Leaving the land and the people you love is never an easy proposition. On the other hand, what do you do if the opportunity of a lifetime comes up, in a green and pleasant far away? For many South Africans, it’s a dilemma of life and change in the new global economy.
“Did you know that New Zealand has a volcanic park?”
“Hmmm?”
“New Zealand! Volcanic park?” This time, complete with enthusiastic hand gestures and raised eyebrows.
My husband, B, is on about emigrating again. He likes the idea of it and New Zealand seems like the perfect place to be if you’re the outdoorsy type. Also, it’s not South Africa.
It sounds like a cliché. Remember the mass exodus to New Zealand and Australia around the time apartheid ended? I do. I remember thinking that those people leaving in droves were fools. It was an exciting time to here, we were the “rainbow nation”, an example to other countries. Why on earth would you want to leave?
Now, I find myself at least mildly entertaining my husband’s pointed suggestions. I love the idea of travel. I love the idea of living somewhere other than the country I grew up in. When the kids were little and I was married to their dad, we went quite far down the road of emigration. I’d been headhunted, applied for the job, and could be found regularly staring at photos of Dunedin and dreaming. But in the end, I didn’t get the job.
Now, almost a decade later, and having lived my entire 40-something years in Cape Town, it feels right to want to live elsewhere and experience life on a different continent. Except…
There’s my mom. She’s here and when we leave, she’ll still be here. And you don’t leave family, right?
There are my kids. Their dad, my ex, is here, and if we go, he’ll still be here, and not with them. That doesn’t seem right. It’s not right.
I need time to come to terms with these whopping, great, big reasons not to leave. The argument, which B uses to reassure me, is that we can visit, my mom will be fine, and that the kids’ dad will understand. I’m taking them to a better future, where they can one day apply to university and get jobs.
The argument is sound and logical, but I’m dithering. I’ve been dithering for years now. Periodically, the conversation is revisited. We go round and round. I look for jobs. I find one or two that seem near perfect. And then I hesitate. If I press “submit” on this application, what then?
A friend once told me that you haven’t made the decision until they offer you the job. You apply, you try, and only after that do you actually need to make the decision. For me, though, hitting that “submit” button feels like an enormous choice already.
I shouldn’t live for others, is B’s argument. What about you and the things you want to do with your life? But almost two decades of parenting means I’m out of practice with that way of thinking. You want that last pie? I wasn’t hungry anyway. You need me to sit up all night while you’re battling earache? No problem – I can sleep tomorrow. The concept of doing exactly as I please, others be damned, is foreign in the extreme.
I’m not a martyr. I do things for myself. I regularly take me-time days and have been known to blow off entertaining my kids for a day of knitting and reading. But those two reasons – my mom, and the kids’ dad – stick in my throat each time we discuss emigration.
This year, we’ll talk about it some more. I’ll dream a bit and try to wrap my head around the reasons not to go through with it. Give me time, B. I need to get to grips with it all.
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