Marriage + Wife

What matters to me livin' la vida Lanka?  First, Marriage + Wife.

We got married at the time we did because of Sri Lanka.  My husband got an assignment here and wanted to take me along.  Of course my uber Catholic upbringing and principles required us to get married.  After 1 month and 9 days of preparation, we did.  Two weeks later my husband started his assignment.  A month (the longest month evah!) later I followed suit. 

At first I was excited, I’m going to be an expat’s wife!  How fabulous could that be?  Well apparently… not very.  A lot of people have this misconception of an expat life, especially an expat’s wife’s life.  What I can say is this, anything that takes you out of your comfort zone is disorienting.  For a control-freak like me, that is not fabulous at all.

But I digress.

Back to marriage and being a wife.

Starting our life in Sri Lanka pretty much gave me a Marriage + Wife 101. 

The things I firmly held onto in my life back in Manila, I left when I went to Sri Lanka.

I left my family and friends.

I left my job and source of income (which pretty much meant my independence as well).

I left my identity.

I vowed to my husband that I will go where he goes.  How romantic!  How adventurous!  It is!  Actually.  But not in the way I expected it to be.

Don’t get me wrong.  Being married to my husband is easy like a Sunday morning.  Living with him is a joy. 

I learned these lessons pretty much the hard way:

I learned that I do not operate as a “singular” entity anymore.  I have a partner.  And I allowed myself to depend on him.

I still have my family and friends, no matter where I am.  But what my family and friends offer me, my husband gives me too.  I let him be my family and friends and I became his family and friends too.

I learned that I am still me – even without the trappings of my “Manila” life.  That I am growing, changing and transforming not on my own anymore but we’re growing, changing and transforming together as husband and wife and as our individual identities.

At the end of the day I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.  Marriage and a start-up wife La Vida Lanka!

The Real Housewife of Colombo

The view of Colombo from our veranda

Around a month and a half after I started this blog, I finally arrived in the tea country! The journey was (and still is) interesting – a series of difficult but beautiful transformations.  One such transformation was filling out the immigration card.  I didn’t know that it would be such a moment.  In particular, I didn’t realize that answering the box for “Occupation” was so defining.  Normally I would put HR Manager or its derivative.  Last October 2 was the first day in 7 years that I couldn’t.  That day I didn’t have an occupation so I just put “None.” 

I didn’t think too much of it until I was asked by the Immigration Officer, “Why None?”  Yeah, why none?  I was telling my husband about this when I arrived and he said, “Why didn’t you just put housewife?”  Yeah, why didn’t I?  I guess at that moment, I wasn’t yet a housewife.  I was still 10 hours away.

Now, 6 days after I arrived I can say I am a housewife.  I am a wife, I stay home around 50% of the time, I wash, I cook (yes!), I clean and I decorate.  When I was still working and there were days when I get enough of the stress, the people and the politics, I dream I was a housewife – not just your everyday housewife, an expat’s wife!  It was a nice convenient escape.  Now that I am “living the dream” it does feel like an escape.  I actually feel like I’m in a silent retreat most of the day (sans the TV, internet and radio).  I like the balance of staying home and going out.  And on both occasions I am definitely occupied.  But it is a different kind of “occupation.”  It is totally an escape from my “previous life.” 

In as much as I dreamed of becoming an expat’s wife, I loved the life I lead.  I was working in reputable organizations, learning a lot, touching quite a few people along the way, dealing with challenges that fed my soul.  There are times when it felt like the daily grind and you want nothing but to take a vacation.  Now that I’m in this “vacation” I hope that it stays that way, a vacation.  It will be good while it lasted but it has an end.  To the housewives out there, I totally respect you because it is hard work and a totally different discipline altogether!  But really, enlighten me how you are able to do it because I think I still have a lot of learn.  

Reunited with Hubby

The battle plan is settle in, make the house a home, enjoy being a housewife (a good one at that!) and then continue doing what I’m passionate about (work in organization development / human resources) on top of continuously making the house a home and being a wife.  Now that’s truly quite an occupation!  But for now, I’m still learning to embrace this so-called-life as a housewife.  And along the way I hope I can find passion in it and be a really good wife.