Moving From Canada to Panama: 8 Weeks to Panama

It is the final countdown, we are 8 weeks away from getting on the plane to Panama and our lives changing forever. I really feel it’s important to talk about the hard stuff we are facing right now. It’s so easy to focus on the crazy, cool, exciting and amazing feelings we have. But those aren’t the only feelings, there are a lot of hard feelings mixed in too. We are excited for the day to actually be here, but in some ways we are almost less excited because the sad parts of moving are getting super real.

Until this point, it was pretty easy to only think about all the positives of moving abroad and envisioning all the cool things this move is going to bring us, but over the last few weeks that excitement has definitely changed. We can no longer ignore the fact that we are leaving behind our family pet, my sister Marissa, her hubby and the kids and all our other family and friends. There have been a lot of tears honestly and the silliest things seem to trigger me. For example, the other day I saw a teenager snowmobiling in an open field while driving and I lost it. I just watched my whole childhood flash before my eyes, big family dinners and everyone living in and around the same city.

But the reality is, since Zach and I started our family, that picture has been very different.  Both sets of parents and most of our siblings have lived a plane ride away.  With the move getting closer, I am feeling more guilty about leaving, especially leaving my sister Marissa and the kids. We are very close and rely a ton on each other for so many things. We spend so much time together and are always at each other’s houses or watching each other’s kids.  Not having that closeness will be a big change, not only for us, but especially for the kids. In my mind I knew this move was going to be hard, but I underestimated the emotions I would feel. I can’t even write this blog without tears streaming down my face. 

It is like I am grieving the life I thought I would live. I feel most people that experienced a good childhood to some extent try’s to recreate that childhood for their kids. This move turns our whole world upside down and is nothing like the childhood Zach or I either had. The thought that there are things we won’t experience with our kids that we did as kids is hard.

The kids are very much feeling these emotions with us. Not so much because they understand what is happening but more feeding off our highs and lows. This includes shorter tempers and button-pushing so our household has had a rough couple weeks. The kids are so intuitive and really do “feel” that something big is happening.

All the important planning is coming to a head and neither of us has much patience to deal with the day-to-day stuff.  We are both mentally exhausted and the tensions are high so we decided a ‘reset’ was needed. Christmas was just around the corner and we wanted to change the morale. We decided the best way to do that was to get into the Christmas spirit.  So we went to church, did Christmas shopping, decorated the tree and the house all together. We just spent time together and it was great; exactly what we all needed.

I truly thank God for the family and friends He has surrounded me with.  There is such an abundance of peoples’ shoulders I have cried on. Lots of people I have cried with. This experience has helped me grow in so many ways. I have had to learn how to better talk through my emotions and just let myself ‘feel all my feelings’.  I have also had to let go of a lot of expectations I almost didn’t even realize I had about our life.

Everything we are going through, even the hard stuff I think has been good for us. When we got married we left our own families to create our own. So now we get to define who our family is and do what is best for us as our own family unit. We will still bring parts of each family into ours but it is a mix of two people that grew up different so naturally it will look and feel different. Feels good to get that all off my chest, and I am excited to talk about some more fun things in the next blog!