8 Years

8 years, Facebook tells me. 8 years is scary long. 

As I was walking around the compound, getting some extra steps in, enjoying the weather, and chatting with my visiting mother, I noticed a young expat woman with a pushchair, by herself. Look, I said to my mom, that’s me 8 years ago, when we just moved to Doha. Walking around, pushing my baby in a pushchair, looking for all those friendly expats I had heard I was going to find. Finding only cats and maids instead. 

So much has since happened, so many things changed! Even the trees they had only just planted when we moved there, are suddenly very tall. 

And my baby girl is 8 years old. 

She doesn’t remember any other home but this villa, in this compound. She is excited about the move. She is choosing her new bedroom and planning new play dates.

And speaking of play dates…Husband is concerned. The new place has a bit of a party reputation. He was secretly hoping there would be a quieter life now that our compound group fell apart. 

As for me, I am torn between feeling excited and sentimental, at the same time. It feels weird moving to a new compound now, after spending all my Doha life in one place. As we looked back, Husband pointed out that this, in fact, was the longest we ever lived in one place. Wow, I thought. That’s true. How is that even possible.

You think of somewhere else as your home, somewhere else as your permanent place. And you think of your expat life as a small chapter of your life story. A temporary phase, which would soon pass. However, some of us end up staying longer than expected, and suddenly this temporary life here becomes your reality. I look back at families I met during these 8 years. Things I learned about other cultures and traditions, other marriages and relationships, other friendships. It is amazing, looking back, how much has happened, how much has changed here, in this temporary location that probably affected us all forever. 

In my mind, I compare expat experience to a war. It may be an unfair comparison, as life here, let’s be honest, is a lot less like a war than the real world back home. But, what I mean is….You know when you watch a film and the main character demonstrates some pretty shitty weird behaviour and blames it on the post-war trauma? Well, I think we, expats, are all like that. You think you can go back and fit right back in, but it just not that easy. You are now different. Changed and will never be the same, as someone said to me recently.  

I know I should not panic about moving to a new compound. First, it is a lovely house and the compound looks great. There are palm trees both in the back AND the front gardens. How about that?

Secondly, change is inevitable. It was always going to happen. And lastly, walking around our old compound without all the familiar faces feels wrong. Too many people left too suddenly, and not necessarily because they wanted to. Every corner has a story, behind every door there are too many memories. Every shortcut witnessed our kids grow up, cats run away, us walking back from all those parties. 

And so… it is time for a change. A small change for me, as my move is nowhere nearly as dramatic as some of my friends’ moves recently have been. And yet, it feels huge, somehow.

Goodbye, my first Doha home. Hope the young mother I saw earlier finds her friends here, just like I found mine.