I guess the first thing to acknowledge - as I did so far more succinctly in a Facebook post a few days ago - is that it hasn't been without challenges, that we are still adjusting and probably have a long way to go until we actually feel settled, comfortable and like we've "made it" - and at the end of the day, that's the goal isn't it?
It's probably key to understand what "making it" looks like. We have our goals and targets and most of them revolve around feeling secure. Be that though immigration status being sorted long term, be it owning equity (like a house or cars that are paid off and not a recurring hit out of payroll every 2 weeks), be it knowing what to expect - with as much degree of certainty as you can - on things like the weather, the traffic, with expenses such as medical and domestic bills.
First things first.... For us and I presume most other people who have gone through the same experience would echo, It's not a holiday. There are certainly elements of it that rightly should feel like a holiday and I'm keen to embrace those moments - otherwise what's the point - but it's ultimately a lot of hard work and adjustments. Making tough decisions. Saying difficult and emotional farewells to people that you care deeply for. Saying goodbye to infrastructure and institutions that are familiar and easy to navigate. Saying goodbye to that silly little football team you've followed since you were a young boy. Saying goodbye in at least a physical sense, to everything that you know and are familiar with.
Four paragraphs of doom and gloom right? We should just move back!!!!! In all honestly, it's not even nearly been all bad, in fact for the most part it's been exceptionally good. We made the best decision very early on in the process to move out into Spring / Summer. Mostly driven by a way of avoiding Tyler's low immune system going in to a potentially perilously cold mid-western winter, but also part guided by a want and a need to be able to get out and enjoy our new surroundings. And it worked. Really well. Probably better than we could have hoped for. But we're getting slightly ahead of ourselves... Lets go back to those last few days in England…
Leaving Coventry was mostly straightforward. Some emotional goodbyes to people we had grown very close to over the last few years – particularly in the Down Syndrome community – was without question the hardest part of it all but we got through it. Just about. It’s an odd feeling with the current state of technology allowing you to communicate over great distances with relative ease but knowing the distance and those physical meetings and encounters will be in the medium term at least, a thing of the past.
Coventry to Nottingham for one final trip to the banks of the River Trent. Some more goodbyes to both the people and the football team. As above, it’s not like it disappears forever. Games cam be streamed, good friends can remain contactable via social media, but at its heart, it just isn’t the same. You have to find ways to get over it and find ways of replacing what you miss with what you have – we’ll get to that 😉
Nottingham came and went and aside
from the horror show stay at the Hilton Hotel, went as well as could have
hoped. Then down to London for 2 quick nights in a hotel near the airport –
some more emotional goodbyes – before the early morning cab ride (not without
issues!!!) from the hotel to the airport, to the departure gate, to the plane,
to the start of the new adventure.
The airport and flight went as well
as could be hoped. We were lucky to meet a lady who was working the United desk
last time we traveled in April 2018 – who was wonderful enough to upgrade us
all to the extra leg room seats for the flight. This was a far bigger deal that
you can image. We were very happy!
Cecily had a look in the cockpit of
the plane – but wasn’t overly interested – and that was it, our time in England
was at an end. With enough time to post a quick selfie from the plane onto social
media, the plane took off and we began our journey across the Atlantic to our
new home!
We were very lucky to have the support we did from my employers. Everything we needed or could have asked for was pretty much available to us. Worth noting at this point that without that support, the move would have been pretty much impossible.
We landed in Chicago. It was sunny and the plane was pretty much on time so short of waiting for our luggage, we were through the airport and in the rental van in good time. The only really sour note of the move came when we arrived at our home to find work still being carried out. A minor detail but that picture perfect moment of rolling the car onto the drive, collecting the keys and walking in - didn't exactly happen that way. Small fish in the grand ocean so we moved on pretty quickly and set to putting our feet up and getting ourselves sorted.
I looked back recently over my social media accounts at that first month. All things considered, I didn't actually post a huge amount. The first posts on Tyler and Cecily's Instagram account don't happen until 2 weeks after we arrived (3 weeks in the case of Cecily). I guess we were just busy getting sorted.
Within a week of arriving I had started work (no rest for the wicked!), the first weekend we were there was a large spread of garage sales in our neighborhood (on a ridiculously hot day to boot!), within 2 weeks we had Emma's birthday / mothers day, followed a week later by our wedding anniversary, followed a week later by Memorial Day weekend. Truth is, we didn't have time to post much!
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| Garage Sale Haul! |
That first month was good. Busy but good. The weather played a huge part in that for sure. Memorial day as well - in that we were invited along to join a colleague of mine from work (who has become a very good friend over the last 6 months!) for a day at Silver Lake. Speaking of the weather - memorial day weekend was one of the hottest on record for Chicago (and by extension southern Wisconsin!) > https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/05/27/chicago-hits-97-degrees/
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| Silver Lake, WI |
It was a good weekend and a great way to end out first month
Most of that first month was spent unpacking, replacing loan / temporary furniture with our own - Emma drove that from start to finish and by the end of the month we were not that far off from where we are now 5 months later. We had a sofa, some furniture for the lounge. A bed and furniture for the bedroom (kids bedrooms had to wait a little while longer to be fully completed but not by much), we had a table in the kitchen and all the small knick-knacks we needed to start off.
A few weeks later, we had cars. You have no idea how liberating it was picking up our cars from the lot before returning the rental car we had been using back to the shop. Nothing to flashy, we made practical choices based on our specific needs.
We also treated the kids. As with the furniture with Emma leading the way, we bought some outdoor play equipment for Tyler and Cecily. A swingset, a slide, a trampoline. We also picked up lots of little bits - some from the garage sales that first weekend - like sports equipment (baseball gloves, basketball hoop, an assortment of footballs and baseballs!) While this summer was great, don't get me wrong the weather meant you could go play outside most days, I think we'll really see the benefit of all of this next summer. It's interesting reflecting on this that have happened so recently but familiarity breeds comfort and knowing what to expect from the boiling hot days when the temperatures exceed 100F to the intense thunderstorms that roll over occasionally to clean the air. We'll get more good days than not, by quite a distance as well, so knowing that and having things that the kids are used to bodes well for next year.
Cecily showed a real strong interest in sports. That makes me especially happy. Tyler has shown an interest but the challenges there are a lot more complex so it's great that Cecily can show some independence from our paternal responsibilities to Tyler to become interested in football, baseball, basketball and golf. We still have hockey to come next year as well having been given a hockey net set by some friends who live on the same street.
We also had a visit in June from a good friend of Emma's Mum and Dad (and by extension Emma!) which enabled us to take a jolly up to Milwaukee to visit the Harley Davidson museum.
Overall, if the purpose of this post is to summarize the initial part of the move and that "getting settled" phase that I called out as the sub title of this post, I go back to the social media post I mentioned near the start. "Not without its challenges... Still lots of adjusting to do...." that much is clear and how long it will take who knows. It may never get to a stage where we feel fully settled and acclimatized . I think we will eventually, there are dots on the horizon that will grow closer with every little thing we do. We'll get there.
And overall. Event though there has been (and continues to be) challenges and lots of adjusting still to do. The last six months have been worth every second of it so far.
That covers roughly the first 6-7 weeks of the move. By the end of June and through July, things ramped up considerably and we covered a lot of ground, figuratively and literally. So we'll save that for part 2!
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