Our Brave Chapter

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A few weeks ago, we were in a taxi on the way to spend the day out with our children. It was supposed to be one of those rare days where we just switched off and showed up for them. And then our four year old looked up and said something that stopped us completely.

“Why are you always talking about London? There are so many things to do to go to London.”

He is four. He notices everything. And in that moment, sitting in that taxi on the way to a day that was meant to be just for him, he held up a mirror to exactly what our lives had become.

We had been so consumed by the planning. The visas, the schools, the housing research, the Singapore to-do list, the London to-do list, the work, the late night conversations after the kids were asleep. London had crept into everything. The dinner table. The walks. The taxi rides. The quiet moments that were supposed to belong to him and his sister. Even our four year old could feel it.

That was the moment it felt like too much.

What the mental load of relocating actually feels like

If you are in the middle of planning an international move while also working full time and raising young children, you already know this feeling. But nobody really talks about it honestly, so let me try.

It feels heavy. It feels like there is no off switch.

We have a four and a half year old and a seven month old. Both strong willed, both wonderfully active, both needing us fully present in the way that young children rightfully do. We run a no screen time household which means that when the children are awake, we are with them. Completely. Which we would not change. But it also means that every task related to this move happens after they are asleep.

So the day looks like this: wake up, children, work, children, dinner, bedtime routines, and then when the house is finally quiet and every part of you wants to simply rest, the planning begins. The research. The emails. The document gathering. The late night conversations about neighbourhoods and schools and what we are going to do about the lease and whether we have remembered to sort the power of attorney.

And then you do it again the next day.

On top of all of this, our parents are getting older. Time with them is not something we take for granted. Carving out space for them matters too. And yet every hour spent with them is an hour not spent on the growing list.

The list, by the way, never gets shorter. You cross off three things and four more appear.

The question that surfaces at 11pm

When you are this tired, when the list feels endless and the children need more than you feel you have left to give, a question starts to surface in the quiet.

Is this really worth it for a two to three year stint?

We have asked ourselves this. More than once. It is not a question born of regret. It is a question born of exhaustion. And I think it is important to say that out loud because if you are planning something similar and you have had that thought at 11pm staring at your laptop, you are not alone and you are not weak for having it.

The answer, for us, keeps coming back to yes. But the yes requires tending.

What actually helps

We have not figured this out perfectly. We are still in the middle of it. But here is what genuinely helps on the hard days.

Remembering why we are doing this. Not the logistics of why. The deeper why. We want our children to grow up knowing that different choices are possible. We want to break out of the comfortable treadmill before it becomes the only thing we know. We want to do this move now, while our children are young enough to adapt and while our parents are still well enough that we can go with peace of mind. To do it later would mean a different set of regrets.

Taking it one day at a time, one task at a time. Looking at the full list is paralyzing. Looking at today’s one thing is manageable. We have had to consciously choose not to look at everything at once.

Trusting the instinct that said yes in the first place. We said yes to this move before we had all the answers. That instinct has not gone away. On the hard days we come back to it. The learning curve is steep right now. The adventure is on the other side of it.

Giving each other grace. This is perhaps the most important one. When your partner snaps because they are tired, when you feel guilt about the screen time you swore you would avoid, when the four year old asks why you are always talking about London. These are not signs that you are failing. They are signs that you are human and that you are doing something genuinely hard.

A note to the parent reading this at 11pm

If you are where we are, planning something big, carrying more than feels manageable, questioning whether it is worth it while simultaneously knowing deep down that it is, I want you to know something.

The mental load is real. The exhaustion is real. The doubt is real.

And so is the courage it takes to keep going anyway.

You do not have to have it all figured out. You do not have to feel ready. You just have to take the next step, then the one after that, and trust that the accumulation of small brave actions is quietly building something worth having.

One chapter at a time.

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If this resonated, you might also want to read: Should we move to London with young children? Here’s how we actually made the decision.

Are you in the middle of a big move or life change? I would love to hear how you are managing the mental load. Drop a comment below.