1 Year

Today marks one year since we departed New Zealand.

Moving to another country is a tumultuous time, regardless of how near or far that country is.

Sunrise from Blackrock Train station over Dublin Harbour, just cos

It is also a time of opportunity, and a time of reflection. There's a whole new life to be crafted, which can be exhilarating and exhausting all at once.

In the last year, I've found myself asking questions like:

'Does this cutlery set resonate with me?' (Sure, it'll be grand, we just need forks)

'Do these coat hangers speak to me?' (Yes, they say that you should get lots so you can buy more clothes)

'Do I want to be the kind of person that is in a classical choir singing concertos and requires a full orchestra for accompaniment?'  (Turns out no)

'Is Extinction Rebellion too extreme, or the right amount of extreme? Am I that extreme?... Do I need to be that extreme? Does the planet need me to be that extreme?' (So out of my comfort zone, but feel I must)


'Who am I to help raise someone else's kids?' (Usually the right person)

'Is this the best use of my time/money/energy?' (It's usually a no to at least one of those, but sometimes you manage to abuse all three at once! - says she fresh from buying Tim Tams at Fallon and Byrne because it was the first time I'd seen them in a year)

'How many times is enough times to go to Northern Ireland before Brexit?' (Up to 5 and counting, but I don't think we'll get up before next Friday)

'Is it a form of elitism to drink only New Zealand wine?' (Probably)
'Is that a bad thing?' (Goodness gracious no - it is the best!)

So my final question to myself is what have I learned in the last year? And the answer is a lot.

10 Things I've learned since moving to Ireland

1. My sense of self is very vulnerable

How do you define who you are? By what you like? By the clothes you wear? The job you have? The food you eat? The people you hang out with? By what you choose to do with your spare time and spare money? What happens when nearly all of those defining factors are stripped away? Who are you then?

Who are you when those around you respond slightly differently than you're used to and treat you as different, foreign, an outsider?

Who are you when you can't either find or afford the clothes that you like? What about when you can't be employed in your vocation, the one that's consumed your life for the last 7 years?

What are you about if the food you eat tastes different, is hard to find, comes in packets a quarter the size you're used to and just generally isn't the same? (Alas, the answer is not miragically skinny.)

What if you have little in the way of spare time or money, or the things that you once loved to do aren't considered cool by the friends you currently have, or are just slightly too far away to do with ease?

Like panning for gold, there's still a heart with a bit of a shine in here somewhere, but the bedrock of my life feels like it has been sifted away, and I am left with a few specs of character, and values that stand out a bit in my current circumstances, and may or may not be judged as precious, by others or myself.

For better or worse, the process has been weird. I thought I knew who I was, and now I'm not so sure. It has, however, presented me with a bunch of opportunities to reflect on myself and go ooooohhh... am I really like that? Maybe that needs a tweak.

It has also been a lot of 'I just feel like no one gets me'.

Cept Jared, Jared gets me.

 2. New Zealand is even more awesome than I thought it was

Like Ireland, but with better systems for most things and a bit more of a sense of general urgency, better food, an awareness of the environment in every day life and subsidised health care. Oh and less winter.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Yes.

3. New Zealand really is THAT far away

Like I'd heard people talk about the 24 hours of flying... you get no change on 30 hours from Dublin to Whanganui including stopovers and it is JUST.SO.FAR. And we haven't even done the trip direct yet!  It is 18,600 km. The earth is 40,000km, it really is nearly as far away as you can get before you start coming back again.

In comparison, London is 1 hour away, France is a 2 hour flight, Czechia is 2.5 hours and Northern Africa is only 4!

You always hear that Australia was where they sent all the convicts.
I assumed that it was murders and dastardly people like that.
Nope. Mostly thieves. Like kids who stole an apple kind of thieves. 

4. History is a weird thing to have

We live in a city that has been a city for over 1000 years. I'm starting to get my head around that, but it's a really, really long time and it muddies the waters, and becomes an excuse for a bunch of stuff - obviously the roads are flooded, the drainage systems are ancient.

It has also been really weird but awesome coming to Ireland and hearing what are essentially first nation peoples having the dominant voice in the narrative of colonialism, and having that as the norm. It was really affronting at first, but it has really made me realise the validity of a lot of Maori voices in New Zealand that I had previously a bit dismissive of, or been apathetic towards.






5. I like to be in control of things (even) more than I thought

My current job I enact other people's parenting rules, expectations and standards. This is a very strange phenomenon, particularly given they're somewhat different to my rules, expectations and standards. Their ways have created some pretty awesome kids though, so I do not greatly mind, but it is really challenging vetting every word, deed and action through the filter of imagining What Would Their Parents Do??? And has made me question a lot of my personal and professional habits - are there different ways of doing that that render the same or better results?


6. Spare time is nice

Not really something I have participated in much since I lived in Laos, but it is nice to have spare time to do things like write and chill with my bae, do a James Bond movie marathon and fix the world should I so choose.


7. Sometimes you just don't know what you want

I marvel at the forthrightness of the 4 year old I look after. She knows exactly what she wants and will beat around no bushes telling you what it is.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads professionally, socially and in a few other ways, and I find myself in a quagmire of conflicting wants, with no idea which I should privilege.

The other part of this that I'm supposed to learn but haven't yet is that it's OK to not know what you want. Currently, I'm not OK with that.


8. Being an immigrant is weird

I don't really know about you, but my image of an immigrant is.... not me.

I've lived in other countries before, and this is not my first time as an outsider where everything from the light switches to the food to the accent to the rows of houses all in a row are a bit strange, but it's still different.

Their normal is not my normal, and basically, my normal doesn't count.

I didn't really expect much culture shock in moving to Ireland, but there's been juuuuuust enough to throw me. The values are different, the standards are different, the ways of doing things are different and 'talk moves' to get things done are also different, leaving me feeling a little lost sometimes.

To their credit, the Irish immigration system, if you're married, is super easy... after the palava of making an appointment and waiting for the appointment for 2 months

8a. I become uber patriotic when I live outside of New Zealand

The other strange part of being an immigrant is people are obsessed with where you come from, as if you're only personality trait is that you're from New Zealand.

I guess it's an easy talking point.


People expect that I will be able to converse coherently about rugby, and so I've felt I had to watch rugby this year for the first time since the last RWC so I know what people are talking about. This is not a problem as such, it's just that neither Jared nor myself ardently enjoy rugby, so it's been a bit weird caring about it so much all of a sudden.

I discovered RJs licorice in Fallon and Byrne this morning, and got stupidly excited when my suspicion of it being from NZ was confirmed. I also asked them to work on getting toffee pops and pineapple lumps, as if I eat them all the time. Like a child, I only want them because I can't have them.

In New Zealand, I'd eat pineapple lumps maaaaaybe once a year, and toffee pops.... OK that was more regular, I'll admit.

When I lived in Laos I owned shorts that had the NZ flag on them, and I also sported jandals with kiwis on them.


There's something about living outside of your country that means that you're an unofficial ambassador for your homeland, and I take this responsibility very seriously.

Conversely, I'm also working on perfecting an Irish accent, so I do not have to have the same conversation every time I meet someone new:

Oh where are you from? Australia?
Uh no. New Zealand.
Oh! New Zealand! Sorry! But it's so beautiful! Why did you move here?
Because, well, you can't go to France for the weekend from New Zealand.
Which part of New Zealand are you from? My (insert relative here) lives in New Zealand.
Whanganui
Where?
3 hours north of Wellington
Oooooh...


9. The Irish are good at many things, but systems are not one of them

Omfg.

From where the waiting area is in cafes to still using paper recording systems in some Government Departments to businesses that use cash only, to only being able to bulk buy fruit in prepackaged amounts to setting up a mail redirection for one month in June, and still receiving someone else's mail, that we should never have had redirected in the first place ... there are a great many things that I would change if I had any control over anything, but please come back to Number 5 - the aforementioned present lack of control over anything.

The part of this that grinds my gears the most is that no one seems to care about improving any of these systems. System failure is part of life anywhere, but it is a big part of life here. It just is, and that's how it's always been and that's how it always will be, and of course it's hard and doesn't make sense, it's Ireland, Lauren.

*insert head banging here*

10. Ireland is a lot like New Zealand, but without my peeps

People keep asking me if I'm loving it over here, and there are a great many parts that are wonderful, or very at least equally as wonderful as New Zealand (scenery, weather = Wellington-ish, skinny roads, English speaking, drive on the left, people generally like drinking and are easy going etc etc)

If I told you this was Petone Beach in Wellington, New Zealand, you'd believe me right?

Ireland? New Zealand? Who can tell?

But for me, the people make the place.

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

It is the people, it is the people, it is always the people, it has always been the people.

Adult friendships take a lot of time to develop and everyone is always busy forever. We've made some connections, but also just been so sick so often that we've had to bail on a lot of stuff.

I miss being able to go to any city in the country and having people to hang out with.

I'm obviously working on a Europe-wide network, but not quite there just yet. And my friends, the Whanganui crew in particular, are pretty irreplaceable.

So I'm super excited for Northern Hemisphere summer when many of them are coming this ways to visit!


If 2019 was the year of finding our feet, 2020 is the year of finding our crew. Some of that precious spare time will need to be forsaken, and hobbies embraced. But not a fancy flutey choir.  It does not bring me enough joy to sit still for 2 hours. After much thought, it turns out that is not who I am or what I'm currently about.

And you, faithful reader, what have you learned this last year? What are you intentions with 2020? What is your favourite part about the present iteration of yourself?