It’s a beautiful warm Spring day as I sit in my bedroom writing. The sky is that perfect shade of “sky blue” and the sun is shining intensely, blocked occasionally by weak wispy clouds. With the windows open, you can hear the palm fronds rustling, a calming sound I’ve grown accustomed to in our island life. It’s one of those picturesque days when you can feel the anticipation of summer’s arrival, with the whole community out walking, biking and running, relieved that the chilly spring days are becoming a thing of the past.

It’s strange to see posts on social media of friends and family back home engaging in the typical fall activities – raking leaves and visiting pumpkin patches – while we prepare ourselves for warmer weather and days at the beach. With the arrival of Halloween, we felt a pang of homesickness as we followed along online and liked all of the fun pictures of our family and friends’ trick-or-treating, gorging themselves on their massive candy loots. We learned that while Halloween is increasingly popular in New Zealand, it is nowhere near the spectacle we’re accustomed to back home. Rather than running from house to house to ring the doorbell, parents search their Facebook feeds for neighborhoods advertising their willingness to participate and hand out “lollies.”

I wasn’t prepared for the unusual spectacle watching my old life through the lens of social media. While it can offer a bit of comfort and keep you updated on what your neighbors, colleagues and loved ones are doing back home, it can also feel massively isolating and leave you with a heavy sense of FOMO (fear of missing out). I’ve never really been one to feel “FOMO” or get overly jealous at seeing my friends get together without me. As I’ve grown and matured, I became increasingly comfortable with my own company and trusted in the relationships I had built with others. But there’s a deafening silence that comes with a lack of human interaction, whether it be the loss of Teams calls with colleagues or the lack of random texts from friends. When you slowly stop hearing from people who were prevalent in your life and you have yet to build a new community of friends and colleagues, bitter feelings of abandonment and loss tend to creep in.

With Austin heading off to work each day, my only company has been an 8-year-old with massive amounts of energy and an increasing sense of boredom. The first few days of November brought forward an emotions of bitterness and despair, as I felt I tremendously insulated and dejected. The more unhappy I became, the more I fixated on the news of our visas and the need to get Larsen into school. If she can just start school, things will be better. If I can start looking for jobs, I’ll have a purpose and hope. Once we start meeting people, we’ll feel better, happier, more at ease.

That first week of November began with some of the darkest days I’ve endured since we’ve arrived. Increasing boredom and isolation, paired with the lack of personal space from my child, created a pressure cooker of anxiety in our home. As we neared the end of the week, Austin and I decided to bite the bullet and enroll Larsen in school as a fee-paying student. Uncertain whether our visas would arrive tomorrow or in another few weeks, we realized that getting her into a routine and creating an opportunity for her to meet other kids was worth the expensive tuition we’d have to pay without our visas in hand.  And while we had been trying to save our money, not knowing when I would be able to start contributing financially, my worsening mental health was another consideration we agreed to prioritize. Money is just money after all, but our well being is much more priceless. As we prepared the paperwork and sent in our nonrefundable payment, I felt an instantaneous sense of relief in knowing the waiting and enduring portion of our move was nearly over.

I want to pause and acknowledge how absolutely privileged we are to have had this time together as a family. The money we saved, the life we had built back home, and the natural privileges that comes with our life have allowed us to move to a beautiful country and live comfortably while we navigated this change. There is no doubt that many others who have taken this path have endured far worse than us or had a more difficult journey. But the honest truth is this – while the first two months of our time in New Zealand were filled with joy and adventure, so too were we suffering immense pain and incredible obstacles. For me personally, the lack of personal space and independence is suffocating and it brought back some intense memories of the post-partum struggles I had when Larsen was first born. To be able to start her in school and give myself the much-needed space I needed, mentally and emotionally, brought immense comfort to my always anxious heart.

Ironically, no less than 24 hours of our tuition payment clearing, three days before she would officially start school, we received word that both mine and Larsen’s visas were approved and ready to go. After waiting for weeks to receive this incredible news, the irony of our situation made it a bit anti-climactic. Had we simply waited two more days, Larsen could have enrolled free of charge as a traditional student. In true Kiwi fashion, the school kindly accepted our request for a refund us and gave us a very warm welcome as new members of the school. They even organized an opportunity for Larsen to come in for a few hours on the Friday before she started to meet her class and get comfortable with her new environment. Though Larsen was anxious to visit, and nearly refused to go, she came home with a big smile on her face and a new friend that she couldn’t wait to see on Monday.  

As we walked through the gates of her school on Monday morning, it felt as if we were dropping her off for Kindergarten all over again. The anxiety and excitement of starting at a new school, in a new country, after two months of immense change left me feeling vulnerable and weepy. Would she feel welcome at this new school, or anxious that she didn’t belong? Would they mock her American accent, or welcome her without prejudice? Before these worries could embed themselves too deeply in my brain, the welcoming spirit of Kiwi culture came bounding forward. We were barely five steps through the school gate, when Larsen’s new friend came running towards us in greeting. Larsen quickly introduced her friend and then gently asked us to go, not wanting us to walk her to her class, but instead wanting to go with her friends on her own. I barely got out “good bye” before the tears of relief and joy began to fall.

As the week progressed, Larsen came home each day with a huge smile on her face and names of new friends made. She has already been invited to a birthday slumber party, for which we had to purchase a sleeping bag almost immediately. At the end of her first week, Larsen even got to participate in a school assembly, where the 3^rd and 4^th year students showed off what they’d been learning in the 4^th term. To ensure she felt included, Larsen’s teacher had her work on a piece of art that the kids did earlier in the term, allowing Larsen the opportunity to stand with her class and show her own accomplishment from her first week.

Though we’ve only been part of Milford Primary for one week, we already feel a sense of community with the school. I worried we might not find that same sense of belonging that we had at Eugene Field in Sioux Falls, but Milford Primary is remarkably charming and quaint, almost too good to be true. It’s been fun to see the similarities and differences of Larsen’s new school with that of her former. While there’s a continued focus on inclusivity and artistic expression, the outdoor pool and weekly swimming class are a fun change. The yellow and blue uniforms are another welcome change, making morning routines much simpler without the worries over deciding what to wear each day.

Most noticeable as a parent is the absence of locked security gates when entering the school grounds. Though the school and playground are surrounded by an iron fence, parents can easily open the gate and enter the property at any point. Need to pick your kid up early? Just drop into the open office, check them out on an iPad and walk straight to the classroom to grab them! The lack of historical school shootings and culture of safety in New Zealand offers a stark contrast to the locked doors and metal detectors more common in the US. And yet, despite the open access to the school grounds, I feel Larsen is safer here than she ever was back home.

On a random evening last week, we decided to head into the town center and grab a bite to eat. We’ve been slowly trying out the local restaurants, and a simple burger joint called Good Town Burger Shop was calling our names. The burgers were some of the best we’ve had, and Austin and I smiled knowingly as we cleared our plates, an acknowledged agreement that we had found our new favorite spot in town. Not only was the food delicious, but the staff and patrons chatted openly, a clear sign that this was the type of place where after a few visits, “everybody knows your name” – a typical Cheers, if you will.

With full bellies, we decided to take a stroll through the nearby neighborhood that led to Milford Beach Reserve. We walked along the beach and sat at a bench while Larsen climbed trees and played on the playground. There was a moment when I looked to Austin and thought, “This is what it’s all been about. This is what we have been working towards.” It wasn’t just that we had a good dinner and a nice walk on a beautiful evening. It was so much more than that. For the first time since we’d arrived, we weren’t just envisioning our life and seeing the signs of hope for what was to be. We were living it. We were eating a dinner in our town, walking through familiar streets, and playing at our neighborhood park. And just like our many visits to our favorite brewery, Fernson, in Sioux Falls or the endless evenings playing at the park down the street from our house, these evenings together would never get old. The comfort of thriving in a community that you finally feel you belong to has made all the darkness and pain worthwhile.

There’s a lot of growth and resolution yet to be achieved, but our accomplishments thus far have felt groundbreaking. In less than three months we have secured our visas, settled into a home, started a new job, enrolled in school, and said good-bye to the initial stage of “enduring” and entered the phase of “living.” Celebrating accomplishments doesn’t always come easily, but after the hell we have been through, I am damn proud of what we have done and what we continue to do.

A friend of mine recently said to me, “Everyone talks about doing it – about leaving the country or moving abroad. But you actually did it.” There’s an immense amount of pride I felt in hearing the truth behind these words. I’m not just proud to say “we’re doing it” or “we’ve done it,” because I know this journey will never be over and we will continue to grow, sacrifice and change. But I’m so proud of our little family and the trust we’ve placed in each other. As parents we aren’t just teaching Larsen to continue fighting in the face of defeat or despair. We’re showing her how to do it by living through it together. We are exposing her to the reality that the bigger the dream, the bigger the reward. The greatest joys in life will often require the greatest sacrifices, but that is often what makes the end result so worthwhile. So cheers to the next chapter in NZ – may we enjoy fewer obstacles and a lot more sun 🙂