That’s what they say. Women can’t have it all. Except I always have. I was a born into white privilege to a financially secure, happily married, well educated couple. I am their oldest child and their only daughter, raised to believe that I could be anything, do anything and marry anyone I wanted, or not marry, should I therefore choose. I was taught that life isn’t always fair but also given the tools and encouragement to fight against and change any such unfairness, not to simply accept it.
I made every sports team I ever tried out for, graduated from high school and college with honors, met the man of my dreams before I had time to look, married him because we chose to and it was legal for us to do so, got pregnant as soon as we tried, had three, healthy, strong daughters, fell into a job that paid me more money than I had imagined earning while also being the primary care provider and default parent for our children. I worked on my own schedule, from home, and around the schedules of my children. I felt fulfilled and appreciated and over compensated. Sure it was busy and impossibly messy, but it was everything I wanted.
I recently read this article by Kimberly Harrington:
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/i-am-the-one-woman-who-has-it-all
I belly laughed my way through it and thought: I. Get. Her. Except, of course, she is wrong. I am the one woman who has it all.
Then came the oil wife life, the life I said I didn’t want. My husband, after years of unfulfilling work for him, accepted a job with an international oil company. It was a great opportunity for him, a pay raise and the job he had dreamed of and worked to attain. I saw the writing on the wall immediately.
So now, here I am making a new life in a new country, a woman who truly had it all and was so First World that I actually chose to give it all up. Does that make me a born again feminist or a failed former feminist? I’m not sure. Here is what I do know:
My husband and I moved our three young daughters and our ridiculous standard poodle across the world and much further south. We traded the majestic snow capped peaks and receding glaciers of Alaska for another oil rich location: Guyana, South America. We left behind a life that we both loved, a life that included immediate proximity to extended family, endless outdoor adventures in a once in a lifetime place, a career I couldn’t take with me and a community that was our home. But here’s the kicker: we chose to do so and we’d do so again.
I miss my family and friends dreadfully and, surprisingly, I miss Alaska itself, but Jeff and I faced an opportunity that we might not have again, the chance to live and learn in another culture, the chance to share with our girls another part of the world and another way of life. I firmly believe that in this lifetime we are more likely to regret the opportunities that we didn’t take than the ones we did, even if those choices end badly. I also believe that we can’t grow as a people if we don’t stretch outside of our comfort zones. So, here we are. Expats in Guyana. And these are the stories of life as I now know it.