, and (twice) houses. Both Mike and I changed jobs. Lovely, interested people keep asking me if we feel “settled” yet, and I often don’t know quite what to say in response.

Yes, we feel settled in the sense that we can make coffee and bake pizza at home now without thinking twice about where to find the ingredients and how to turn on appliances. (I seriously spent a week a couple of months ago thinking that our oven was weirdly temperamental and intermittently broken, until a dinner guest I corralled into helping me trouble-shoot gently pointed out that I was turning the dial the wrong direction.)

No, we don’t feel settled in the sense that we still have boxes piled in the corner of the TV room and haven’t hung a single picture on the walls of our house.

Yes, we feel settled in the sense that we’ve started a worm farm and planted a small veggie garden. We’ve munched on sugar snap peas and made rosemary-roasted potatoes, sage-risotto, and tomato soup from the profits.

No, we don’t feel settled in the sense that—not having lived four seasons in our house yet—we’re discovering new things about the space and the garden all the time. The other day it rained properly for the first time since we moved in four full months ago (oh, the drought!!!) and the catchment area behind our house turned into a wondrous floodplain. The neighbor who came down to marvel at the spread of water with us mentioned that he has previously seen people try to body surf down the flow, which cascades over numerous rocks. I told him he was in no way allowed to mention that within earshot of our children.

Yes, we feel settled in the sense that this area of Australia is familiar to us. We’ve been coming here on and off ever since we met. The boys were both born in Lismore. My parents live nearby—we are all loving the chance to spend significant and regular time with them—and Ballina is the closest thing I have to a home-town in this country.

No, we don’t feel settled in the sense that we’ve left what is often judged to be the most disaster-prone city in the world (Port Vila) only to land in the middle of a drought so severe it’s even impacting the greenest coast-hugging sliver of the continent. Fires have been raging for weeks now and are projected—unbelievably—to get worse. Dozens of homes have been lost in recent weeks (including a beloved house my grandparents built). Continental heat records are being smashed, and then smashed again on subsequent days. Smoke fills the air. Amidst this haze, standing on parched ground, it is impossible not to feel a heavy weight of fear and grief related to climate change and the new environmental normals that are emerging.

Yes, we are beginning to feel settled in the sense that we’re forming new connections with new friends.

No, we don’t feel settled in the sense that everyone frequently seems busy and tired (including us) and it usually takes time and many touch points to really feel like you’re starting to get to know someone at a deeper level.

Yes, we feel settled in the sense that I have good work at the moment that can support the family and that relieves us of any financial imperative for Mike to find a new role straight away. In all the previous years during the last decade that have been all about CHANGE or CHALLENGE (oh my word, how many have there been for us??) I’ve done some consulting work here and there. Starting at the end of last year, however, I began to significantly increase the scope and number of projects I was working on. I’m now working well over a half-time load from home, and have had the privilege this year of supporting various international development and aid organizations on topics such as trauma-informed interviewing, burnout, psychological resilience during evacuations, coping with the frightening medical diagnoses, leadership development, and more. It is a weird and wonderful world that we live in that I can collaborate closely with a top-notch team in Washington DC and work in this arena while sitting in Wollongbar, Australia.

No, we’re not settled in the sense that Mike doesn’t yet have similar clarity on what professional activities he’d like to undertake in this next season beyond overseeing the household routines related to getting clothes on and food into our children, ferrying them to and from school, and doing the shopping and laundry. In our household, many of these tasks (read: Dominic) take considerably more time and energy than an outsider would imagine is possible, and being a full-time Director of Household Operations (DHO) is not a role Mike really has a passion for continuing in long-term. I’ll be fascinated to see what new opportunities arise for Mike—and possibly for Mike and me in collaboration—in 2020. (And when they do we may need to hire another DHO because neither Mike nor I understand how families manage to make things function effectively when both parents are working significant loads and have unusual parenting challenges on their hands. We have already offered the DHO role to my mother and she flatly refused. I think her exact words were, “you could never pay me enough.” #rude.)

Yes, we’re settled in the sense that the kids seem well grounded now and relatively at home in their new school. The kids’ school has impressed us with their attitude and practices related to embracing and supporting differences while trying hard to figure out how each little individual in their care can be encouraged and supported to progress. This school ecosystem means that it’s possible for some helping professional appointments (speech pathologists, psychologists, OTs) to happen during school hours, at school, which helps create an integrated support team and reduces wear and tear on everyone related to too many after school activities. It also means we can do some regular after-school stuff like ninja class and Cub Scouts.

No, we don’t feel settled in the sense that we’ve only just been through the entire school year calendar once, so every point along the way was a “first”. Next year we should have that added sense of groundedness that comes from knowing we’ve already been around this track once before. 

Yes, we feel settled in the progress we’re seeing in the kids. We have seen Alex’s reading take off this year (what a delight, to see how relatively easily learning to read is coming to him). Alex has also made some progress making little friends at school. Alex took the move from Vila harder than we ever expected, and still mourns the friends he left behind in preschool—kids he’d known since he was two. He misses the small-community vibe of those connections, too, and the frequent contact we had with other families outside school. If Alex had his way, he’d have playdates every day and visitors sleeping over at our place every night. He is a born pack animal, that one.

His brother? Not so much a pack animal. We have seen some growth and progress in Dominic this year, too. His reading has improved thanks to intensive coaching efforts at school, and we made it through the last session of the school term without him getting physical with anyone in the playground (there were some particularly nasty playground scuffles this year when he got enraged that other children were stepping on ants). We have also gathered a stellar support “village” that includes a child psychiatrist, a pediatrician, a psychologist, a speech pathologist, an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist, a chiropractor, an orthodontist, and an equine therapist (phew, I feel exhausted just typing out that list and thinking about all the appointments we’ve made and kept this year).

No, we don’t feel settled in the sense that parenting continues to be the most difficult challenge Mike and I have ever faced (individually and collectively). Dominic has deep capacity for empathy and is a very bright, sensitive, endlessly curious little soul. He is also remarkably unmotivated to do anything at all (read: get dressed, eat, put shoes on, change pace, transition to something new) just because Mike and I seem to think he “should”. His literal thinking, inflexibility, and his default tendency towards resistance and anger whenever he feels frustrated (which happens a lot), means that living with his intransigence and volatility is frequently deeply exhausting. I hope to write more about this particular journey in 2020.

Yes, we feel settled in the sense that we’re confident that moving to Australia was the right decision for this season.

No, we don’t feel settled in the sense that, just as it takes plants time to push down roots and anchor themselves in place, we’re all still very much in that fragile “recently transplanted” season.

Well, I guess I have a halfway decent answer to that question about whether we’re feeling settled now, and in only 1700 words! So efficient, especially since it can double as a “Christmas update.”

Wherever you are in the world and in your own sense of settling in, being settled, pulling yourself up by the roots, surviving dry times, or wandering, I hope you have a wonderful and meaningful time of connection and rest in coming weeks as the world marks Christmas and New Year 2019.