EP 9 — #3 Lessons on Transitions (and Tsunamis!)

Transcript

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Happy Friday, almost locals, and welcome to another episode of Almost Local. I'm Maria, your host, and today I'm podcasting from Cloudy, Auckland, New Zealand. If you're new here, a warm welcome, almost local is a community for those like me navigating life abroad. If you're going through the ups and downs, if feel a bit from here and a bit from there. Let's embrace this in between place together. This community holds the good, the bad, and the unexpected, and we share unfiltered truths for those who really. Get it because your story matters. Stay tuned for more stories. Head to our website, almost local, and follow me on Instagram at almost local. So we had our first tsunami alert. Not exactly on the welcome back to New Zealand checklist, right? It started with a siren, that eerie rising whale that makes your stomach drop. Then texts, neighborhood chats slid up suddenly. I'm Googling EV equation zones while trying to pack a bag. And honestly, I kind of froze. Do you take snacks, birth certificate, books? My passport, the cat? Well, I don't have a cat. Anyway. The alert was lifted, thank goodness. But that moment made me realize something bigger. Moving again, always comes with lessons you don't see coming. So lesson number one. Coming back does not equal coming back to calm. When I said goodbye to my expert friends back in the Netherlands, some of them looked at me and said, oh, Maria, you're so lucky. I wish I could start over somewhere new, but, but if I'm being honest, I didn't feel lucky coming back to New Zealand. Our chosen home, though we're originally from Argentina, didn't feel like calm. It didn't even feel like an adventure underneath. It felt like grief because goodbyes in this life aren't always temporary. Sometimes they're forever, and you carry that weight with you. In those three years that we spent in the Netherlands, we built a life and living meant living little pieces of ourselves behind. So no coming back isn't smooth or simple. It's a cocktail of grief and gratitude, endings and beginnings all at once. Lesson number two, adaptation bits. Preparation. Yes, my friend. I'm the logistic person. I'm the one with the Excel sheets. Buying the fridge before we landed, arranging the bed, while juggling time zones between Europe and New Zealand. By the time we arrived, everything was set. Well almost. Because the truth is no amount of preparation replaces the work of adapting. And adapting takes time. It takes months. It could even take years. Preparation helps you settle in, but it's adaptation that makes you belong. And that's a lesson I keep learning every time. Lesson number three, the edge of the world is stunning, but it shakes. I had forgotten about the tsunami alerts and when it happened, well, I wasn't scared. I knew they were part of life here, but it reminded me that every place comes with a package deal. Inside that package well, surprises some breathtaking, some uncomfortable, some that shake you literally. That's the beauty of life abroad. The chaos and the calm, the grief and the joy. They don't cancel each other, but they come together and maybe that's exactly the point. At the end of the day, I'd still rather be here, sirens and all, because this messy, unpredictable, middle. That's where the story gets real. Thanks for listening to another episode of Almost Local. Thank you for being there. And remember, your story matters. Together we understand a little bit more about what it means to be almost local. And if you like this episode, please leave a review here or on Instagram. It means so much that you're part of this community. Together we grow more than we know. And now my friends, I'm off to my morning coffee until next time.