- The visit to Chapters in Vancouver New Years Day 2003, buying a guidebook, and discussing the idea at the White Egg breakfast place on Robson street.
- A hike in West Seattle to a split rail fence overlooking the Sound from a break in the trees near Colman Pool area when we were trying to lay out how things would work when we got there, and not being able to say much more than "well I guess something will work out right?"
- The Chilean consulate's house when he told us there's no way we'll get a job and be able to stay so why are you even trying for a residence visa.
- Looking around the fresh air of Seattle and thinking how Santiago was going to be just huge, and polluted, and while there would be amazing outdoor activities nearby the city aspect of our existence was going to be massively urban, crowded and dirty and oh well.
We married on March 5 and I went down on March 17 alone for a couple weeks until Cassandra finished up at Microsoft at the end of the month. I landed a job at the news agency that facilitated a work visa and the ability to sign a long term lease on an apartment. She arrived in April and we moved into our new place and started life as a couple together in a foreign society. Over the next year and a half we worked our tails off (Jay as a tech newsire journalist and Cassandra as a wine marketer), made a small but strong group of friends, and checked off our list items of things like climbing 6000M volcanoes, snuggling up to a Moai on Easter Island and learning Tango in Buenos Aires.
Ever the planners, a year in we met after work one afternoon at a small city park off Apoquindo Avenue near El Golf metro and discussed where things were going. The topic was the effort of developing our jobs into long term, beefy professional careers here versus moving back and doing it in America. Being a lifer expat newsire journalist was the obvious path for me, but we'd realized that the course wasn't exactly where I wanted to focus things. From her standpoint, working for a startup winery was a great education but economically not ideal since it was mostly volunteer.
The "program" (our lives in Chile) would have changed to a two-five year commitment that would mean a different type of life there, namely less travel and more scrimping. The newswire job was stressful and would continue to be so for another couple years until I could elevate to an editor position. Which might still have been stressful. While stress is a part of a successful career, this type of stress for this particular career at the (by American standards) anemic salary level all started to wear on us. Although we loved the identity we'd built around ourselves as newlywed expats, maybe it was better to go back to better-paid careers that could facilitate a future expat jobs with better progression options. We picked a closing date for the experience and starting booking tickets to see the remaining pieces of South America we'd thus far missed, which we calculated would take around three months. (We didn't want to miss anything).
It was like breaking up a relationship with a wonderful person for non-obvious reasons. When you are already in the expat world, you tend to think that getting back there again is no problem. It is kind of like dating people in college: you are not concerned with what the scene will look like afterwards because you've never really known anything other than an abundance of decent options. You don't realize what happens after graduation, when nearly all suitable dating prospects suddenly disappear into never-ever land. After our return, we would realize that years can easily pass before some company presents you with the option to do something abroad again. Basically, never, unless you are looking for it and willing to give up lots of America stuff in exchange.
Coming back also carried its baggage of second guessing ourselves on the whole decision: wow, you had a JOB in Chile that wasn't physically dangerous and paid a decent Chilean salary and you ended up back here working ho-hum technical marketing jobs at Microsoft? What?
And then the return "re-patriation" process was nearly as much of an adjustment as going in the first place:
Ever the planners, a year in we met after work one afternoon at a small city park off Apoquindo Avenue near El Golf metro and discussed where things were going. The topic was the effort of developing our jobs into long term, beefy professional careers here versus moving back and doing it in America. Being a lifer expat newsire journalist was the obvious path for me, but we'd realized that the course wasn't exactly where I wanted to focus things. From her standpoint, working for a startup winery was a great education but economically not ideal since it was mostly volunteer.
The "program" (our lives in Chile) would have changed to a two-five year commitment that would mean a different type of life there, namely less travel and more scrimping. The newswire job was stressful and would continue to be so for another couple years until I could elevate to an editor position. Which might still have been stressful. While stress is a part of a successful career, this type of stress for this particular career at the (by American standards) anemic salary level all started to wear on us. Although we loved the identity we'd built around ourselves as newlywed expats, maybe it was better to go back to better-paid careers that could facilitate a future expat jobs with better progression options. We picked a closing date for the experience and starting booking tickets to see the remaining pieces of South America we'd thus far missed, which we calculated would take around three months. (We didn't want to miss anything).
It was like breaking up a relationship with a wonderful person for non-obvious reasons. When you are already in the expat world, you tend to think that getting back there again is no problem. It is kind of like dating people in college: you are not concerned with what the scene will look like afterwards because you've never really known anything other than an abundance of decent options. You don't realize what happens after graduation, when nearly all suitable dating prospects suddenly disappear into never-ever land. After our return, we would realize that years can easily pass before some company presents you with the option to do something abroad again. Basically, never, unless you are looking for it and willing to give up lots of America stuff in exchange.
Coming back also carried its baggage of second guessing ourselves on the whole decision: wow, you had a JOB in Chile that wasn't physically dangerous and paid a decent Chilean salary and you ended up back here working ho-hum technical marketing jobs at Microsoft? What?
And then the return "re-patriation" process was nearly as much of an adjustment as going in the first place:
- Goodbye to Marie Luz and family at the airport, getting driven there by Geovann and his two adorable kids, the anomita the Cristina installed at my workstation at BNA to signify my passing, like they do on roadsides in the Atacama to mark the place where someone died.
- Sitting on the plane believing it is what we should do yet wondering if it would turn into one of those decisions that we'd regret later.
- Going to Target with Nick & Em to buy curtain rods for our new apartment on Queen Anne, dropping $300 on the setup, and going into deep depression because of what we knew we could do with even that amount of money in Latin America from a life experience standpoint.
- Unpacking the stuff from storage - happy to uncover belongings we'd long forgotten about, but being slightly bittersweet because look what we gave up to get our shoe collection back.
- The nostalgia piece of listening to Chile songs, constructing the year in review photobook, stumbling past the dates when we knew we were missing out on things happening there: Fiestas Patrias, Pascua, etc.
- Regretting not learning Spanish as well as I should have.
- Looking at updated city metro maps and noting that the subway now extends beyond our old terminus at Escuela Militar, and seeing that the shitty old yellow deathtrap busses were being replaced by a new clean and efficient system. The Santiago we knew and actually liked was moving on beginning the day we left and we were not a part of it any longer.
- Gazing at the Chilean National Parks poster and forming a plan to return to those places to photograph them with a real camera. Someday in the dim, indiscernible future.
Ultimately the experience grew as a part of us that we were immensely happy with undertaking. Yet by its very immensity, it mocked us for being home in the US and not pursuing something similar. We processed these feelings with friends who were still there, or others who ended up back in America, but most of these conversations were just weep sessions and did not result in any action. Many US friends became understandably bored with such claptrap within the first 30 seconds. We knew what we were capable of and yet here we are in America working the same B.S marketing tech jobs that we had beforehand.
This was our first experience with the life paradox that faces all expats that you end up missing things from everywhere, ensuring you can't be totally happy anywhere. When you are abroad you miss friends at home. When back home you miss things like training down to Paris for the weekend.
This was our first experience with the life paradox that faces all expats that you end up missing things from everywhere, ensuring you can't be totally happy anywhere. When you are abroad you miss friends at home. When back home you miss things like training down to Paris for the weekend.
Fully aware of this conundrum, we accepted it and still looked towards far horizons of doing it again. Which became hard with a new mortgage, house projects and then children. Honestly it had started to fade as a realistic thing we could take advantage of - clearly we'd need to go with a company job this time, but that was looking nearly impossible, especially for Europe. "Going DIY" was another option, but that would also mean taking another career risk which may not be a good idea the older you get. But with things going so well at work, we know how all that goes.
Why am I writing this? The time before during and after the Chile experience was one of the most closely observed and scrutinized period of our pre-kid relationship, mostly because it was so wild and romantic. As we prep for another similar experience, I look around and wonder how this time will be reflected upon in the same way or level of intensity. These things are such huge bookends for your life.
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