In 2008, I had an ideal life. I was working part-time for a chemical company as a supply chain implementation lead, and I was a part-time stay at home mom in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. It felt like I had the best of both worlds — until my husband came home with an opportunity to send us halfway around the world.
As a couple, we’d always been open to moving; six years into our marriage, we were already on our third move together. So, when he told me about his company’s offer to move us to Prague, it felt like a no-brainer. We collectively made the decision to seize the opportunity and lean into the adventure.
It was only a two-year assignment. It’d be like going on a really long vacation, right?
‘Living in limbo’
After taking two trips to Prague to find a home, resigning from my job and getting our 13-month-old sit still for passport photos, my husband’s company (a large packaging manufacturer) put our move on ice… something about needing to reevaluate the location.
I had become a trailing spouse living in limbo before ever even moving abroad.
Several months later, the company settled on the new office location. Now well into the second trimester of my second pregnancy, we began the relocation process all over again. On the very last day I was allowed to fly (28 weeks), I boarded our plane to Geneva (not Prague!), holding our two-year old on a leash.
You should have seen the faces of the horrified faces of the other business-class passengers. I’m not sure if it was my pregnant belly, the toddler, or the leash that scared them.
‘A globetrotting way of life’
That two-year vacation that I thought I was packing for? Turned into a globetrotting way of life.
Over the past 14 years, I have successfully moved my family internationally five times to four countries on three different continents: Geneva (2009), Brussels (2010), Mexico City (2013), Johannesburg (2016) and Zug (2019).
When using the Gupte Scale to rate each of these moves, I think the results would surprise many: Geneva, Switzerland scored the lowest at a 6/15, while Johannesburg scored the highest at a 14/15.
I believe timing and experience has a lot to do with how you will adapt to a new location. If I moved to Geneva today, I bet it would score a hell of a lot higher now. But as my first expat experience, it felt like I had no idea what I was doing. In 2009, Facebook groups and WhatsApp chats weren’t a thing yet, and I longed for connection with other women. I felt very isolated and lonely, but didn’t know where to go to connect.
In contrast, arriving in Johannesburg felt like a breeze because of two major things: experience and (English) language. It was still a tough transition, but I had gained a wealth of wisdom over the years and I didn’t have the added stress of not being able to communicate.
Relearning everything
None of my relocations have been easy. While many think expat life only consists of filtered photos of exotic places and passport stamps, they fail to see the day to day living in a foreign land and recently riding out a global pandemic in a place where I never truly feel like I belong.
Yes, expat life is filled with adventure — but it’s also consumed by many forms of grief, from losing of family members to saying goodbye to friends. At times, I have felt an unshakeable feeling of homesickness for Detroit and the white sand shores of Lake Michigan, and the never-ending question of what my life would have been had I not moved abroad.
Each time we pack up and move, I have to relearn everything I know about daily life. From how to drive on the other side of the road, to grocery store etiquette, and of course new languages. My accent is always off, and I never quite have the confidence of knowing if I’m doing the easiest of tasks correctly. All the while I’m lonely, longing for an old version of my life where I felt fulfilled and satisfied.
These are often the thoughts of a trailing spouse, but this narrative doesn’t fit the idyllic Instagram post caption about #expatlife.
Through all my years living abroad, however, I’ve never seen myself as a trailing spouse. I don’t follow my husband. We’ve made the decision to live a less traditional life together. I prefer to call myself as an accompanying supportive spouse — and I think I’ve become a badass at it.
Shedding my skin
Expat life is not easy. It takes tenacity, resilience, and grit. But, even the best of us need help coping with our loss of identity, battered confidence and sense of fulfillment. Somewhere in between all those moving boxes and containers, I’d lost myself — not overnight, but during all those years of living abroad.
In 2018, while living in Johannesburg, it had gotten to the point where I was so uncomfortable in my own skin that I needed to shed it.
Fortunately, I was brave enough to reach out to a life coach, whom I had met at a conference for people living globally mobile lives, to help me uncover who I was again. I wasn’t the same woman I had been in 2008 who was eager to go on vacation; I was someone who knew damn well that supporting my family abroad came with a lot of baggage… but I wasn’t going to let that baggage keep me from moving forward.
Sharing my story
I decided to write my book, Badass Abroad, right before the pandemic shuttered the world. With the Swiss Alps in the distance, I spent most of 2020 and 2021 piecing together my thoughts by burning the midnight oil.
Luckily, Switzerland stayed somewhat “normal” and only shut down fully for six or eight weeks. I felt very fortunate to be living in a place where my kids could continue going to school in person (albeit a modified version of what they were used to), we could still enjoy eating out and spending wonderful days on the mountains.
But, Covid life still distracted me. I was consumed with the news on TV, constantly filled with worry for my family back home and always cooking and cleaning the kitchen. Fortunately, I figured out that even though my husband was now working from home 100% of the time, I still loved him!
Even though life felt completely upside down, I knew I wasn’t the only one who’d gone through or was going through a similar identity crisis, and I needed others to know they weren’t alone. Writing my book was cathartic, and also felt like I was dabbling in a taboo world of spoken truth and vulnerability.
My goal is to let every woman know that even though you might feel one way today, you have the power to change your narrative. It takes work, but being a badass is worth it.
When I completed the writing portion of my book, I made another massive decision. One that my coach seemed to have known was coming for years — but being the great coach that she is, she let me figure it out on my own. I decided to become a certified life coach to continue this work of helping women realize their potential, up-level their lives and live confidently. My life’s experiences are what drove me to become a coach and mentor for expat women today.
My book was released in July 2022. I flipped through the published pages of Badass Abroad for the first time while sitting at my parent’s kitchen table during our summer vacation to the U.S.
It felt a bit surreal.
My kids thought it was pretty cool to see their mom’s name on the cover of an actual book — maybe she was more than just a mom after all. I felt so proud of what I’d done – showing my daughters that it’s never too late to take a chance on yourself to create something special and unique.
I’m so glad I had the guts to reach out to my writing mentor and publisher about the idea. She said, “If your voice is strong and sassy and witty and no-crap Hauxwell, then you have a good idea that’s time has come.” That little push gave me the courage to tell my story.
Finding fulfillment
Believe me, being an expat accompanying supportive spouse has its perks — but it also has aspects to it that are truly hard to face, kind of like putting on a brave face and dealing with all the things that are thrown at you (sometimes in a foreign language) and having enough moxie to figure them out. The possibilities are endless, plus it’s a chance to reinvent yourself when basically no one knows you… except for those few people who you were connected with via Facebook by a friend who has a friend where you’re moving.
Finding fulfillment as an expat (beyond the “ladies who lunch” circles) does exist. It just might take having to flip the script and your mindset. #IYKYK
