Leaving well for expats is all well and good as long as things go well . . . and good. 

But sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes the final weeks of your expat experience get blasted by circumstance. Sometimes leaving is a mess, not a choice. Sometimes it’s a rush to the airport with no time for intentional eye contact or heartfelt affirmations. Sometimes the bitterness feels beyond reconciliation. Sometimes the schedules are just too crazy, the people are just too busy or the time is just too short.

And what about the Stayers? We do this every stinking year. We have circumstances too.

Plans get made —  sometimes they work.

When they don’t, here are some things to consider.

 

Leaving is a process — not a moment. 

There is a LOT more to leaving than the airplane ride. There is a ramp up to the moment of physical departure which is where “Leaving Well” belongs. It’s where you pay attention to your relationships (the strong ones and the strained ones), you crank up the intentionality and you schedule all of your “one last times.”

The driving principle is that there are things you can do during this time that will soon be off the table. Do them while you can. The ramp up is PRIME TIME for leaving well.

Unless you can’t. Then the loss is compounded by the sense of “I didn’t even get to . . .”

Here’s the reality . . . The process ramps DOWN too. Primetime may be over but that doesn’t have to equal a total loss.

If leaving didn’t look like you had hoped it would then stay intentional on the other side of the airplane until your relationships have received the attention they deserve.

 

Settle for less.  

It’s really simple math. LESS is not what you hoped for. It’s disappointing. Frustrating. Sad.

 

But LESS is still MORE than NOTHING.

 

The tendency is to mentally shift into NEXT mode and hit the ground running. If you’re a Stayer then you wrap your head around the absence of your people and start adjusting to yet another new normal. Hard departures typically leave Stayers and Goers with either a sense of regret or blame.

“I wish I had done this.” OR “I hate how that happened.”

A Skype call is NOT a coffee date.

Email affirmations are NOT intentional eye contact.

Emojis are NOT hugs.

Wrap your head and your heart around that . . . and then make the call. Write the email. Send the emoji.

Lead with “This is not how I wanted to do this  . . . but . . . ”

It’s OK to settle for less . . . but don’t settle for nothing.

 

Lifers are for life

PLANE RIDES DON’T end relationships.

Soak in that for a moment.

Incessant goodbyes are, hands down, the hardest part of a life abroad BUT the uber richness of a global network of friendships is hard to measure.

You’ve done life with these people. Incompetent, bumbling, smashed together life. You have figured stuff out together. Leaned on each other. Fallen apart in front of each other and the bond that comes out of that is not bound by geographical proximity. Even if the leaving process doesn’t turn out like you had always dreamed it would, take comfort in knowing that these relationships (at least the best ones) transcend accessibility.

Click here to read: Hello Again — The Unanticipated Bright Side of Perpetual Goodbyes

 

Forgiveness changes NEXT

Things get all messed up when they don’t go according to our plan. In the rush and the stress and the chaos of transition people are rarely the best versions of themselves. We say stuff. We forget stuff. We react poorly.

Here’s the thing . . . If leaving was hard you don’t get to leave that stuff behind.

Here’s the other thing . . . If being left was even harder, that stuff doesn’t fly away when they do.

Let some people off the hook for the pettiness, the pride, the selfishness and the frantic reactions that come out of hard seasons.

Pause.

Don’t hear me say, just slap a quick, “boom – forgiven” stamp on every misdeed and move on. NOT that easy. Forgiveness is hard. Deep. Complex. And just like leaving, it is a process.

But moving forward without it makes the next thing suck.

Dig in but don’t just ignore it.

 

Sometimes leaving well is a tall order. Sometimes being left is even taller. Don’t settle for the lie that there is only one way to do it. 

What would you add to the list?