With our next assignment now confirmed, we’ve entered what I like to refer to as the “Senior Slide†portion of the tour. This is the beginning of the end at post. Much like how getting accepted to a college made it feel “real†that you were leaving High School; receiving your onward assignment brings into stark reality the fact that you are truly leaving, whether you like it or not. With this realization comes a whole host of emotions—relief at knowing what’s coming next vs living from a constant place of “what if?â€; excitement over the new adventures that lie ahead and the joy of getting to know that place intimately; and, not surprisingly, immense grief over leaving the people and places you came to love in this temporary home.
I noticed in previous tours that if I’m not self-aware, I begin to “check-out†without realizing it. I imagine that it’s my subconscious’ way of trying to save me from future pain — to slowly get me detaching now instead of in one overwhelming moment of pain at the end. A means of self-preservation, perhaps. And it’s easy to let it happen—to get sucked into researching your new place and dreaming about what will transpire in that chapter of life — but if I let myself do that, I miss out on 7.5 more months of possible memory-making with the people here. And so I  re-center myself daily to stay present in THIS moment. Because there are still adventures to be had HERE, in Mumbai.
Some of you will surely be curious about the logistical side of things. Nia and I anticipate leaving in June of 2022. Nick will stay until the end of July or early August. Between now and then (roughly 7.5 months for Nia and I), we need to do these things to “wrap up†our time in India:
- Sell our car that we only used 3 times
- Try and secure a new position for our household staff member
- Identify what 600 pounds of stuff we’ll take in air freight for our year in DC (everything else goes into storage)
- Identify what 300 pounds of stuff we need over the summer months that will go in our hand-carry bags
- Book our outbound flights and apply for Temp Housing in DC
- Paint the walls back to white in our apartment
- Sell or donate the 35-50% of our stuff that is either worn out, not used or will be irrelevant in two years (I’m especially thinking of toys). This will be a huge undertaking. We’ve always moved every two years before this, which didn’t leave too much time to over-accumulate. This time around we’ll be divesting of 4 years’ worth of stuff. Yikes.
- Visit any last places we didn’t get to (more on that in another post)
- Visit all our favorite places in Mumbai one last time and take pictures to include in photobooks
- Say goodbye to all our people – American and Indian work colleagues, school friends, Consulate friends, expat friends, and Indian friends.
And that, dear readers, is how I approach my final months at post. It’s never easy at the end, but much like one comes to accept the circle of life with births and deaths, so have I begun to accept the circle of Foreign Service life with repeated closures and new beginnings. And so we move on, inevitably causing pain to those we leave behind despite our best intentions, with beautiful memories and friendships to take with us forever…
