The Second Settling In

Before we left California, B's company put us through a one day program on expat living.  They covered everything from the cultural behavior in Chile to adapting and living in a new culture and then how to apply what we had just learned.  It was a lot to take in, and intense though it was, it was still too short.  There was no way for them to answer all of my questions.  Mostly because I didn't even know what my questions were.  The problem with taking this class before leaving is that I had no first hand knowledge of Chile, its people and its culture.  I didn't know what I didn't know, as the saying goes.  So I didn't have a lot of questions at the time, but I sure could have used the class time about a month after getting here.  Or yesterday.  And I could probably find a reason for calling them even a year down the road, but I digress...what I wanted to write about was the Stages of Adjustment that we talked about that day.  The Stages chart looks like this:
                                        

Now, I have moved before.  A lot.  I should almost have this graph tattooed on my inner forearm for quick refreshers.  But I don't really need it.  I can recite is from memory, backwards.  I have fought and struggled with each step at least once, tried to pretend they didn't exist so that I could skip right over them, but in the end, I know that you just can't avoid them.  You simply can't move anywhere, much less to another hemisphere, without feeling some sort of disorientation at first.  Depending on how far out of your comfort zone you stray, or culture zone as the case may be, will determine about how long this "shock" will last.  Moving from North Carolina to Illinois had a pretty short adjustment period for me because in essence, I had moved home.  On the other hand, moving to California from Wisconsin took me about a year.  And that was still within my own country.  So I knew coming into this it could be a long while before I felt like me again and that the life I was living was the one that I truly wanted to live.  I know there is no way to tell how long each stage will last, but I was hoping, for all of our sakes, that it would cycle pretty quickly.

And for the most part, it has.  The shock and anxiety were licked in less than a week.  Don't misunderstand, there were still some stressful times (like when they pulled our rental house out from beneath us less than 4 weeks from our packing date) and there were some days when I thought "what the heck are we doing uprooting ourselves and moving to a country where I speak very little of the native language, with a husband that travels a lot, and we have two toddlers to boot..."  I wouldn't be human if I didn't think about those things.  But I was sure that we had made the right decision and I moved right into the Arrival Fascination phase.  And fascinated I was.  Santiago is a sight.  Those majestic Andes just overwhelm your senses the minute you see them for the first time.   It almost makes you blind to everything else.  But Santiago itself is a beautiful city.  It has a lot of older architecture downtown, tons of large green spaces for the kids, restaurants galore and again, as if you could ever forget, there is always that stunning view of the Andes mountains that surrounds you on all sides.  

My honeymoon with the city lasted about 2 months.  That is when I started to really "live" here and not just feel like I was on an extended vacation.  MadHatter was back in school, Stinkerbell and I had settled into our routine, and we were back to that 90% rule.  Life was not about unpacking boxes and setting up house. It was no longer necessary to GPS every address every time I left the house.  I had made some friends, I could find the store and I was starting to think that I had this think licked.  And then life got in the way.  I hit the culture shock.  Things would easily annoy me if they didn't go just the way I had planned they would.  I got upset with the people I met because they didn't get me - and that wasn't just a language thing...they truly just didn't get me and my American ways.  I got frustrated that I couldn't make myself understood and started thinking about how much easier it was to go to Starbuck's and order my favorite Java Chip, Light, no whipped cream please, when I could say those exact words and not some Spanglish version of them.  I started skipping going to Starbuck's because it was just too much of a hassle and frankly, I just did not want to have to think that hard about ordering something I really didn't need anyway.  I started staying in instead of venturing out.  I skipped browsing in the stores because inevitably someone would ask me if I needed help or tell me what the sale of the day was, and I didn't want to have to just nod, and pretend I understood every word.  I missed Target.  I missed my friends and frankly, I just wanted things to go back to being easy again.  And then, just as quickly as it came on, it ended.  I hit the Surface Adjustment period...and I am not sure I have left it yet, or if I have just smoothly guided myself into Acceptance.  I am hoping for the latter because that would mean I didn't have to go through the Isolation portion of this whole cycle.

Exactly 6 months ago today we landed in Santiago to begin our new lives as expats.  So, where am I now?  I think I am at the Second Settling In (not on my chart above but it comes after surface integration).  I no longer feel like I am just surviving here in Chile, but I feel as though I may be able to thrive.  I am not frazzled by the simple thought of going out of my house and I am not so mentally exhausted at the end of the day that I just want to fall in bed and never get back up.  I am starting to think about what I can do to make sure I am getting the most out of my experience here, and not simply getting by while waiting to get home and back to my "real" life.  I am settling in for the long haul and am hoping to really enjoy the ride.  I don't delude myself by thinking it will be easy.  I know I have plenty of challenges ahead of me in the next few years but I feel I am ready to handle them now.  Bring it on Chile, bring it on!