Let me set the scene. Two kids, two resigned jobs, one apartment slowly being dismantled into labelled boxes and a moving date in roughly three months. Oh — and we haven’t actually decided where we’re moving yet.
Welcome to our life. Pull up a chair. It’s messy in here.
This is our fourth international move as a family. You’d think by now we’d have a system. A colour-coded spreadsheet, a slick checklist, a calm and measured approach to uprooting an entire household. And in some ways, we do. But there’s also the 10pm lying-awake-staring-at-the-ceiling part, which never quite goes away no matter how many times you’ve done it before.
“We aren’t leaving because it is easier. We are leaving because staying feels harder.”
We’ve been living in Abu Dhabi, and if you’ve been watching the news, you’ll understand — without me needing to spell it out — why it felt like the right time to go. The decision itself wasn’t difficult. The everything-that-comes-after is.
So here’s where we actually are: my husband and I have both resigned. We’re applying for jobs with no clear direction of location other than west. We’re navigating online learning — for ourselves and our kids, who are old enough to know something big is happening and ask questions we don’t always have answers to. And we’re sorting through years of accumulated life — deciding what comes with us, what gets sold and what gets left behind.
Exhausted doesn’t quite cover it. But determined? That part’s solid.
I started this blog because I couldn’t find many honest accounts of what this actually looks like from the inside. Most expat content is either dreamy relocation porn or dry logistics guides. What I wanted — what I needed — was someone saying: yes, this is chaotic, here’s what we’re doing about it and here’s what’s falling apart despite our best efforts.
So that’s what this will be. Worth the Gamble is where I’ll document the move, the job hunt, the online learning experiments, the conversations with the kids, the moments of doubt, and — eventually — the other side of it. Whatever that looks like.
Our surname is Gamble. The irony is not lost on us.
“Three months. No fixed destination. Two kids asking where their new school will be. Let’s go.”
If you’re in the middle of your own messy transition — moving country, changing careers, starting over in some form — I hope this is useful, or at the very least makes you feel less alone in it.
More soon. Probably while sitting on a half-packed box.
Marie 🙂
Worth the Gamble 