Sun Hands

Well, I've found myself back in New Zealand, and it's not how I expected I'd feel about it. I took a look through my previous #personal posts and read through emails I sent to my lovers of the time, the last time I was here and the full circle is really hitting me of me being back here.

For context, I have returned back to the town I stayed in for that year I was an exchnage student, and I have landed a job at the University I studied at while here. And even more zoomed in, I am now the staff member for exchange students just as I was an exchange student at this University. I was quite excited to have landed the job working in the department that supports internatinal students and then to have landed an extended contract as the advisor for exchange students. This is exactly what I've been working for in my career in International Higher Ed ever since I was an intern at a study abroad company. I wanted to be the onsite staff for students. There is so much development and discovery that takes place in such a short time in a study abroad/exchange programme and I want to support that and foster it for students just as I was supported in my own development and discovery when I was overseas. I want to give back in the way I was provided for, which has always been my motivation in this industry.

I was appointed to this role by my manager, and in all honesty, who better to have taken it on? But I am growing in the role since it's been re-established after not having exchange students for years. But conextually, me being in this role, being that I was an exchange student made sense on the surface. But I recently had this hit me like a wave when I was reading through an email to my lover of the time. I expressed how excited I was to be attending an event to Hobbiton that was being put on for international students. I just led this trip this last weekend.

It is such a strange thing for me to be walking on the same campus, in the same buildings, hell using the same toilets I did when I was a student here. Seeing myself then and now (8 years between) it's like I see the ghost of me then pass by my current self. I am exisitng in the same place but in different time. The memory of meeting my now lover and husband outside of a little garden that I pass every day walking to campus. The memory of me chalking a poem on the ground outside of a cafe that I walk to every morning with my colleagues. The memory of the art gallery that is now a different student space. The memory of attending trips and now dirivng students to the same places I went. There is this sorrowful beauty in all of it; to know that I am no longer who I was then, but that is still a part of me and I'm somehow reexperiencing this daily while creating new memories.

This feeling of sorrow and grief is not how I expected I'd feel if I asked myself 8 years ago, how I'd be feeling about returning to Aotearoa. Myself then would have craved everything in the world to get back here as soon as possible as my reverse culture shock was so disorienting. I had sowed so many seeds that became scattered on the wind here and Rangi's rain cultivated in Papa's volcanic soils. But I return back and I can see the fruits of my labour then, but at the same time, much has withered away. Friends moved away, buildings changed, the garden is overgrown with no one to have kept it.

This sorrow, this grief is not what I expected. I left what I built in Arizona. I left a large part of myself there, my friends, and all of the growth and development I did to start and sustain a career, my Jewish journey and exploration, let alone my connection to the land. Also having left my parents on the otherside of the world. This all has weighed very heavily on me becuase it's not like this move is time-bound like my exchange previously. I was trying to cram in so much expereince in such a short time (9 months). This, this is permanent to start life here. To raise a family here. To live and experience life here.

I dealt with this by trying to control what I could, but time felt like it was falling from beneathe me. Everything moved by so quickly! I didn't have enough time to wrap up, to say goodbye, to feel like it was on my terms to have left. My logical brain, says "of course it was on you, you made this decision with Gavi, you planned for this." But my emotional brain says, "you didn't listen to me. You didn't let me have a say in this decision. I wouldn't have held you back from going, but I would have let you feel and acknowledge what you are leaving. The connection you feel and those you may not see again. To help you say goodbye to this place you've rooted yourself in".

This uprooting was so hard, especially to have left my Jewish community in the desert. My tears kept coming through stress cleaning, through driving to donate things, through conversations with those that supported me and this decision even when deep down I knew I was letting myself down by not acknowledging how I was feeling and kept powering through about what needed to be done to make it a reality.

Then the actual move, once the Air New Zealand plane left and we were in transit, I felt a bit lighter, even excited this was happening. That I was doing this with my husband and wouldn't want to do this with anyone else. And I only now see how much this really means in the scope of things being that 8 years ago, I was on the journey there and ultimately, my life was about to change to get me to that new moment of being on a plane with him to start life anew in this place he called home. But then we got 'home' to his parents house. And this was such a challenge.

I was already down trodden, destabalised, and uprooted. Moving in with my in-laws did not provide me the soil or noursihment needed to be able to start rooting myself here. In fact, it further destablised me and I have never felt as anxious and unlike myself ever in my life. I felt so distant and un-selfed (is the only way I can describe this). I was provided for, but I was not welcomed. I was mocked and spoken down to. My husband was belitttled before me. And tears kept coming but not for me necessarily. Yes for me in the suffocating situation, but moreso for how sad the situation was - how broken the household, the family, the realtionships. It still clutches me as I let myself feel how I felt then. All of this emotional manupulation under the guise of a prestine house hold that has it together. It is simply sad the trauma my in-laws have endoured and thin facade of having everything together. We are all broken. And we are all mending.

As I mend, by making friends on my own, by establishing myself in my career and finding meaning in my role, by supporting others, I feel more stable. I feel more rooted, even if shallowly. I am still adapting, to the wet, rainy, humid conditions. I know I will thrive longer term, but the transplant shock, I must work through. There is no turning back, I can't give myself that option at this point. I must proceed forward through the challenge, for facing it, acknowledging it will allow the growth.