Moving home in your 30s.
What a strange feeling it is, moving back home in your 30s. I turned 30 last year, and I was so ready for this year to be one of utter abundance. I still believe that, but I think my idea of abundance has had to change and shift to accommodate this new season of life. Because Australia is so wonderful when it comes to visa’s and international human beings (sarcasm here), I had to pack up my home, rent it out and start making the trek from that beautiful big brown land where I spent my 20s back home to tropical, fast paced singapore where I was born. It was a hard decision to make, but it was one that I knew was coming.
So, on January 27th, I said my goodbyes to people who loved me, and I got on that plane. I would love to say that moving back home to your childhood bedroom was the easiest thing because who does not love living with family? I fought tooth and nail to come up with a solution short of storming the capitol to see if I could stay there in sunny Sydney, but something in me knew that my time was up. At least for now. So the bags were packed, the boxes sealed, and the tickets booked. Onward to Singapore.
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It’s been two months since I moved back home, and I would love to say it was as easy as sinking into a warm bath, but I would be lying. I’ve learnt that decisions like these require a little bit more grit and a lot of soul. It pulls at the threads of your life, forcing them to either unravel or form something new. I have since deleted Instagram off my phone because there are only so many times I can be shown the pros and cons of moving home without wanting to throw myself onto my butter knife. I have no doubt there is wisdom in those videos, but I prefer to learn those lessons for myself. In fact, my brain demands it.
I wish that I could lay out all of the lessons I have learnt since moving home as we wander slowly into April, but some of them, I am still learning. Learning how not to rush. Learning that I won’t get this time back. Learning how to wait. Learning that maybe this is the time I get to invest in the things that give me joy. Learning that this moment of silence is so I can finally hear the gentle whispers and nudgings of the father. Learning that sometimes peace is hard fought and comes at the end of a No.
I still refer to my apartment in Sydney as my home, even though my friends have made it theirs. I still wonder how to find a local coffee shop that I can just camp out at for a day and spend it writing. I still rage against everything that has to do with heat, sweat and humidity even though I grew up in this place. I think about moving out of the house even though renting in Singapore is so expensive. Then I think about buying a home, but not wanting it to be a chain around my neck, not letting me move to some new country when I already have a home here. Then I feel guilty when I think of these things because why am I not happy here when my home, this beautiful home that my family has made, has always been the safest place for me to land.
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Many people who have moved abroad, or moved home or some combination thereof have said that it just takes time to settle back in. Which is quite apt and a little bit annoying at the same time. After all, it has only been 2 months, and 2 months is truly not that much time in the grand scheme of things.
So much of these two months has been spent kind of relearning my family. Re learning how to be around them, how to make who they are fit with who I am. I think about the comfort this home brings me. My favourite little armchair, my side of the table when we sit down as a family to eat dinner. The hilarity of the fact that I am somehow taller than the hob and cooking in our kitchen is a lesson in contortion and flexibility. I think about the space they give me, not rushing me to do anything. Not forcing me to move any quicker than I can move in this moment. No pressure to be anything other than who I am. I think about the allowance they give me when I need to just wander. When it’s 1 in the afternoon and I have decided for the day that I am going to spend it outside. There are no questions asked beyond an “Are you home for dinner?” and a short little “be safe”.
It’s a little bit self-centered thinking that this move only impacted me, but sometimes, in the face of a big decision like that, we don’t see beyond our borders. But this move has asked a lot from them too, and I am slowly realising it. To make concessions to a life they have built with each other, asking them to reopen the space to let their wayward child fit back into their little sphere of life. Making sure I know that I am welcomed home, but also understanding that this is such an adjustment for me too and being respectful of that. I am the wayward piece of the puzzle they have to learn to fit back into the picture that has looked so different these past 10 years.
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Sometimes, I wished that moving home in your 30s came with some sort of cheat sheet. Saying if you do A, then you will be able to feel as though you will be settled in by week 3, but if you do B, that feeling will last 6 months. You start to realise how much life people live when you are no longer just there popping in and out when you are on vacation. My best friend still behaves like I live thousands of miles away because, for the last 10 years, I have. For some reason, I thought that I would be seeing her, my cousins, and friends consistently because wouldn’t they be so glad that I was home? but all of them have their own lives, and I have to learn where I fit. I cannot just drop in and expect them to make time for me because now it’s about learning how to do life with them rather than do it over distances. It’s not just short little holiday getaways anymore; it’s about dinners fortnightly or checking schedules to see what work looks like on this day, its meeting their partner for the first time when everyone else already has. It’s playing catch up until you get to the part where you are all on the same page again, and you aren’t flipping the pages back and forth trying to make sense of where you are now in the story of this life.
It’s about learning that maybe now is the time to start something new. Maybe you don’t need to keep doing what you were doing before; maybe it’s time for you to try your hand at something else. Maybe it’s time to start something you have never thought of before. I am learning that after a decision like this, patience is required. Patience for the right moment, waiting for the answers to job applications, praying for the right doors to open. It’s living in this liminal space that is the biggest lesson. No longer looking back, because the past is the past, but you are straining towards whats in the future even though you just can’t see it yet. When I get out of this space, I’ll let you know. Cheers to those of us who have to contend with moving home in our 30s. We’ll get there one day, but for now, drinks are on me babe.
