Transition-itis

We've entered the last few days before we transition for a time to Australia. It's the seventh time we've done this as a family in the last 21 years, so we're not unfamiliar with "transitionitis" as I recently saw it called on Instagram @takingrouteblog. I've been a little bit in denial about this actually being a transition, because:

1. We're not going on home assignment, so in that regard it's like a longer holiday

2. It's a relatively short time to be away (two us will be back in six weeks) compared to the most of the longer trips we've made to Australia as a whole family. Only twice before have we travelled there as a family for less than six months, yep, we're not big travellers.

3. We're not changing jobs like we usually do for a home assignment, just pausing (or at least I am, a school teacher does this every year, so it's nothing strange for my husband).

4. We're not moving out of our house either (though that's only happened twice in 21 years prior to moving to Australia). So there's been no packing of boxes, limited sorting of stuff and cleaning, and minimal work to clear out the pantry. Yep, my image of a transition is pretty major!

But when I saw this Insta post yesterday, I realised that we do have some significant transition going on. The definition that they author somewhat tongue-in-cheek gave was: "Transitionitis is a very common ailment affecting hundreds of travelers each year. it is caused by the change in routine brought on by transition, and anxieties (often underlying) relating to the unknowns of a new location and losses associated with leaving the current location."

Several points come to mind out of this:

* Though we're not permanently transitioning to a new location, we'll be in a number of new locations in the coming weeks. My middle son and I will be in seven different houses in the next three months, none of them are familiar to us (even staying with our parents: they've all moved in the last couple of years). We're also thinking about the future on this trip: how will it look to transition both our youngest two out of our household in the next couple of years.

* There's always lots of anxiety surrounding international travel, even for people who aren't living with anxiety as a daily pathological reality. Things like: how will we cope travelling the busy trains with heavy suitcases, will there be unexpected bureaucratic barriers to be met when checking in at the airport, will we be able to sleep on the overnight flight? Though things have settled down a lot with regards to COVID, there are still extra hurdles in place (even just the thought of wearing a mask for 24 hrs is on my mind). I'm really glad we didn't have to travel earlier in this pandemic! We've also been going through a long saga all year with a passport renewal and visa renewal (which has a surprising number of flow-on effects, like when your health insurance expires and when you can apply for an international vaccination passport). We have reached a final hurdle this month that is yet to be completed: we haven't been able to collect our new residence cards with our new visas. It's out of our hands as we're waiting on notification that they're ready for us to collect. [Please pray!]

* And of course change in routine. Some people find that stimulating, but in our family, maintaining a fairly routine life is a way of managing overall stress and anxiety. Travel throws that all to the wind, of course. But the advantage we have here is that our kids are older. They understand what's going on and they have prior experience to help them anticipate what's about to happen.

I'm glad that we don't have many losses this time around, so we haven't had to make a lot of farewells, which only compounds the stress.

This is beside my bed. A good verse to
remember as I drift off to sleep each night.

The author listed a dozen symptoms of "transitionitis". I can recognise some of them from the past. Not so many this time as it's not such a major transition, but recently I've had:

• mushy brain
• inability to think straight—affecting my ability to edit this morning)
• fatigue
• turbulent emotions
• a little bit of sleep deprivation—usually in the form of waking in the middle of the night and being unable to quickly drop back again. This happened at 4am today. My cure is to pick up my Kindle and read my fiction book. I dropped off quickly this morning with this strategy, only to wake again later when I rolled over and knocked my Kindle on the floor!
• stomach issues—I've seen my body in much worse shape, but transition for me usually comes with feelings of hunger, at times I shouldn't be hungry; indigestion/reflux; and often an upset tummy on the day of travel.
• often daily headaches: the result of muscle tension, loss of sleep, and later on, unfamiliar beds.

The only way to "fix" this is to move through the transition to the other side. So I'm getting to the point where I just want to go. But I am trying to be kind to myself, in part, by working hard to prepare beforehand, so there isn't a last-minute push to finish things. We've also been exercising and eating pretty well, and "chilling" in the evenings.

As I've said before, it's been three years since we've seen our eldest son in person. Because just before the pandemic, we let his dependent visa go and Japan hasn't been letting people on tourist visas in. To compound matters, getting to Australia has been very expensive for they had compulsory hotel quarantine for ever so long.

But in the last 18 months we've had weekly family video calls with him. It's been precious time, often two or three hours, of rambling conversation and online board games. And on Saturday we were able to sign off with the sweetest words: We'll hug you next Saturday at the airport!

Dwelling in the grey areas

My family are all into sci fi and fantasy. Oh, and action and super heroes. None of this is my natural bent. And I didn't grow up with brothers, or a dad who was into that kind of thing, so it's been challenging as my boys have grown older, because they clearly come alive when they're talking about these topics. If I've learned anything about parenting teenage boys, it's that seeking to engage with them in areas they're enthusiastic about is really important for maintaining a relationship with them that is beyond being just a basic caretaker. I've got no experience of parenting girls, but I suspect this is also helpful with them too. In our family, my husband's interests generally align with our boys, in terms of fictional genres, so it isn't so challenging for him as it is for me.

I've sat through many, many hours of movies that I would never have chosen. However, I'm now reaping the benefits of that, because I can have a semi-intelligent discussion with the boys on some of these topics!

I've learned, in my own way, to enjoy these movies. I look for the meta-story and themes, and let the details I don't understand just slide by. If I can, I try to pull together intelligent questions to ask the guys later (not during the movie!!!). If you like, I've learned to live with the grey of not understanding many of the details of the movies we've seen.

A cross-cultural worker, Linda, recently asked on her Facebook page about "ambiguity" and what comes to mind when her friends hear that word. My answer was:

Yesterday I had a conversation here in Tokyo with a fellow cross-cultural worker and we talked for quite a while about the "grey" we've learned to live with. Everything from not understanding everything around us in everyday life to spiritual matters (e.g. not being a member of the church we attend here and being a member of a church in our home country that we rarely attend).

These types of "grey" are an integral part of life in a foreign country. There's so much we don't understand about what's going on around us. I remember being stressed by a visitor we hosted from Australia in our early years who constantly asked "why" about what they saw around them. We simply didn't have many answers (and probably still don't).

This is one of 47 pieces of art
one from each prefecture of Japan.
I've included it here because not only is
it actually grey, but it's situated in the
grounds of a controversial shrine.
The Japanese equivalent of the
Australian War memorial. It's contro-
versial because it also enshrines
people convicted as war criminals and
where they are worshipped as deities.
Definitely a grey zone.

Can you see the parallels between these? Just as I've learned to live with not understanding a fair bit in some of the movies I watch with my boys, I've learned to live with not understanding a lot about Japan. I've also learned, in both areas, to focus on the "big picture" rather than get bogged down in the "small details". For example, before I came to Japan many of my friends were fairly similar to me in that they were mostly Australian and from a fairly narrow band of evangelical Christian background. Now I have friends and colleagues across a wide spectrum of nationalities and Christian beliefs and practices.

But living with the grey doesn't mean that I disengage my brain. I'm continuing to seek to understand and learn. And to live with the grey in a graceful manner. Learning when to speak and when to hold back and, as my cross-cultural friend, Linda said, "and trying not to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of it all."

We're preparing to head into a grey area that is going to be misunderstood by a lot of people. We're going to Australia for some holiday time and some "other leave" time. What we're doing is not a traditional home assignment, so we're not visiting groups to talk about Japan or what we do here. We're also not consciously seeking out friends to spend time with, it's too short a time to do much of that, though I'm sure that we will catch up with some close friends, or people who happen across our paths. 

The "other leave" is very murky and hard to explain, but especially relates to helping our sons with thinking about their futures. Those weeks are part of what we're calling "reconnaissance" for the next couple of years. I wrote a bit about that in this post in March. It will also contain things such as medical appointments and regular tests that we're due to have which are easier (or better) to do in Australia. Once we get there that murkiness is going to be even more in our faces as we try to explain (or decide how much we need to explain) to the people we encounter, that we're only in Australia for a limited period this time.

But my focus in these next couple of weeks is mostly preparing to put my work down: either handing on to others, or getting it to a place where I'm able to walk away from it for six weeks. I can't book many more appointments in Australia at this time. And we're praying: that our final piece of accommodation is able to be confirmed and that our Japanese visa extensions arrives before we leave.