I celebrated the end of 2020 twice.
Literally (literally literally, not colloquially literally).
Just a few hours after ringing in 2021 and more enthusiastically ringing out 2020 on our last night in Thailand we headed to the airport to return to the US. A quick connection in Tokyo put us soaring toward the international date line in the late hours of the first day of the new year.
I suspected this sadistically symbolic moment might occur and stayed awake to watch the flight tracker as we plunged from 2021 back to the last hours of 2020 over the Pacific before landing in Seattle and back to 2021. A second dip into 2020.
2020 was that type of year. The pandemic hasn’t been easy for anyone. It brought hardship and surprise to all. Among the challenges of supporting my own family’s needs through the early months of a global emergency I was also managing a large international school in Bangkok with families and faculty feeling very unsure about what the future months might hold. Just as I felt I was getting a short break from those pressures it became clear that the pace of long evolving dynamics among the school’s ownership were changing in dramatic and unsettling ways. I had seen the changes developing for some time and was already struggling to see how I would navigate my way through conflicting priorities in the future.
I’m still not sure if the rapid advancement of these concerns was accelerated by the pandemic or shifts in power dynamics that were going to happen anyway. Perhaps both? In any case, it became urgently clear in July that remaining in my position was no longer compatible with my own school leadership ethics. The school ownership also expressed an interest in me stepping aside so they could pursue their agenda without my ethics burdening their conscience or slowing the pace of their revolution (I doubt they phrased it that way to themselves). So quite suddenly I decided to leave my job. In another country. In the middle of a pandemic.
This started a series of sudden transition processes that were summarized very well by a book that Nadia and I listened to together in the ensuing months. Bruce Feiler’s research on life transitions was full of stories about life changes, many of them much more dramatic and devastating than ours. That was comforting. He also outlined the stages of transition that helped us articulate our own experience: the long goodbye, the messy middle and the new beginning
These stages are not numbered or ordered. They are not limited in time. They can overlap, start, stop, etc… But they are all a part of the major life transitions that have become increasingly common in the cycles of our lives (unlike the “midlife crisis” which he spends some time debunking).
The Long Goodbye
Our initial goodbye seemed quite abrupt and sudden. But the circumstances of my work over the previous months made it quite a relief to step away once we got over the shock. But staying in Bangkok for another 5 months gave us opportunities to spend time with friends, travel around the country and prepare ourselves for a long goodbye to a community that we had called our own for five years. There were certainly tears and sadness when we left but we were well prepared for the change by then. We’ll face new farewells as we prepare to depart to Singapore and leave behind family that we’ve had precious extended time with in Utah since the beginning of 2021.
The Messy Middle
It should have been a time of panic. But we stayed calm. A time of stress? Yes, absolutely. But I jumped into a job search for the following year with enthusiasm for a refreshed start. Nadia realized we could homeschool our two teenagers and maintain flexibility with the timing of our return to the US or even other travel around the world. The latter turned out to be a bit hopeful as the pandemic continued but we did return to Utah in January and enjoy seasons we hadn’t experienced in nearly a decade. We embraced the messy middle of our extended transition to spend time with our kids, see new places, take long walks, explore a few too many hours of our streaming services and read lots and lots of books. I look forward to returning to more formal routines and schedules but have embraced the opportunity to relax, reflect and make the most of a messy year. The generosity of others has helped make this time more meaningful as well.
The New Beginning
A unique aspect of an international school job search is the experience of imagining a new life in new places. One day we pictured life in Saudi Arabia, then found ourselves considering Bulgaria the next day, then Malaysia, Morocco, Vietnam, Egypt, China… It was a long long list and applying sincerely to each required the consideration of a new life that felt a bit like global whiplash. As we narrowed down the opportunities we were eventually able to finalize a dream scenario at an amazing school in Singapore. Of course the contract start date was seven months away but our new beginning had officially begun.. Even with some covid driven uncertainty remaining about our travel dates the beginning seems very close now with zoom meetings with new colleagues and an increasing pace of emails to prepare for our transition in the coming weeks.
I’m curious about how I will remember this year. For a long time I thought 2020 was likely to remain a haunting specter of disaster, trauma and pain. There is indeed much to memorialize meaningfully beyond my own experiences. But the sweetness that has been a part of my own goodbyes, messy middle and struggle for a new beginning seem so much stronger now than the bitterness that first accompanied them. I do recall something from psychology that tells us our brains are built to forget pain.
I’ve had fun retelling the drama of my high altitude return to 2020. But I don’t want to remember 2020 like my second version: a few short hours in the blackness of the arctic skies that most of my fellow passengers slept through. My “2020” will forever be from the first reports of an alarming new virus in late January through the coming summer of 2021 when I’m able to return to the work I love.
Feiler describes this year so well when he defines transitions as autobiographical occasions: “any moment when we are encouraged or obliged to reimagine who we are. It’s a narrative event, when our existing life story is altered or redirected in some way, forcing us to revisit our preexisting identity and modify it for our life going forward. And nearly everyone goes through such moments.”
It’s been long but I wouldn’t want to find a way to cheat through it quickly or even change the difficult paths that have led to exciting new opportunities. It was a year that forced me to consider priorities, enjoy all that is around me and be grateful for my blessings at a time when so many struggle and suffer.
Happy New Year!
Twice!!!