Lebanon Mums Exchange: Online References

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Breastfeeding in Lebanon 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Breastfeedinginlebanon/

La Leche League Lebanon, Middle East  

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LLLofLebanon/

Mama to Mama Breastfeeding Support

https://www.facebook.com/groups/mama2mamabeirut/

Moms Around Beirut

https://www.facebook.com/groups/574530639231768/

Moms in Lebanon  

https://www.facebook.com/MomsinLebanon

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https://www.facebook.com/groups/mommyclassifieds.beirut/

 

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Re-entry

 

Writing this blog post after many months absent is so challenging, how do I explain where I’ve been? My answer is ‘I've been re-acquainting with gravity’. This latest mission of ours has been the hardest ever: re-entry into our homeland Australia.

Baby No. 2 is due any day now so I have little else I am capable of doing except put my feet up and assess how readapting to life in Oz has been; the operative word to describe it is ‘groggy’.

You see, this pregnancy was very different from my last; each trimester was marked not by morning sickness, nor measured by developmental milestones, but rather, now many miles we covered to get to home base.

I experienced three trimesters in three cities: Beirut Lebanon, Bern Switzerland, and Brisbane Australia.

We travelled in a way that can only be described as hard core. The first move involved six weeks deliberating between ‘should we go?’ and ‘off we go’. We reluctantly bid farewell to Beirut and onto Bern shacking up with hubby's folks thinking we’d settle in Switzerland but it turned out to be twelve weeks negotiating between ‘can we stay?’ and ‘where to live.’

Out of the blue, we found out days before deciding to go back to Beirut that we were returning to our homeland for an opportune work position offered to Mikey. At rocket speed we broke through the Southern stratosphere and landed with a thud in Brisbane.

Dizzy? Sure. Boring? No way!

It feels like I’ve just stepped off a roller coaster; re-adaption of my emotional and cognitive balance system is only just re-aligning.

But when you live like this, as expats, you live not only with the culture shock and confusion, but also live with endless possibilities and excitement. You’re learning something by gathering new experiences. Whether it's a new city, new food to taste, there's something different to uncover. Even if it's not to your taste or it’s boring, it’s a new taste, a new boring

Along with my insatiable pregnancy sugar cravings, after three moves in nine months, I am also craving the concept of stability.

You’d think moving back to one’s own country is the easy part "Oh I'm just going back to where I came from, I know the ropes, too easy!" Let me tell you IT AINT.

Re-entry is more stressful with more unexpected consequences than a transition into the unfamiliar. I’ve never felt so alien and uninspired after the exhilarating social, family, and career experiences we had abroad.

What exactly are we coming back to? For a start, I’m a Sydney gal, I’ve never lived in Brisbane it may as well be like landing on Mars. I have no family, friends or an old neighbourhood to return to. 

The only thing I could latch myself onto was the familiar taste of a double-shot cafe-latte to kick-start some homecoming enthusiasm; but all I felt was the gravitational pull of my baby’s kicks to get me out of my meteorological misery. 

 Even family members are finding it hard to place us, realising that we are not exactly the same people before we left. My son is no longer the cute gurgling baby in my grandparent’s eyes but a rambling hyperactive toddler speaking in tongues that I even find hard to decipher.

The lesson being, former familiar grooves no longer have a holding place, which can be a blessing and a burden when memories mixed with expectations aren’t being met.

Even through all the stresses of setting up a house into a home, getting my son into playgroups and nurseries, setting up antenatal and mum’s meeting groups (…the list goes on and on…) I do feel like I am coming out of that jaded re-entry stupor a stronger person.

And thankfully, Brisbane is opening up for us, giving us everything we’d hoped for: a warm climate, outdoor adventure and cross-culture vibrancy.

To top it off, yesterday I made a giant leap at our local café when the barista asked off-hand “the usual for you Ann?” At last! a recognition that I belong, a return of equilibrium that says “yes, that's why I'm here, I'm meant to be here.” 

As I’m about to head down that familiar parental path once again, there really is no preparing for the birth of a baby: it really is an out-of-this-world experience. It doesn’t matter where you are, motherhood doesn’t work in locations, it's about the journey. 

When a baby is born a mother also comes of age. She too has to grow and develop through the process of time. It's taken me a few months of looking back to realize that at this pivotal point, I have my hands full, my family is what it's all about. We can be in another galaxy for all I care - the force of motherhood will always be there.

Denial of Moving On

little helper packing up the apartment.

I've been telling myself for the past three months to stop thinking about our departure date. I wanted to just enjoy what was happening now, and not think about our time in Lebanon coming to an end.

After that fatal car bomb that rocked Lebanon back in October, our decision to leave was thrown back-and-forth. The constant weighting up of pros and con was tearing us apart. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter where you are in the world it’s the same three factors when it’s not only your decision – family, work, lifestyle.

Lebanon stabilized quickly after the incident and we returned to our daily routines as ‘normal’ as could be. Mikey’s contract was due for renewal & we were keen to rollover into another year working in Beirut. However, biggest bombshell dropped on us was the news of another baby on the way!!

Completely caught off guard with the idea of another little traveler on board, and we found ourselves agreeing that moving closer to family for support was the right decision for us, “even if it’s temporary” I reassure myself.

In my denial about leaving, I kept telling myself “Beirut is not over yet, no need to pack now” but there was an apartment to pack up and supplies in the kitchen cupboard to be eaten served as a reminder.

“10 cans of foul madams to get though (Middle-Eastern baked beans). Should I take a few cans with us to Switzerland?”

The mental list of what will stay and what will go lengthened as I made my way from one room to another. Will shoes be sacrificed for toys? Leave the towels, take the toothbrushes…but no action was taken… “Beirut is not over yet, no need to pack now.”

While packing decisions seemed so daunting, I threw myself into several creative projects that consumed all my time right up to our last days. Knowing that I was leaving town (even if it’s temporary) was the push that I needed to act on my dream projects that I always feared or doubted I couldn’t do. Faced with “now or never”, I went head-on into my work knowing I had nothing to loose.

I lead my first photo essay workshop and photography exhibition titled Lens on Life, filmed a short doco on Lebanese artist Rafik Majzoub and worked alongside prominent Lebanese documentary filmmaker Carol Mansour. Working alongside some of the most inspiring, intelligent, and honest women I’ve ever met has been a positive life-changing experience which I will be forever thankful.

And the results amazed me I’m proud to say. It’s the most exciting work I’ve done in years. As it turns out, I always had a strong sense of self, a sense of my personal limitations and boundaries I could push if I had the confidence. I just had to learn how to listen to myself and how to express it.

That’s the very reason why I love traveling it’s the learning experience of living with the UNCOMFORTABLE that continues to help transform yourself and your relationships with our family, friends and work.

We landed in Lebanon in a place of self-doubt, uncomfortable with our new surroundings, no bearings, no signposts. The exhaustion that comes with constantly getting lost and feeling frazzled can be erased with one decent short conversation that ends with a "we should catch up, what's your number?" We plunged ourselves into Beirut, new house, new acquaintances, a brand new life.

I still had the feeling I wasn’t ready to leave, but the decision was made and we’d given notice to our landlord. The weeks quickly counted down to days and the melancholy of knowing what's about to be missed settled in like one of Lebanon’s ominous storm clouds.

 While you're handing over the keys, your trying to disconnect your heart from the neighbourhood you've grown to love, the people you used to greet in the elevator and at the local grocer everyday. 

Farewell to dear friends at the nursery

We’re not going to see Mateo’s friendships grow and bloom, he won't be stoping in for a treat at the corner store again.

One last treat yippee!

My thoughts tried to savor each final moment. “Tonight is our last night in the apartment. Tomorrow we will walk the Corniche one last time, go to Café Younes for one last coffee, and then we’ll spend our last night in Hamra and share a last meal with friends.”

Seven bags with all our belongings and a truckload of memories are squeezed into two taxis heading for the airport. Looking across at Mikey holding his hand, he says “I don’t know how expats do this all the time. I’m never bloody moving again” I laughed, but there were tears forming. Cities are flashing through my mind, we’ve been here before, and we will be here again, we wouldn’t give it up for the world.

A new adventure, a new baby, is exciting, terrifying and exhilarating. Stepping forward and moving on, means that that something is being left behind. And sometimes it would just be so nice to take it all with you.