Category:

Driving Distance

Before Becoming Goan: A Trailing-Spouse Story (Part 5)

by Michelle Mendonça Bambawale July 9, 2024

Michelle spent 18 years as a trailing spouse in three countries before moving back to India — where her adjustment adventures have continued after all, as chronicled in her new book, “Becoming Goan: A Contemporary Coming Home Story,” one of our summer reading recommendations (now available on Amazon, worldwide). This is the concluding chapter of her story — for now!

After 18 years of living as an expat in Dubai, Bangkok, and London, and looking in from the outside at the host country and culture, I now find myself in a strange, unique, position of living permanently in Goa, India.

I am Goan by origin. I inherited, restored, and extended my ancestral home. However, I didn’t live in the village of Siolim full time until the COVID-19 pandemic prompted my family’s move sooner than expected.

Book Club Driving Distance Expat Experiences

Summer Reading Recs for Towing and Trailing Spouses

by Nicole Neroulias Gupte June 14, 2023

written by Nicole Neroulias Gupte

June snuck up on me this year — can I blame climate change for my confusion? — so this post is hitting your screens just a bit later than intended. Then again, as with New Year’s resolutions and most things in life, it’s no good letting a late start stop you from getting started!

If summertime happens to be when you feel a yearning for some new reading material, feel free to reflect on our previous book recommendations (December 2020, June 2021) or join my quest to read these books over the next few months:

Career Transitions Driving Distance

A Marriage of Art and Science

by Erin Loparo February 22, 2022

written by Erin Loparo

As a professional artist, I recently carried out a large commission for Harvard Medical School in collaboration with my scientist husband during the coronavirus pandemic, often with our children at home in the next room.

These three large, mixed-media abstract paintings were not created in optimal circumstances or settings — but I surrendered that and let the creative process do its thing. It’s a project I wanted to return to again and again over many months. It both anchored and re-launched me as a working artist. I even got to image Sars-CoV-2 (also known known as COVID-19) while living with it!

Needless to say, it was cathartic.

Driving Distance Expat Experiences

Saying Yes to a Hard No

by Amanda Burton December 19, 2021

written by Amanda Burton

There I was, living my best life in Chicago, a city I loved, with the man I loved, an amazing group of friends, a great job, and a magnificent apartment in a trendy neighborhood that was at least 20% less than market value.

It was 2017. My partner Jaime and I had been living together for about a year when he decided, with input from his Ph.D. advisor at the Illinois Institute of Design, that he should get some work experience in the UX design research field.

Jaime is a Colombian national, so that limited his options — and the competition in Chicago is fierce. (One interviewer actually told him she couldn’t hire him under his student visa status — but would like to give him a hug!) As I held out hope that he would find something local, he began receiving offers from everywhere else: Grand Rapids, Austin, Florida, Seattle. I begged him to accept the job in Mumbai — at least we would be going on an adventure — but he passed, worried about the political climate and possible reentry to the U.S.

My only “hard no” was Dallas, Texas. I’ve always had a thing against Texas. It was almost arbitrary, but the idea of “everything’s bigger in Texas” and “open carry” was more than off-putting.

One day, I got home from work and he was excited to tell me about a great interview and offer he had just received. Where? Richardson, Texas. A suburb of — you guessed it— Dallas.

Suddenly, I had a tough decision. Could I stomach moving to a place I loathed — or would I stay put in my best life, but lose one of the best parts of it?

Career Transitions Driving Distance

Getting Off the Academia Roller Coaster

by Rachel Karas December 6, 2021

written by Rachel Karas

We had always assumed that John would be the trailing spouse. When we met at a karaoke bar, he was working in tech support and I was a third of the way through my doctoral degree in medieval English literature at UC Santa Barbara, looking ahead to the roller coaster that is the tenure track (particularly in the humanities).

Post graduation, I expected to be bouncing across the country, ideally from postdoc to visiting assistant professor to full professor. In contrast, as an IT professional, he has a pretty easy time finding a job literally anywhere, and he made it clear very early on that he was in awe of my goals and would happily prioritize my career opportunities. The academic job market would control our destination.

Or, so we thought.

Career Transitions Coaching Driving Distance Expat Experiences Trailing Kids

Detour or Scenic Route… Why Not Both?

by Simone Holderbach June 13, 2021

written by Simone Holderbach

My journey as a trailing spouse began 18 years ago, when my husband accepted a postdoc position in Ontario, Canada after earning his Ph.D. in computer science from Germany’s Karlsruhe University.

I had been working as a process management and business development manager for Observer AB, an international media monitoring company, for almost a decade. I was on an amazing career trajectory with great colleagues, a good salary, and no shortage of exciting and challenging projects. As much as I loved my job, however, I had always hoped to live abroad again after getting a taste for it during two semesters spent exploring London and Paris.

Also, since our Canadian adventure was supposed to be limited to two years (the usual postdoctoral period), I viewed our relocation more like a sabbatical for myself and informed my parents that we would be back “before you know it.”

(Oops.)

Driving Distance Expat Experiences

Love and Loss, From a Distance

by Nicole Neroulias Gupte May 1, 2021

written by Nicole Neroulias Gupte

One of the best parts of being a trailing spouse is stitching together an amazing tapestry of friends and family across different corners of the world.

Perhaps the worst part is the cruel distance when you most want to be near them — including when it’s time to say goodbye.

Earlier this year, I lost my dear friend Anne Doll in Seattle to appendix cancer, at the age of 40. Earlier this week, I lost my grandmother in Nicosia, Cyprus, at the age of 104. In both cases, I was thousands of miles away in Delhi, trying to push through my grief and guilt to continue parenting through this pandemic. (Our inability to observe communal mourning rituals during COVID lockdowns, even when mere driving distance away, has surely been a core element of our collective trauma this past year.)

*Seattle transplants and new moms, Fall 2010*

Although I spent years writing for newspapers, including dozens of obituaries, and there’s so much to share about how two heavily-pregnant trailing spouses became fast friends during the hottest Seattle summer on record? I couldn’t bring myself to eulogize Anne. Fortunately, her husband has done that for us all. And, while I can’t be there for her memorial service this summer, at least my family’s absence will provide a few extra bedrooms for her college friends who fly in for the occasion.

For my grandmother, however, given that I missed her funeral by a matter of hours, I thought I could share my thoughts here. After all, she was a trailing spouse, too. (Whenever she had to list the different Cypriot city where each of her three children had been born, the reaction was usually something like, “Lady, did you have to have a kid each time you moved?” I think some of our readers can relate!)

Career Transitions Driving Distance Expat Experiences Trailing Kids

Just Keep Walking

by Estelle Broyer March 20, 2021

written by Estelle Broyer

Throughout my life, I’ve often thought about my favorite childhood book, Mister Dog by Margaret Wise Brown. Mister Dog’s mantra was: “Just walk and sooner or later you’ll get somewhere.” (Or, as I learned it as a little girl growing up in Lyon, France, “Marche au hasard, tu arriveras bien quelque part.”)

It’s a silly phrase, but I’ve always loved Monsieur Chien’s way of thinking. There is so much to learn from a place — and from the journey that takes us there — when we are open to discovery. I’ve tried my best to embrace every opportunity for personal growth, in good times and in challenging ones, and go with the flow even when moving thousands of miles away with only short-term plans in place.

Career Transitions Coaching Driving Distance Trailing Kids

Seventh Time’s the Charm: Career Reinvention Through Cross-Country Relocations

by Jennifer Kass February 7, 2021

written by Jennifer Kass

For years, whenever I Googled stories of fellow trailing spouses, the search results focused on expat experiences or career disappointments. I’m so glad that I recently discovered Trailing-Spouse.com, filled with inspiring stories of all kinds of people who “get” my challenges and have also seized opportunities for professional and personal growth along the way.

In my case, I’ve experienced seven moves — four prompted by a partner’s job loss. It’s a story of resilience, reinvention, and a LOT of networking. I now spend my time helping other women with their own reinventions, sharing the lessons I’ve learned along the (hard) way through my own non-linear journey.

Driving Distance Military Moves Trailing Kids

From Red States to Blue States

by Erica Klinger January 16, 2021

written by Erica Klinger

Trailing spouses are forced to encounter change more than the average human, often without much support. In my 26 years as a Navy wife, my family has experienced 10 house moves, including five different states and one overseas tour. Throughout this adventure, I’ve continued prioritizing my professional advancement as a creative marketing professional. In the past, pursuing your own career dreams hasn’t been expected of military wives — but times are changing and I hope sharing my story publicly for the first time inspires others to never give up on their dreams.

Continued from part four of Erica’s story…

As a Navy spouse, my family’s frequent relocations have exposed me not only to interesting cultural differences, but to the sharp contrasts in political and moral viewpoints within the same country. In that sense, our biggest move was our 2013 transfer from the “red state” of Tennessee to the “blue state” of Washington. (A 10/15 on the Gupte Scale, for reasons shared in my previous blog post.)

I generally take a bipartisan attitude, marking my ballots based on current issues rather than party loyalties, and try to avoid discussing politics. But, as recent elections have reminded us all, every person’s vote really matters — not just in swing states every four years, but also for local offices and initiatives. During my time in the Pacific Northwest, where the default system of voting-by-mail seems to have led to stronger civic participation than in other places we had lived, I started to learn more about the key issues facing our country and really solidified my passion for working in health care and patient advocacy.

Cost of Living

In addition to switching from politically conservative to progressive circles, we knew that there would be many other cultural shifts to consider in our move from the Mid South to the Pacific Northwest. Instead of “y’all” and sunny bright colors, we’d have to fit into a more trendy world of wearing black and grey, tattoos and people who didn’t immediately invite me into their conversations.