Transplant shock

A close friend has watched me struggle this week. Struggle with work not going as expected, with criticism, with ups and downs; struggle with expectations of our kids, of ourselves, and “the system”, with impatience and frustration, and with a poor sense of time passing. She’s watched and prayed as my emotions soured and bottomed out. And she’s pondered the analogy of “transplant shock”.

Transplant shock is something that can happen when a plant is transplanted from one pot to another, or from one “in ground” location to another. My limited research tells me it can last a couple of weeks, or, in the case of larger plants like trees, a couple of years. It’s got to do with how well the roots are able to absorb water and nutrients from the soil. There are various things you can do to prevent it, or to help a plant recover from it, but patience is also needed.

We finally put up some pictures on the wall
this week, I was longing to see this old
favourite: my preserved wedding bouquet!
But I commented to a couple of friends
that my bedroom looked more settled than

I felt!

Now I don’t want to take the analogy too far. But it’s helpful to think about, especially as we get impatient with ourselves and those around us. We’ve had a very large transition and it’s going to take time, probably more time than we (and others) realise, to recover. Of course we want to feel settled as fast as possible, especially because this isn’t a once only transition, we anticipate we’ll be here only a year and then another transition will happen. Somehow we humans are programmed to try to avoid pain. But being impatient and frustrated with it all will probably only make things worse.

How do I know if a plant is suffering from transplant shock? Withered or drooping leaves, fruit or leaves abruptly dropping, dying branches, easily bruised.

How do I know that I am still suffering from transplant shock? Quickly wearied, easily knocked “off balance”. A poor sense of time passing (it seems like a long time since last Friday, for example). Memory issues, poor concentration. I’m sometimes homesick for familiar routines and a familiar environment, sometimes dominating a conversation with memories from Japan. Emotional, tears are falling more easily at the moment.

That’s enough of a list, I think.

The cure? Lots of common sense stuff: eat well, exercise, rest, and sleep. Being patient. And keeping a good longer-term perspective. As a Christian, keeping my eyes on Jesus, on my rock. Plus, being thankful for all that we’ve achieved with God’s help so far in this transition (which actually is quite a lot). And perhaps taking the ups and downs a little less seriously?

Do you have any other suggestions?

An aha moment

Every time we’ve come on home assignment (this is our fifth) I’ve made a photo album about our recent term of service to share with people. It’s been a very helpful tool when we meet informally with small groups, or over meals, or even when chatting with someone after a church service that we've spoken at. So now we have a collection of five photo albums summarising our last 22 1/2 years!

This year I wondered if I was going to get a photo album done before I left Japan (or at all). Back in February (see this blog post) there seemed like so much to do. Photo album was on the list, but it was way down below other priorities like "moving", "handing over our work to others", and "finding somewhere to live in Australia". But I found some time to do it in the last week before we headed to conference, after I'd handed most of my work on to others and before we started packing up our house.

The other day I pulled out the earliest photo album to show some ladies who know our eldest son . . . the first photo album shows his early days in Japan and they loved seeing that. The aha moment came later when I thought about how detailed the first couple of albums were, compared to the ones I’ve made the last couple of times. How did I have the time?

I realised that those first two albums were made when my role in Japan was mostly full-time stay at home mum. A role that was busy, but didn't completely satisfy my creative tendencies and also had many little moments that I could use for an extra project. The photo albums are evidence of that. They are also evidence that, as my kids have grown and become more independent and busy outside the home, I've also taken on more work that's focussed outside the home.

That realisation led to me further realising that I should never been afraid that I'm being too lazy. That, over the years, I've naturally filled my time with productive and creative things. And I appear to keep filling up my time until I reach my limit. Another place to see that is this blog. From 2009 when I started it, until late 2017 I wrote here most days. What happened in 2017? I took on new roles: OMF Japan's social media and website content.

That fear of laziness? I'm a conscientious soul, always have been, and I don't like the thought that I'm wasting my precious time on this earth. Because I work flexible hours at home on several different jobs it can be difficult to tell if I'm working at my capacity. Over the years I think it's become a little easier to read the signs that I'm overdoing it, however sometimes I still don't recognise that until I've stepped over the "too busy" line.

I knew that I'd be tired yesterday, because we had a run of high-octane days last week: several intense, but good times with friends and colleagues, the start of deputation meetings, and sorting through years of accumulated resources related to speaking about Japan here (unpacked it easily took over our dining room and office). Amidst all that, various other things continued to need our attention, including medical and bureaucratic matters. 

Thankfully yesterday we could just call a halt to the craziness and we focussed hard on "not doing", not opening the computer and not talking about work stuff. I'm feeling better today, but know that I need to be cautious. We're still recovering from this major transition and don't quite have the stamina we're used to when we're settled in Japan.

It's amazing to me that at 50 I'm still learning more about myself. This realisation about my internal drive to fill my days makes it easier to push though this very fuzzy year known as home assignment. We don't have anyone closely looking over our shoulder to tell us to work harder or to take it easier. No one assigns us a schedule or tells us what meetings we have to attend. We don't have to report to anyone the number of hours that we work and we don't have as many deadlines as I usually juggle. All in all, there's not much accountability for our day-to-day activities and it's easy to wonder if we're doing an okay job, or if we're wasting time.

But then there's the debrief we had earlier in the month with a psychologist. She recommended we take things a bit easier this year, even aim for boredom! (I usually avoid boredom pretty studiously.) 

We've carried a fair weight these last few years as parents of someone who isn't neurotypical (see this blog post from last year when I poured out something of what that has meant). I hesitate to call myself a "carer", as many others carry much heavier, full-time caring responsibilities, but it is similar. It's something that is hard to escape, but also something that is woven into the fabric of our lives in a way that has changed us and how we live. The psychologist challenged us, as we work towards the goal of all our boys living separately from us, to explore things and ways of living that we've just had to avoid in the past, in order to survive. It’s going to be an interesting adventure. 

But my big challenge now is trusting, moment-by-moment that we will eventually get there, that we will make it through this transition time. 

 I need to do what David did when he wrote Psalm 62, tell myself: “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I shall not be shaken. My salvation and my honour depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge (vv 5–8 NIV)”.

A typical week, not a chance!

No, no one has asked me yet what a typical week is on home assignment. I can't say we've had a typical week yet, and we probably won't ever get there these twelve months. We've now been in Australia for a month and our weeks have included:

• collecting furniture
• shopping
• setting up home internet
• sorting out stuff we've had stored for 4 ½ years
• figuring out how to make a functional home and office from the stuff we own and the stuff we've been given
• buying a car
• sorting out red tape—including stuff related to driver's licences, applying for Blue cards (child safety clearance), changing addresses, insurance
• debriefs of various sorts for our organisation
• medical stuff—bi-annual checks for our organisation, hunting down referrals to specialists, skin checks, blood tests etc. (this has actually taken up a lot more time that you might imagine)
• starting to get involved in mid-week events at our home church
• university open day
• social time—with our eldest son, with good friends
• driving lessons
• preparation for speaking events coming up
• a prayer meeting
• meeting with other members of our organisation to catch up
• walking and orientating ourselves to the local community

  

  The hardest thing to set up was our dining 
  room/home office. Without an extra bedroom
  we've had to juggle our living area to accom-
  modate a working area too. It turns out that 
  this large table doubles quite nicely for work 
  (except for me, thankfully I am able to
  work at the shorter desk you can see in the 
  corner).

  
  

Phew! In between all that I've been trying to do my best to relax by having a coffee break on our deck with a book in the afternoon, when I'm home. Other things that have helped me feel more grounded have been household management things—meal planning, grocery shopping on a regular day, regular basic cleaning, and baking. 

"There’s a big difference between living and visiting." That phrase that popped into my mind recently. A lot of what we've been doing is related to living here. We're not on a brief visit or trip. We need to, as best we can, establish our lives here for the next 12 months. That's been hard work, and it doesn't feel like it's over yet, though perhaps the pace is slowing as we gradually tick off once-off things.

Two weeks tomorrow we're flying to the west coast for 18 days to visit churches and others over there for work. That deadline looms large. We'd like our sons to be as settled as they can be at this time so they can manage independently for the longest time we've ever been away from them. We also want to be as prepared as we can for the speaking work we'll be doing over there . . . alas we're still waiting on replies from several people, so it's more last minute than we're really happy with. 

Ah, God's got us on our toes. But I'm reminded that he's the God who goes before us (Deut. 31:8) and that his mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22–24, KJV, more modern versions say "compassion"). And these are the truths I need to be repeating to myself when I dream/drowse in the early hours of the morning and my thoughts get filled with anxious thoughts.

Culture shock: it can bite you in your passport country too

Maybe you're wondering if I've had a hard time re-entering into Australia, in terms of culture shock. On Saturday we attended a half-day gathering held by our organisation for people in our state interested in mission. It was very full-on. But it was part-reunion—many of the people there have known us since we went to Indonesia as young adults in 1993). There were also fellow cross-cultural workers that we'd heard of, but never met. There was one missionary couple whose lives have paralleled ours in many ways: we left for Asia in the same year, but our lives have rarely cross as we've worked in different countries and come back to Australia at different times.

Someone on Saturday asked if I'd had re-entry shock. But it wasn't easy to come up with many instances of significant shock. Perhaps because I'd been back last year for a couple of months?

I have to say it's been pleasant to be free from the social pressure surrounding masks in Japan, though that had diminished significantly in the last couple of months. 

It has been a little bit of surprise to see signs everywhere in shops and other public service areas telling Australians that there is “zero tolerance of bad behaviour”. In general Australians seem to be conforming to the signs. From what I've heard, though, teachers would be hoping similar signs could be posted in their classrooms! It's really a pity that any signs are needed at all, anywhere! But it did get me thinking about how I'm used to the Japanese value of being considerate of others. It's one of those things that makes foreigners think Japan is such an amazing place (think about the press they've gotten for tidying up stands after big games).

Our street is really quiet, far quieter than you would believe possible, considering there are some really busy roads very close by. However, sometimes we’ve had loud music (during the day so far only). There was a guy building a wall across the street for several days, and he usually played loud music. Then one day last week a neighbour played very loud music mid-morning for an hour or two, loud enough for me to want to keep the doors shut. I can’t work well with non-instrumental music in the background and this music was intrusive. 

These major road works are happening only about 
300m from our house. We don’t hear them. 

Culture shock: this type of thing rarely happens in Japan. People are generally very cautious about doing anything that will cause discomfort to others. Japanese tradies, or others working on people’s houses never seem to play loud music while they work.

The only loud music we encountered at home during the last decade or so was from the kindergarten just down the road. They played it outside occasionally for the kids to perform to, or during sports events. The nearby elementary school did similarly, but less often. Occasionally we’d hear pianos, but never loud recorded music.

It’s this sort of thing (first considering how your actions will affect others, and being very concerned about what others think of you) that marks Japan as much more group orientated than Australia.

Yesterday we went to one of Brisbane's largest shopping centres to meet with our organisation's national director and another worker from Japan who is also on home assignment. As we walked from the car park to the place we were meeting, we travelled on escalators and I briefly wondered if I should adhere to the "stand on left, walk on right" rule that is standard on Tokyo escalators. The difference between the two countries is that if I break an understood rule here in Australia, I'm more likely to be yelled at. That kind of direct confrontation is much less common in Japan, though I have been told off in a train before: for talking too loudly. Last year in Tokyo I was told off in my local grocery store for coughing (into my mask), and no, I wasn't out while sick, I had asthma post-cold.

When you consider that we left Australia in 2000 our late 20s and have only been here for a total of less than four years in the last 22 ½ years, you'd expect that we'd experience some shock. But I guess we've been back every now and then during that period, so have somewhat recalibrated each time. Thankfully I've been spared any dramatic instances of re-entry culture shock so far this year. The difficult thing about it, though, is that it can sneak up on you in the most unexpected moments and really throw you. When that happens you can suddenly feel very disorientated and shaky, especially if it happens in a situation where an immediate response is required by someone who doesn't know anything about you.

Shopping can be scary

One thing commonly mentioned by missionaries about shopping when they return to their home country is the cereal aisle. Unless a missionary has been working in a Western country, usually their access to cereals has been minimal and the variety available in their passport country is bewildering. 

But honestly I find most aisles overwhelming. The average grocery store in Australia feels at least 10 times larger than the usual stores I shop at in Japan. I'm terrible at estimating area, so I could be wrong, but that's what it feels like. In Japan over the last four years I've shopped at two main shops each week, both of which I can get through in between 10 to 15 minutes, for a usual shopping trip (which fits onto my bike, about three big bags).

Because I usually shop in small stores, there usually isn't much choice between products, which makes shopping very easy and fast, and with minimal brain power needed. Here the choice on most things is much larger, so for many items on my list, I'm comparing prices, quality, size, etc. It's exhausting for a "newbie". 

My Australian pantry is gradually
taking shape through my slow
persistence at the grocery store.

Avoiding multiple grocery stores

I know some of you will also tell me that shopping at Aldi is cheaper, but I have a problem with that too. At least if I go to one of the larger grocery chains, I can get all my groceries in one fell swoop, which is about all I've got the energy for at this stage. In Japan I get my fill of shopping around to find products (not even the cheapest product, but just the product). 

Cereal in Tokyo is the classic example of having to shop around. So much so, that David's been taking care of cereal shopping in recent years, because none of the usual things we consume are in the two stores I frequent. And often it requires more than one store to find all that we desire to buy, which can extend a grocery shop quite a good deal, even on a bike between relatively close shops. And then every now and then what's on the shelf changes, and we have to go hunting around other stores to find what we want. 

Meat is another example. One shop in our city has good mince (ground beef), but it's not a shop I usually frequent, so it means a special trip on top of the usual shops I visit (because a bike can only fit so much food and when you're feeding young men, the volume of food we go through isn't small).

Other service-providers can be challenging too

And then there's other shops in Australia, that should be fine...after all we're speaking in English, aren't we? We're used to paying in cash in Japan, so it's different paying by card all the time, and a tad scary. At least if you're paying in cash you know how much you have. I did have some extra cash to use (exchanged from yen we had leftover in Japan and came in our wallets), and I wasn't sure how easily most shops would accept cash, so that made me feel a bit nervous.

Because I look and sound Australian, I can't play the "card" I sometimes need in Japan: the foreigner who doesn't know everything she needs to. In Japan people expect me to sometimes slip up, here I don't get that excuse. Strangely, it's sometimes uncomfortable to be considered a local (hence expert) but not really be one.

I don't think anyone noticed, but the other day I slipped up at the doctors. In Japan, after your consultation, you sit down and wait until the receptionist calls you with the bill. Apparently you don't do that in Australia—you queue at the reception desk until they serve you. But a couple of weeks ago it took a while of my observing others to pick up the cue!

Good experience this week

But let’s end on a positive note. On Tuesday we all went to the Dept. of Main Roads. One of us was getting a learner’s permit, one was getting adult photo ID, and the other two were getting the photo Main Roads had of us updated (for a Child Safety permit application). I was blown away by how efficient it was (and I have been before). Japan is lots of great things, but efficiency when it comes to driver’s licences isn’t one of them.

We've had an awful lot of "life" going on

We went back to our home church last weekend for the second Sunday in a row. It was a relief to feel a lot less fragile this time.

Almost the sum total of books we own in
Australia. Not many at all! And many of them
are photo albums or school yearbooks. But
it's good to have them up on a shelf and
out of boxes!

In one conversation I had with an older lady, she comment frankly: “What you’re dealing with is just life.”

My gentle retort was, “Our problem is that we’ve had an awful lot of 'life' all at once." 

For example, most people help their older teens adjust to adult life over months or years. In the short 20 days we've been here we’ve been doing things like teaching them about banking, getting a learners licence, getting a MyGov online account (for various official purposes like tax, medical insurance), etc.

On top of that we're introducing them to life in Australia, as almost-newbies. How to access a doctor in Australia, how medical insurance works, what's the best place to buy a certain product, how to get a haircut, public transport, etc.

It also happens to be university-open-
day season at the moment, so on Sunday
we hoisted ourselves off to the University
of Queensland (UQ), David's and my
alma mater.

We've also moved houses into a suburb we've never lived in before, so we don't know the answers to all the questions that are related to locality. And it's not all about our sons—David and I have started new jobs and we've also just bought a car in Australia for the first time in over 25 years.

It's no wonder that I'm routinely feeling like we're much further into August than we actually are (it's not helping that we haven't gotten around to putting up more than one calendar yet, nor that the season doesn't feel at all like winter, except in the middle of the night and early morning).

We're trying to get on top of daily life things so that we can pay attention to what we're going to say in our upcoming speaking appointments. This Saturday we're running a 50 minute elective at the state conference for our organisation. The blurb we gave them was:

Title: Working together to share the good news about Christ in Japan

Blurb: Why do a school teacher and editor/writer work with OMF in Japan? Mission work involves more than just church planting and evangelism. Our work in Japan contributes to supporting the wider community of missionaries. Join us to consider how missionaries work as a team to spread the good news in a nation where less than 1% of the population are Christians.

I've actually written on this topic in the past (see this) and I'm married to a teacher, so things like this don't faze him much. We have a general idea of where we're headed, but just need to nail down some details.

This morning, though, I'm taking a break from everyone and have walked to our local library. That's right: we're walking distance from an English library!!! If I hadn't been an ardent e-book borrower over the last four years from this exact library, I'd be even more excited, But I am keen to see if there are some hard copies of books that I haven't been able to find electronic versions of.

But the main reason I've come to the library is to write. And to hopefully start something of a Tuesday morning tradition for this home assignment. Hence this blog post has been written, but I'm planning to write other things too, I'm just not sure what they all are yet!

Settling always takes longer than you think

We've already been in Australia for over two weeks and it's been really hard to find time to write! The most writing I did this week was our prayer letter, but finishing off a blog post was next on the agenda.

I wrote these few paragraphs 48 hours after we landed in Australia: 

I hesitate to write in the heat of the moment. Often a bit of time between an emotional experience and writing about it is helpful. But I also know that this new-to-Australia feeling will soon slip away and I’ll miss an opportunity to capture how fragile I feel when I’m newly back in the country. 

Yes, it’s less than a year since I left, but it feels much longer. I guess in part because the cumulative time we’ve been away is getting pretty big. Certainly the majority of my adult life has been now spent in Japan. 

Stepping back into Australia is not like coming home after a short holiday. It’s both familiar and unfamiliar. It’s scary and intriguing. I feel a little like an alien trying to read the cues so I don’t mess up. I look and sound like I belong (mostly), but that’s not what it feels like on the inside. One of our early stops is always a branch of our bank. We need to double check our memory of our PIN numbers is correct, and change our contact details. 

Believe it or not, it’s all a bit scary till you get back into the groove. (I’ll come back to this later in the post.)

We’re in Cairns for a few days rest before we plunge into life in south east Queensland. I have to give a plug for the staff at Bank of Queensland in town here. They were friendly and helpful, and not at all shocked by having these vagabond Aussies who’ve been living overseas and moving to Ipswich dropping in on them in Cairns.

Wednesday August 2

We're now almost completely moved into our house now, eight days after we first walked into the house. That's a great relief, as we've been living out of suitcases since mid June. (I think this was the day that we unpacked books onto a bookshelf…we don’t own many books here, but just having them out of boxes is a big step towards feeling like we’ve settled for the time being.)

Saturday Aug 5

Back to today. I’m sitting on our front deck (yes we have one!) It’s mid-winter and I’m in a t-shirt with a light flannie (flannelette or flannel shirt for the non-Aussies). Amazing weather, but pretty usual for this place. The forecast maximum today is 23 (about average for this week), it’s not quite that warm yet, but the sky is blue with a few fluffy white clouds and I can see a lot of trees from where I sit.

This suburb (Springfield Lakes) is fairly closely packed with houses. It’s a relatively new suburb and the blocks are much smaller than the average Australian block, but it feels comfortable to us. It’s not as crowded as Japan. There are footpaths and grassy verges everywhere. It’s a convenient location: very close to shops, the train station, cinemas, post office, bank, even a free public pool. But it’s also very suburban and relatively quiet. Add to all that is a lot of parkland and footpaths through bushland and beside bodies of water.

We’re really happy with this location and with this house and so thankful that God provided us so quickly with a place to make our base for these 12 months. When we moved in last week, it was our sixth beds in July and we were very happy to stop.

Although we haven’t really stopped. We’ve stopped moving and stopped living out of suitcases and in a one-day-at-a-time mentality, but the act of settling into Australia has moved to a different level. Now we’re working on things like getting medical appointments, filling out forms for various reasons, proving our identity and our suitability for working with kids. And also working on young-adult-children type stuff like researching part-time jobs, uni Open days, getting Medicare cards for sons, etc. And gyms. Our youngest son is very keen to join a gym, and we’re doing what we can to help both of them feel settled, so this is a key piece. Up till now he’s had free access to a school gym, so paying to go to a not-so-cheap Australian gym is harder to swallow.

We also don’t have our own car yet. Thankfully our eldest son has lent us his car, but we’re actively searching for our own wheels. Car shopping is new, we haven’t done this in Australia for more than a quarter of a century. David is out this morning looking at used car lots, and yes, I decided to leave him to it and stay home!

This week also held OMF medicals, psychological debrief, driving an hour to meet my parents for lunch (they live 120 km or 1½ hrs away), and grocery shopping (which deserves another complete post). As well as dipping our toes back into ordinary church life: young adult Bible study for our son and ladies Bible study for me.

And that’s not even including the subplot of David’s work laptop simply stopping working just days before we left Japan and the saga of him trying to figure out what to do about that! Finally yesterday both his new laptop and the backup data arrived, so thankfully that distraction is nearly over.

But back to the idea that life back in Australia is a little scary at times. Not that we’re afraid, it’s just that most things take extra effort because none of it is familiar. It doesn’t take much to tip us into confusion. We’re also struggling to keep longer lists in our heads, resulting in frequent disorganized behaviour and amusement from those who are closest to us.

On Monday I went grocery shopping before I’d had my mid-morning coffee (the first coffee of the day). A bad idea at the best of times, but when I was planning to do my first big grocery shop for the household, it nearly undid me. I stood so long in one part of the huge cereal aisle that an employee asked if she could help me (and normally the employees there don’t speak to customer unless spoken to). Thankfully I managed to get enough food to last us through to yesterday, when I did a top-up shop (with coffee on board). 

It feels good to be getting back into my groove in the kitchen. This afternoon I’m planning to do my first baking in my new kitchen. I’m looking forward to that. It’s another sign that I’m starting to feel settled here.

This has turned into a long rambling post. But it’s probably fairly indicative of the sort of conversation you might have with me if you managed to pin me down anywhere for any length of time just now!

I have lots of other things I’d like to write about, but I’ll keep them for now. The debrief on Thursday with the psychologist challenged me to think about dreams I might be able to follow, or pastimes to pursue during this year when our time is more flexible. I think that writing is one. Usually my time is quite bound by editing deadlines, but I’m much more free from those these next 12 months. We’ll see what eventuates. But for the short-term, at least, I hope to be blogging more often.