Category Archives: Living away from home

Old Timer

Talking to some recently arrived expats this weekend, it occurred to me that as we hurtle towards the six year mark, we really have been in Dubai quite a long time. An unbelievable amount has changed, so much so that you forget what a dinky little town it still was when we first got here in the Spring of 2006. In fact when we first came to visit, six years ago next month, the Madinat was pretty much brand new, as was the Mall of the Emirates, including the famed Ski Dubai. Everyone was very, very excited about these projects, heralding as they did a new era for Dubai and the start of the boom years. But that was pretty much all there was to get excited about. Downtown Dubai, including the Burj Khalifa, had barely broken ground. There was no sign of a Metro system. Gotham City (aka JBR) was just a glint in the eye of the developers, and in fact barely any of Dubai Marina was built at all. The ‘Original Six’ as they are known to residents of the high rises in the area, were pretty much the ‘only six’ – very few of the other towers that now occupy that part of the Marina were finished, and at the far end there was nothing but empty plots. There were no celebrity chefs (Gordon Ramsay excepted, a pioneer by all accounts), no designer hotels, and certainly no Waitrose.

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa in August 2006

Sheikh Zayed Road may seem daunting to newcomers now but back then it was an actual racetrack which required nerves of steel to negotiate. There was no slow lane on the SZR and no lane discipline (well that still applies). But there were also no speed cameras, meaning no speed limit – just seven lanes of high-speed terror with cars veering wildly to cut in front of you at 180km/hr whilst their drivers sent text messages or read the paper or did their make up. I vividly remember the first time I drove the SZR on my own to go the 40min journey from the Marina to my teacher training college in Bur Dubai (basically one end of Dubai to the other). By the time I arrived I was in such a sweat and had cramp in my hands from gripping the wheel so hard, I swore never again, and in fact I avoided driving that way altogether for the next 9 months.

Roads have altered so much they are barely recognisable to what they were a mere half a decade ago. In fact quite often there was no road. You would be headed to a destination and it would just run out, or the road that had been there the day before would have been moved or blocked, and you had no idea where it had gone or how to get to where you wanted to go. Everything (and I mean everything) was covered in cones and red and white stripey tape and there was yet to be a population explosion of ‘Flag Man’ to warn you of impending road changes that may or may not be life-threatening. I remember one time getting lost and the road running out, and having to turn around to get out –  due to a complete lack of signage or security we nearly backed into a 30++ foot deep hole that is now something very tall in Media city.

Everything seemed much further apart because the bits in the middle hadn’t been filled in with shops and houses and office blocks. Driving out to Arabian Ranches was like driving to the end of the world, via the world’s most terrifying roundabout – all six lanes of it with no traffic lights and no speed limit made for a pretty exhilarating experience- now replaced by an extremely civilised (if somewhat dull in comparison) interchange.

There were no fountains to rival the Bellagio, no tallest building in the world, no reclaimed land that could be seen from space. When we first visited in December 2005, the Palm was still being dredged up and the view from the coast was actually of the sea rather than of the twinkly lights of villas and the imposing archway of the Atlantis, although admittedly even then the faint hum of the dredgers was audible and the first cranes had already taken up residence on the trunk.

People were different too. The expat community was only just beginning to explode and many western expats were old-timers who had come to Dubai in the good old days when it really was still a hardship posting. It was like the 80s had never left, the men with mullet hair and every other woman dressed as either Felicity Kendall, Princess Di or Barbie, or some sort of hideous combination of the three. With only 200,000 western expats in the entire city, and a relative handful of places to hang out, everyone looked familiar wherever you went, largely because they were. Old timers and newcomers were definitely two very different breeds though.  I reckon the community spirit probably left Dubai around the time we arrived. The new generation that arrived were fast, flashy and hungry – and ever so slightly greedy. I secretly think that it didn’t suit the old school at all, to have their quiet little tax free haven destroyed by the new kids on the block.

Accommodation was scarce and competition fierce as the mass influx of new expats continued. Not like today where every other street has properties for rent or for sale. As they flooded in by the thousands, newcomers were actively encouraged to reside in the newly finished (or not quite finished) areas of ‘New Dubai’ rather than the older, more worn but ultimately better located villas of Jumeirah and Umm Sequim. Landlords charged what they wanted and changed the rules as they pleased. A law was passed to cap rents for three years in row just to try and control the problem of rent inflation. Odd to conceive of now that there was a time where you considered yourself lucky to get the apartment you actually wanted rather than it going to a person who saw it half an hour before you did.

Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates, is c...

…and five years on in all it's glory

Back then I was also blogging, and I took some time out from writing this post to go back and revisit the ‘me’ of 2006, to get a sense of what it was like to be new again. ‘Rather over-excited’ would be my summary. It’s weird, because all I remember is being dreadfully, desperately homesick, but if you read my blog it sounds like I am having the most amazing time ever! I suppose that sums up the whole experience really – a thrilling and daring adventure to be in this place that was growing by the day, and so full of new things to see and do – but at the same time horribly lonely for friends and family. It’s interesting to see how much of the landscape of Dubai has changed since then, and yet to realise not much has changed at all in terms of our life – there are still enormously exciting and unique opportunities and experiences to be had here, and yet the comfort and familiarity of ‘home’ is still the thing I miss on a near-daily basis.  Talking to my friends who are new to the life of expatriatedom, it’s easy to see they are in the full throes of being ‘new’ and it’s really refreshing and rather sweet to observe, because they don’t have years of the annoying stuff about living here to bury before they can be excited about it. They are completely ignorant of some of the more important things they should know, like what will get you put in jail, for example – but at the same time in that period where the culture, the landscape and the history is something to be immersed in before the day to day drudgery of normal life takes over and living here becomes like living anywhere else except with inconvenient dress codes, crap broadband and a longer commute to see your mum.

But honestly, how amazing will it be one day to look back on our time here and know that we watched a city be built around us. It might be difficult and painful at times to live here, and to live away from home, but I guess with a little help from the Newbies, we should be reminded from time to time that it is, as the billboards of Burj Khalifa’s building site used to say, ‘History Rising’.

Miles and miles and miles and miles away

How can I write this only a few days on from my last post? Don’t ask me. It’s like a bloody rollercoaster being me.

My baby niece, born 6.5 weeks early, was allowed home yesterday. This is amazing after only two weeks of being in the ICU, and I am so very proud of my sis for coping so well, she is so happy to have her baby home with her at last. However, it would appear I’m not coping quite as well. I find myself on the verge of tears this morning as I think about the fact that I won’t see this little wonder, won’t get to hold her in my arms or hug my sister and my brother in law for another two months. Why? Because I am in Dubai, and she is in New York, and that’s 2 continents, 14 hours and God knows how many time zones away. It’s not that I can’t visit, but I suspect house guests are pretty much at the bottom of their list of things to think about right now. Not that that’s stopping me from gazing at Expedia trying to figure out the maximum amount of time I can get with them for the minimum amount of time away from my own little boy.

And so, not for the first time, I am sitting here wishing, wishing, wishing I wasn’t quite so far away. Thinking that a seven hour flight would have been a piece of cake. That I wouldn’t have to wait until tonight to see my niece on skype for the first time, because last night due to the time difference I was already in bed and missed their homecoming. That I would be home in the UK, just a car drive away, when she flew home to visit the family for the first time. It really hurts to miss all these things, and as hard as I am trying to keep my chin up about it all, I’m very sad.

It brings back painful memories for me too, of having my own son miles away from family and friends, and of my inability to cope and subsequent depression that went undiagnosed and unrecognised but I realise now, was not just a normal reaction to having a baby. The feelings I had back then rise to the surface like an old wound, shrouding me in darkness. I can feel the terrible, consuming loneliness I felt then, all over again.

How many moments have we missed by being here? Not the every day moments, but the ones that you can’t ever get back. It makes me sad to count. I missed my grandad’s funeral. I wasn’t there when my friend’s mum died suddenly, and I should have been. I missed another one of my best friend’s weddings (actually make that two weddings – same friend – that’s how long we’ve been gone for). I missed my own step-sister’s wedding too for that matter. I’ve missed visiting countless new born babies, and they all missed visiting mine. I can still count on one hand the number of visitors we had the first six weeks after my son was born. No making endless cups of tea for me, oh no. And now I’m missing those babies growing up too, and I want them to know me. I want my son to know his baby cousin, and to grow up playing with her in parks and on beaches and around the Christmas tree. I don’t want to miss any more.

Someone asked me yesterday what, if I could, would I change about my life? ‘Location’ was my immediate response. I had to think for a second if I really meant it, but in the end I decided that yes, rationally it is the only thing in life that makes me repeatedly unhappy. I simply do not want to be here. It’s not that Dubai is all bad. My last post bears witness to how good life can be here. Our quality of life is amazing, the weather is perfect (for now) and I have built a life here, which is a good life, not matter how much I gripe about it. But family and friends, they are what makes a place ‘home’. Being away from them is unbearable when confronted with the reality of missing something really important.

I wonder if my sister will feel the same. She is, after all, an expat herself. I hope that she will be better at coping and less of a train wreck, for her sake. One thing is for sure, I will be driving her mad keep asking her if she’s ok until I see her and can reassure myself that she is doing fine. And until I do I will try to content myself with skype-ing and phone calls and photographs and remember that there will be more moments, hundreds more, that I won’t miss, and to cherish them and remember how lucky I am to have them when they do finally come.

Here we go again

dubai international airport

Image via Wikipedia

Well I hate to break a month of silence with anything less than a gushing post about how fantastic my time away was (because it really, really was amazing), but my goodness, I’m lonely. In a future-self kind of way, because it hasn’t been a nearly long enough period of time since arriving home in Dubai to accumulate anything like the depth of emotion I am feeling about it. But we got back on Thursday, my husband returned to work on Sunday, and for the first time in nearly two months I feel as if I am faced with nothing to do and no-one to see or talk to or spend the day with. My handful of friends here has, as is customary, depleted in stock over the summer. Of those that are left it’s a lottery as to who will run the course for the next 12 months. Returning from a long break away it’s sometimes difficult to pick up expat friendships where they left off, and often its the case that people who were slowly falling off the radar before the summer hiatus simply don’t bother to reinstate themselves and quietly revert to the occasional Facebook message or ‘How are you? It’s been AGES’ text.

But the fact of the matter is that for the whole summer I’ve luxuriated in having family and friends on tap, making arrangements almost every day with different people and going to a whole variety of venues where both I and my son can enjoy ourselves. My husband has been on holiday with us for nearly three weeks and so despite an awful lot of packing and unpacking and travelling around, I have been able, in the interim, to relax and spend some daylight hours being ‘me’ rather than just ‘mummy’. I’ve had a whole load of people to talk to and laugh with and since we’ve been back I feel like I’ve gone social cold turkey. With just a very grumpy, disoriented, jet lagged two year old for company. And it’s not a good feeling after so many weeks of living life full to the brim.

I am hoping that the start of school next week will bring some relief, at least to the ‘who’s going to meltdown first’ battle that my son and I are currently locked in. And of course the weather will start to cool off as well which means that we can go outside again for more than a 20 minute sauna just before the sun goes down. I will settle down and get used to the idea of being here again, which of course is the main reason I am feeling so out of sorts. And my life will build itself up again from nothing, the same as it does each year I return. Already, in the 24 hours since I started writing this post, I’ve had a job offer and been asked to appear in a play, (pretty cool eh?!) so I know that it’s only a matter of time before life gets busy again. And it’s a fact that the Dubai die-hards – actually anyone who’s been here longer than two years will do – will come back from their summers with new incentives, new ideas and hopefully ready to make some new friends because all their old ones left. (Tip: if you’re leaving Dubai, maybe you’d care to run some sort of friend speed-dating event before you go so that all the people you leave behind can benefit from your social network?) Newbies will arrive fresh faced and starry-eyed waiting to pick our brains at the school run. And you never know, somewhere along the line I might just become friends with a few to fill the gaps of those who are gone. The hamster wheel that is Dubai life goes around once more. And despite my reluctance to get involved yet again, I will grit my teeth, jump on and run as fast as my little legs will go, in the hope that the loneliness subsides as quickly as it came.

The real thing

After a three week sabbatical I finally have enough time and energy to attempt a blog post, although the keyboard on the ipad (or lack thereof) plus the predictive text that i cant seem to turn off may mean it’s a fairly short one.

We have so far completed two weeks in Essex and one in a gloriously sunny London. 4.30am starts due to jet lag lag were quickly replaced by a series of sleepless nights sharing a room with my son, who sleeps with all the peaceful qualities of a ferret with touretts and has apparently developed the tendency to shout out loud in the middle of the night in order to induce a heart attack in anyone within a 5 mile vicinity. As lovely as it was to get a mummy cuddle every morning at 5.30am I am rather glad he has his own room for the remainder of our travels.

So after a fortnight of relaxing in the countryside catching up with friends and spending time with family, we are now in London for another two weeks of what currently feels like a drinkathon crossed with a string of near continuous playdates. Due to rather too much fun and not enough sleep, the bags under my eyes have stretched as far as my cheekbones. My husband is lamenting on a daily basis that I should have really built some rest time into my schedule, but I feel like I can’t waste a single precious minute. Being in London is, quite simply put, my homecoming. I feel like a different person, peeling back the layers of my life like a giant onion as I meet up with friends from school, college, work and that great big ‘other’ category that makes up the most fabulous collection of friends imaginable. It makes me remember who I am, why I am, and how I am. The simplest pleasures – strolling in the sunshine, pubs that spill into the street, fresh vegetables, old buildings, running in the shade of a tree lined park – even the rain, it all feels like a magical moment I want to capture in a box and take with me back to the desert so that any time I am down I can open it up and get this feeling of contentedness again. I miss London so much I ache. I didn’t realise it until we got here, but it’s very plainly highlighted how rich our lives still are here versus Dubai. As individuals, sure, but also as a couple. We simply have so many more friends due to that onion effect, and whilst we might be trying to cram in a year’s worth of socialising into two weeks it does give a very accurate insight into how our lives would be now if we were here. And do I ever miss it.

But it’s not just all me, me, me. I’m amazed and aghast at how different life is for my son here too. Firsts for him include bus rides, train rides, black cab rides, getting muddy, sleeping in a bed (any bed, and not even being remotely weird about it), running headlong down a hill in a park twice as large as anything he’s ever seen, having other men in his life apart from his dad, being given a coin for visiting someone (remember that?), watching the Heathrow flight path for big airplanes, playdates that don’t get cancelled, cbeebies (genius, whoever you are, thank you), getting soaked in the rain, getting a pink nose from the sun, eating ketchup, roast potatoes, and proper sausages, feeding grandad’s fish, hiding in tunnels/under trees/in tents with nanna, and calling his mummy silly and funny, because for once she is relaxed and actually being silly and funny. And I ache for him too, that he will be deprived of all this again much too soon. I didn’t appreciate that I’m not the only one with a relatively lonely existence when we are in Dubai.

Most people have asked us when we will come back. We don’t have a definitive answer but I know that this trip, even though its only halfway gone, has certainly been definitive in terms of wanting to. To turn our backs on all of this life would be impossible. It requires further pondering than my time or brain will currently allow, but it occurs to me it’s not our lack of life in Dubai which is the thing that makes me sad, even though this is what has bothered me most in recent times. It’s knowing how full it could be, how rich it should be, that drives me away from Dubai and makes me green with envy for my other self in this other life I am determined we will live again soon for longer than a few precious weeks a year.
Conversely this realisation doesn’t make me resent going back. Although I might feel differently in a few weeks. But it does inject a strange sort of drive in me to take action and get my life in gear when we do arrive home because I’ve remembered what it should feel like and I need to try and find it no matter where I am. But my desired end goal of leaving Dubai is sadly reinforced. A bit like Pepsi, life there certainly tastes good, but it just can’t compete with the real thing.

Leeeea-ving on a jet plane…

BA 747. Taken from the jump seat of an ATR72 d...

Image via Wikipedia

And so, the countdown begins. With a few days to go until we leave Dubai for the summer, they can’t go fast enough and yet I need them to be an extra hour longer to get everything done. My suitcase lingers half full waiting for the ironing pile to make its way inside. I have a two page packing list for my son’s case which will be done over the weekend. The hand luggage will be stuffed to bursting on Sunday night and I’ll spend the next day sweating and swearing about how much crap I put inside when I have to carry a rucksack full of toys, a nappy bag and a toddler the inevitable 14 mile walk from the plane to passport control at Gatwick airport.

I have mixed feelings about leaving for seven weeks. On the one hand, we are leaving our home, our cats, our routine. I am supremely stressed about the travel, as always, which will be a trial from start to finish with no-one to help me. Then there are the sleeping arrangements for my son to worry about, who has grown out of his travel cot and will sleep in a bed for the first time when we reach the UK. I have little hope that I will get much sleep for the first week whilst he simultaneously recovers from jet lag and discovers he can get out of his bed and into mine with no barriers. Due to weeks and weeks of confinement inside, we are worn out, pasty white and have been constantly sick with something or another, and I’m so damn exhausted from trying to keep this stupid super-sized house clean (the maid is away as well) that I have no hope of not completely losing the plot within 48 hours of us landing. Probably at my mother or my son or both. So apologies to both of you in advance, it’s nothing personal – it’s just I’m knackered before I even start this travel marathon, and part of me wishes I could check into a spa for a week instead and be left alone to sleep and read magazines whilst being massaged until my muscles fall off.

On the other hand…I’m going home. To Essex and clean fresh air and green fields and friends and family, to watch my son run around a garden made of real grass with the people who matter most. To London to hang out in pubs and bars and restaurants in cobbled streets that smell of tramp (who knew you could miss that smell). To New York where I leave a little bit of my heart every time we visit. To Massachusetts, to reunite with my husband’s family after a full year apart and play on the beaches and relax to the sound of the ocean. Seven weeks doesn’t seem long enough to get my fix of all of this before I have to head back to the desert. It makes my heart ache thinking about how little time I actually have to soak it all up, and take everybody and everything in before we return. Despite being back for so long, I’m seeing most people only once because there simply isn’t time for any more. It breaks my heart having to cram in all our news, laughter, and enjoyment of eachother into one evening and that be enough to last me until, well, who knows when.

I will, of course, make my annual attempt to persuade everyone to come and visit us sometime over the winter. Despite all my gripes about living here, Dubai is a truly great place to come on holiday and I love having our friends and family visit because as well as the fact that they always have a really good time, I like to think it gives an insight into our lives here, and helps them to know us better as we spend more and more years away. I love seeing our friends and family in a relaxed environment where they are not running off to work, and having the time to spend reconnecting that I don’t get on trips home because there are just so many people to spread myself around. It also helps cure the homesickness during the long periods we are in Dubai, to see a familiar face or two and catch up with the day to day back home.

But even with visitors to support us in our quest to keep up, we do miss things and the summer is our chance to make sure we haven’t been forgotten about entirely. I can’t wait and yet I need to put up some emotional barriers to stop me from feeling too much or I’ll never be able to leave. I know everyone’s going to tell me about traffic jams and rain and cold and no housemaids and financial crises and how nobody sees eachother anyway and I know that seven weeks of summer isn’t real life, I really do. But it is my life, fast tracked into less than two months, that I would usually live over the course of a year, and it’s a rush and a downer at the same time, to know it’s all I’ve got.

The next blog entry will no doubt be from somewhere a long way west of here. However it’s fair to say that I plan to make the most of my summer and therefore you won’t find me sitting at a computer that often. With any luck those who have substituted talking to me or emailing me with reading this (and I have had at least two admissions that this is the case – one from my own sister!) will prefer the live version and forgive the slow-down in production. For the rest of you, I’m sure there will be plenty to read come September when I’m sulking about being back in Dubai. Wishing you a all a wonderful summer, just like mine is going to be. Bring it on.

Having It All: Part I

cupcakes!

Image by egg on stilts via Flickr

So what news? Well this week saw the resurrection of a potential business idea that I had put to bed a few months ago due to prohibitive start up costs and the fact that I didn’t actually want to go to work. I mean this literally. I want to work, I just don’t want to go to work. There is a big difference, I now realise, between these two statements. When I say I want to work, it means I want to exercise my brain, interact with a diverse group of people, have responsibility, do something vaguely meaningful and preferably get paid for it. When I say I do not want to go to work, I mean I do not want to put my little boy into full time daycare, get in a car and commute to an office, take four weeks annual leave a year and use it traipsing around the world visiting relatives instead of having a proper holiday, and spend my whole time wishing I was at home instead of missing out on my son’s formative years and paying a nanny to enjoy them instead.

“Why don’t you go back to teaching?” my friends cry. They have a point. I taught for two years in Dubai before I had my son and I loved it. I’m not sure I would like it quite so much now though. Teaching has the holidays, there is no doubt about that, but if you want to be a good teacher, it involves working full time hours even if only part of that is spent in the classroom. Many mothers returning to work do a three or four day week but teaching, particularly nursery school teaching, requires that you are there all five days and that’s not even counting the prep time, staff meetings and other extra-curricular activities like report writing and curriculum planning. It makes no sense at all to me I’m afraid. What is the point in putting my son into school five mornings a week at the age of two and then having no time for him in the afternoons either, solely because I’m busy nurturing other people’s children for a pittance of a pay packet?
There is also the social aspect to consider. Working as a teacher does not exactly provide much adult interaction, and as every stay at home mum will attest, adult interaction is the thing that is missing the most from life when you quit work to have a baby. For the sake of my (and everyone else’s) sanity I cannot teach 3 year olds all day and then come home to a toddler. You have to be a special kind of person to be able to do that and I’m not one of them. I miss people – big people – and teaching would not fulfil my aim to one day have more to talk about than children, mine or anyone else’s. I firmly believe that at this time in my son’s life and mine, I can either be a great teacher or a great mum, but I simply can’t be both.

I could, of course, sit and do nothing. For the past few months since my son began nursery, three mornings a week this is exactly the art I have been perfecting. It’s why I started writing, because I have the time and wanted to kickstart my babybrain again after far too long away from anyone over the age of two. But how long I can sit and do nothing for? I’m not particularly good at doing nothing. Gradually, and without me noticing, it plunges me into a depression and I get lonely and bored and end up spending far too much money. On the other hand three mornings a week really isn’t an awful lot to play with. There are always things that need to be done. ‘Nothing’ always turns into ‘something’. I rarely sit with a coffee and a magazine in my hand during this precious ‘me’ time, but I do go to the gym, I do get to shop for shoes and have coffee with friends, and now I’m thinking about adding in yoga or tennis into the mix. All of which is good for the soul but there is this niggling thought forming that I really should be doing something else like….working.

I remember arriving in Dubai five years ago. I was busy settling into life here and not quite ready to start job hunting. Me and my only friend at the time (another ex-career woman turned Trailing Spouse) decided to hit the social scene full on and went to an ‘Expat Woman’ coffee morning. We arrived at 10am on a Tuesday to find the cafe literally teaming with glossy, tanned, air-kissing women clad uniformly in white jeans who, without exception, ignored us completely. We didn’t make any friends that day but I do remember saying over and over “What the hell do these women do all day long??” So ignorant was I back then of how to be gainfully unemployed. In fact, I myself remained jobless for nearly six months and became something of an expert, turning down all manner of things I didn’t want to do before deciding to retrain. Despite the fact that it was my choice, those six months were the most boring and depressing of my life. When I look back I realise that taking one of those jobs, even if I didn’t want it, may have changed the way I felt about Dubai and living abroad completely. It could have instantly given me friends, a life of my own, financial independence and meaning – all the things I felt got ripped away from me when we left the UK and some of which I am still lacking. I don’t want to make the same mistake again five years on.

But it’s different now. I’m not used to going to work any more, I haven’t worked for two years at all and I’ve not set foot in an office for five. I feel desperately out of touch with things and sense that I’m dangerously close to becoming one of those women at the coffee morning. I feel as if I’m virtually unemployable in the traditional sense, along with thousands of other women I’m sure, who take an elongated leave of absence for one reason or another. Sometimes when I’m in a really dark place it kills me to think of all those years I spent working my butt off to get ahead and I blew it by getting on a plane. Then I think of how I retrained, learnt how to study again, took exams and passed them and then did something I loved for two years and I don’t feel so bad. But there is a big blank space when I start to think about what to do next. Maybe working for myself is the answer.

I’m sure – in fact I know – that a lot of women feel this way after they’ve had children. That’s why there are so many who start their own businesses – interior designers/wedding photographers/cupcake companies – it’s a way to return to work without going to work, to do something you enjoy so that at least when it’s taking up all your time and you’re working into the small hours in order to spend tomorrow afternoon taking the kids to the park, it will seem worth it. It’s tempting to join them, but I worry that the market for ‘mumtrepreneurs’ is becoming saturated, particularly in the more creative fields which is where my experience, skills and interests lie. Of course, the way my friends approach the competition is to be really good at what they do. I guess it doesn’t matter how many people do what you do if you’re the best one at it. These amazing, talented, driven women are my role models who make me feel like I want to stand up, get out and join them.

So now all I need to figure out is what to do. I have one idea that would work nicely in Dubai and someone who is vaguely interested in making it become a reality. The problem is I don’t know whether I should commit to it. Firstly I keep thinking I should make the most of the short time I have to enjoy the early years with my son and worry about what I’m going to do when he’s older. I’m just not sure I will last that long without getting really bored or bankrupting us. The other, slightly larger elephant in the room is the question of how long we will be in Dubai for. Should I make the effort to start something new only to move just as it starts to take off? Worse still, what if it’s successful and I get too comfortable here and don’t want to leave? I can’t believe that is actually a consideration, it sounds ridiculous,but it’s true. We don’t know how long we will be here for and I find it very hard to put that aside and ‘go for it’. It is really difficult to contemplate the idea that I would have to abandon my career again – or worse still, my business.

So maybe alongside the Dubai plan I need to think on a more global scale and choose a path that can lead anywhere, or a business that will travel. As a Trailing Spouse and Wife of a Foreigner this is the most sensible option as it gives me the flexibility I need to pick up and put down whenever and wherever. So, here you go, all you recruitment specialists out there, I know there must be something that will fit the bill:

Wanted: Part-time entrepreneurial global business idea with low to no start up costs required for experienced manager with commitment issues.  Must be financially and emotionally rewarding and fulfil both the creative and organisational aspects of my skill set. Must allow for approximately 12 weeks of travel per year and not interfere with quality time, either with my child or myself. I cannot bake cakes but I would like to have mine and eat it.

I eagerly await your response.

Wherever I lay my hat…

A contemporary Tibetan nomadic tent near Namts...

Image via Wikipedia

Confusion reigns supreme. After a fortnight spent in the UK, I am once again no longer sure if I have been home or if I’ve just arrived back there. I am finally sleeping in a comfortable bed again but long for the fresh cool air I’ve left behind. I have my own kitchen back but I miss my mum. I am happy to be home and yet miss it terribly. In my final act of abandonment I’ve swapped SIM cards and am in some sort of communication purgatory – my friends in the UK no longer sms me, but the Dubai ones don’t know I’m back yet, if indeed they ever noticed I was gone. The cats appear to share my quandary: one minute howling at me for daring to return to what they have officially claimed as their territory in our absence, the next cuddling up and leaving me covered in fur.

Two weeks isn’t a long time. People go on holiday for 2 weeks all the time and I know when you come home it always feels a bit weird. (And sometimes it smells funny too but I bet no-one except me will admit that.) But you open your mail, unpack, stick the heating back on, download your photos and then get up and go to work the next day and life springs back to normal (and you don’t notice the smell any more either). Trouble is for me, my normal isn’t normal. This week, after I’ve unpacked, I’ll be starting the whole thing over, because in 8 weeks we leave Dubai again, this time for the whole summer. It takes an extraordinary amount of logistical planning to leave your home for a whole season, particularly if you are incredibly stupid and married a foreigner. In total, we will be gone for 7 weeks, staying in 6 different locations across 2 continents and flying a total of 28 hours and God knows how many miles. I will be arranging our diary for the trip, coordinating family and friends in Essex, Herts, Surrey, London, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. I will make plans to see friends travelling from several different states and some from entirely different countries, in addition to attending a wedding, seeing a new baby and celebrating my birthday – all with a 2 year old in tow. I have to think about potty training and big boy beds and whether it’s easier to stick to nappies and cots or try toilets and bedguards. And how do I travel with a cot? Or a bedguard? Or a potty for that matter? How do I carry it all by myself? I need to book cars and taxis and trains and porters to get us from airport to airport and all the bits inbetween without me breaking my back or being committed. I need to pack for warm weather, cool weather, wet weather and beach weather. I need to do online food shopping for the self-catered parts of the trip and book babysitters in 3 different cites. I have to figure out whether to hold a birthday party for my little boy in each country so that everyone gets to celebrate or just leave it until we get back because he’ll never remember it anyway. I can’t even start to think about the effects of this nomadic lifestyle on him because if it takes it toll anywhere near as much on him as it does on me I fear it will scar him for life. I’m exhausted just thinking about it all and I haven’t even got over my jet lag from the last trip yet.

But it has to be done. Why? Because on top of being 45 degrees in the shade, Dubai summers are notoriously lonely. Everyone who can, leaves. For as long as they can. Which pretty much means every Trailing spouse and their many Trailing kids are shipped out just after school finishes and arrive back just in time to get over the jet lag before they go back.

Of course there are exceptions to this rule. Newbies, who think the summer ‘won’t be that bad’, generally plan to stay for most of the summer with a few weeks’ break in the middle. And some people maintain ‘it’s not that hot’ and choose to stay all summer long. Others insist there is plenty to do – which there is, if you like shopping malls and sweating. This will be my sixth Dubai summer and I’ve seen enough to know they are bad, they are hot, there is nothing to do and they are definitely not for me. The first year we were here I stayed for all but 2 weeks. I learned the layout of several malls by heart and went days – no – weeks without talking to anyone between 8am and 7pm except shop assistants. I sank so low I thought I would never recover. Then three summers ago due to a gross miscalculation I spent July and August confined to my house waiting for my baby to arrive, watching my ankles swell to gargantuan proportions in front of the entire box set of Sex and The City and several series of Desperate Housewives. Even the excitement of an impending baby did nothing to lessen the boredom. And last year I thought it would be easier to stay here for most of July rather than travelling with a small baby. It wasn’t. It was long, hot and incredibly lonely and I nearly went completely mad. So personally, I have a mantra about summers in Dubai that goes something like this: Never again, never again, never again.

But the price to pay for my summer escape is this: a permanently temporary feeling. Every year is the same. Summer is approached through the number of weeks spent away from Dubai. Winter plans are determined by visitors and Christmas. The gaps inbetween are filled with ‘real life’, but too often it becomes merely space filler. The answer of course is not to travel so much, but that’s way beyond my comfort zone. I want to see my friends and family, I want to go ‘home’! It’s why I find it so hard to think of returning to work, because four weeks of holiday simply isn’t enough for me while we live so far away. And now I have my son to consider as well, it makes thing even harder. He is growing up in one place but his life is in another. And another. It’s a dilemma I hope will be resolved before he is much older because I want him to know his home and be sure of where that is, where he comes from, his identity. I don’t even mind where ‘home’ ends up being for him, I just know that it isn’t here. For many reasons Dubai can never truly be home, even though we do our best to make it ours we know it is only ever temporary. I always notice the smell.

“Make new friends…

…but keep the old,
the new are silver
the old are gold”

My mum had a sampler with this on it hanging in her kitchen for years. Rather ironically she is no longer in touch with the person who made it for her – despite 20+ years of friendship they simply drifted apart as their lives moved on and their circumstances changed and they finally had nothing left in common. Which just goes to show how hard it is to hang onto your nearest and dearest BFFs in the first place. Add in a few thousand miles and it gets really tough.

I’ve already known most of my BFFs for 20 years, which is frankly terrifying, that we are all that old, or that we were all that young once upon a time – I’m not sure which. The majority of our other halves have all been hanging around for over a decade too, and are part of a huge family that shifts and grows over time, making new connections and cementing old ones. We are sprinkled around the home counties, strewn around the world – the US, South Africa, Spain, Dubai…we come and go from our global adventures, but wherever we go and whatever we do, amazingly for a group of around 30 people, we always manage to feel close. How close, and to whom, changes year on year as our situations and locations change too. And how often we log into Facebook. But I know I could pick up the phone to any one of them, any one at all – and if I was in trouble somehow they would help.

So what is it that makes these friendships last? History, humour, habit…I suspect probably a bit of all of the above. And a whole lot of love. Of course there are other, newer friends whom I love dearly too. It is possible to make new friends because of course, if you know them for long enough, they become old friends too.

So why, why, why is it so damn difficult for me to form lasting friendships in Dubai?

I blame it on me. After all, I don’t really like people. I’m quite fussy about who I spend time with and completely judgemental from the off, so I tend to knock potential friendships on the head before they’ve even had a chance if I don’t think the person quite fits the bill. And I’ve been told I can be a tad intimidating, which is never a good ice breaker… So it’s probably me. But in that case how come I managed to make and keep all these ‘old’ friends and make some new ones along the way as well?? Maybe it’s just a shortage of ‘my type’ of person in Dubai.

You see, my type of friend involves some very high expectations. Permanently in my life, if I decide to keep you, I’ll give you everything I have, every little bit of me. But I expect the same back. And although there have been others who have let me down along the way – and undoubtedly I have dropped a few myself as well – this is where Dubai in particular fails me. It’s a temporary place for most people – somewhere they come to as part of a journey, not to stay and make a life. We form stop-gap releationships. So I can be your friend, and you can be mine, but if something more important comes up, or your life takes a different direction to mine after a while, well, it seems ok here to simply stop being friends.

The thing is, it seems to be something I find incredibly hard to accept. I recently read an article in a women’s magazine which suggested that female friendships alter in importance as the need for that particular person surges or subsides – or are dropped altogether if the relationship is no longer required. I understand how that may be, and can even see parallels in my life that support the theory – but I’m not sure the usual rules apply, or even should apply, when you are living away from home. I have always thought that as expats living abroad, the bonds should not only form faster than average but be stronger too. We experience eachother in a very raw way, and we rely on our friends because there is no-one else. If we are homesick, or going through a bad patch, or having health issues, or sharing good news even – well it’s the people you see every day, who you have proper face time with, who you tend to share those things with first. Facebook status updates and long distance phone calls assume second place.  And as everyone in Dubai (with the exception of about 200,000 locals) is an expat, everyone technically should be in the same boat. So is it a valid excuse to drop someone because circumstances change for one or the other of you? Why, when suddenly you aren’t as convenient or available as you once were, and meeting up or talking involves a little more effort, should the friendship die as quickly as it was born?

Maybe the simple nature of being in such a transient environment makes lasting friendships less important. I probably mind it more than I should and I should probably just cast my net wider, accept less than perfect will do, and take the view that it’s only for a few years anyway and then I can go back to my real life. But is that any easier to handle?  To me, no matter how it comes about, friendship should be about loyalty, longevity and love. Friends, even silver ones, should always have the potential to be upgraded. And honestly, for a place with so much ‘bling’ I seem to be a little short on gold.

Staying relevant

Royal Wedding of William and Catherine Duke & ...

Image by Defence Images via Flickr

So, the royal wedding was beamed live into our living room today. I watched it from start to finish although not so much because I wanted to see it, but more akin to doing homework. We go back to the UK next week and I was terrified if I didn’t see it I would be so out of the loop that I might as well pack up and come back to Dubai!

Staying relevant is hard work when you are away from home for so long. Every time I go back there are more ‘celebrities’ I’ve never heard of made famous by more reality shows I’ve never seen on channels I didn’t even know existed. I have barely a sense of who anyone is in politics anymore and no idea whatsoever of how to operate an oyster card, the TV, or even how to put the rubbish out depending on which London borough I am in. A few summers ago I was reprimanded for ordering a bottle of water to the table whilst out to dinner. Apparently it wasn’t the done thing anymore, when perfectly good tap water would suffice. Well how was I to know?! Last time I dined out in London we drank horrifically expensive water from Fiji and no-one said a word except how much they liked the bottles.

I’ve lost track of whether I should be shopping organic, GM free (is that the same thing?), or just as cheaply as possible given the current economic climate. Although I’m not sure what the current economic climate actually is. I attempted to follow the General Election but failed dismally due to my complete lack of interest on the subject. I don’t know who won Wimbledon last year, I didn’t see Strictly Come Dancing, I don’t know who Catherine Tate is and I’ve missed the Take That ‘Circus’ tour, surely the biggest crime of all.

In short, I am completely in the dark when it comes to a lot of social and cultural references that my friends and family take for granted. It makes me feel pretty alienated when I visit, unless I work really hard to find a few things out before I arrive. The one area of knowledge where I can excel is, bizarrely, fashion. Fashion is something I didn’t even know about before I came to Dubai but it’s fair to say I’ve developed a deep love of shopping since we arrived. Who wouldn’t? Fashion, and designer fashion in particular, is all around me, all the time. Being well-groomed, wearing good clothes and accessorising is an art form here and people aren’t afraid to dress up. Bugger the current economic climate, it’s all about the shoes, darling!

So historically, staying relevant in Dubai has been a little less complicated than maybe elsewhere in the world. For starters, few women in the Trailing Spouse/Trophy Wife/New mother sectors of society talk about anything except themselves, their children, or other people in Dubai – the typical expat bubble syndrome prevails – and the tendency is to simply tune out to what’s going on in the rest of the world. But the recent regional political unrest has begun to reawaken my interest in current affairs. The protests in Egypt, Syria, Libya and beyond has affected large portions of the arab population including many who live and work in Dubai. I have found staying relevant is suddenly more relevant and in order to do so have actually begun reading a newspaper from time to time. A British one of course – which means that suddenly, staying relevant generally has become a little easier.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so lazy and complacent in the first place and picked up a paper before now. Plenty of people I’m sure manage this small feat everyday while they live away from home. I admit, it’s simply not been relevant to me and so I haven’t bothered. However, I realise this is a rather shallow way of viewing things and that’s why I’m slowly changing my habits and re-educating myself on the bigger picture. Today is, for me, a part of this process. And ok, it might not be the most important event happening on the global stage right now, but Kate did look very lovely and it really was a very nice wedding, and I believe it is relevant to say so.

First: A quick word on the life of the Trailing Spouse

The term ‘Trailing Spouse’, first coined in the early 1980s, refers to ‘a person who follows his or her life partner to another city because of a work assignment’. So let’s face it, it’s hardly a career choice. If someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, then Trailing Spouse was most definitely not on the list. Can you imagine? It’s right up there with Trophy Wife.

But it’s different from being a Trophy Wife. In the majority of cases, a TW chooses to be arm candy. For her, the endless rounds of shopping, spas, trips to the hairdresser, affairs with the personal trainer, nights out dangling on her rich husband’s arm – well they are all part of an educated (or not) decision to do nothing except be beautiful and vaguely entertaining at parties.

The Trailing Spouse has an altogether different M.O. Wikipedia notes the issues as follows:

  • Dual-career challenges – Whereby the Trailing Spouse suspends or gives up their career to follow the lead partner on their assignment.
  • Family issues – Stresses caused by social, financial and cultural strains placed on the family relationships as a result of the assignment.
  • Barriers to mobility – The willingness or otherwise of the Trailing Spouse or other family members to relocate. Lack of support by the sponsoring employer to address the needs of the Trailing Spouse.
  • Work/Life challenges – Difficulties associated with finding and maintaining meaningful work or other sense of worth while on assignments.
  • Loss of identity – Difficulties associated with loss of identity and the subsequent period of reshape and remodelling that ensues in the new environment.

Interestingly, most of the literature to be found on the subject only deals with how a Trailing Spouse might feel when they first arrive in a new place. But what happens after the euphoria wears off, the stress and subsequent depression sets in, and the final acceptance and formation of a new life has been and gone? What happens when you are still a Trailing Spouse five, ten, fifteen years on?

I have been an expat and a Trailing Spouse since 2006. My husband and I arrived in Dubai as newlyweds, and I went through all the typical emotions of a Trailing Spouse. But then I retrained, got a job, made some friends, and came out the other side a better person for my adventure. Two years ago I had a baby and everything changed. We haven’t moved, but I feel as if my life as an expat has started all over again. I am a new mother and a Trailing Spouse, and there are thousands of us out there trying to cope with this new curveball just as we figured out the old one.

I found expat life hard to accept, and continue to struggle with living so far away from home. Dubai is not where I want to be but at the present time I have little choice but to stay. I miss my friends, my family, my future self even. I worry that we won’t be able to settle back in the UK as and when we return, and I worry that if we go somewhere else I will have to cope with starting all over again, again.

I didn’t intend to be a Trailing Spouse all my life and I admit to finding it difficult to accept the situation and make the best of it. I have a list as long as your arm of things I want to accomplish, ranging (in my mind) from difficult to nigh on impossible while we continue to live so far away from home. But publishing my writing is on the list, and it seems a good place to start. So I intend this blog to be the story of my career as a Trailing Spouse – the observations, trials, perks and quirks that come with living abroad – as I continue learning how to live without my ruby slippers.