Crossing The Rubicon

The Potski Family have crossed The Rubicon.

The Rubicon, in case you didn't know (I didn't know in detail before I started writing this post - isn't the internet a wonderful thing?), was the river that Julius Caesar's army crossed in 49 BC in an act of insurrection against the Roman state preceding his eventual assumption of power, and was where he supposedly uttered the words 'The die has been cast' (according to Suetonius).

Well.  That seems a bit dramatic for what we've done; there has been no insurrection, we are not acting against the state, and the only place our words on this event are being recorded are here on this blog, but still; we have crossed a point of no return in our family's journey.

We are heading back to the UK.

And our particular Rubicon - at this point - was not re-registering Boys #1 and #2 for the next academic year of school here in Russia.

This may not seem like a big deal to some, but places at the school they currently attend are as common as hen's teeth; for every child who leaves there are many lined up to step into their spot, so it's not a reversible decision - but we've made it.

I have mixed feelings about moving back, to be honest.  On the one hand, we're not a family of serial expats; we haven't spent 20 years trekking around the globe, and it was always likely that after Moscow we would be returning to the UK, so it's not exactly a shock that we're doing this.  We still have a home there, along with family and friends who have been very understanding about our itinerant lifestyle during visits over the last 5 years or so, and it will be wonderful to be closer to all of them.  It will also be fantastic to be able to comprehend what's being said around me rather than just catching a few words in each exchange and hoping that where I miss the meaning, my general smiling and nodding will get me through without causing too much offence.

And then there's the fact that we are very much looking forward to the Boys being in UK schools (more on that another time), and giving them the chance to see the country as more than just a holiday destination.  They will be able to be more independent as they get older, in a way that expat kids in Moscow just can't be.  Children here often live in a bubble, and whilst they have incredible experiences and see wonderful places, the opportunities to do mundane things like get Saturday jobs or paper rounds just don't happen.  And I very much hope that they will no longer have to say goodbye to 30% of their classmates every July, when that year's rotation happens and families move to their next posting on the opposite side of the world.

That last one's a bugger.  I will not be sorry to leave it behind.

But on the other hand, we've had an amazing time here.  We've had some life-changing experiences and met some truly adventurous and outstanding people and made what I hope will be lifelong friends.  Living in Moscow has changed us for the better; it's made us less insular, less inclined to take one viewpoint and stick to it and more likely to look for the other side of the story.  It's made me both value the differences between people and also to understand that whatever you see on the surface, we mostly want the same thing; for our kids to be happy and healthy.

When we took the final decision to move here, back in 2009, Husband gave me the chance at the last minute to change my mind.  We could stay put, he said.  Or, we could move Russia.  Neither was the easy option; he was travelling to Moscow each and every week and was only back at weekends, so Monday - Friday the Boys and I were on our own.  On the opposite side of the scale there was, well, Russia, and all the challenges that living there would involve.

Having fretted about what we were planning, and having been second-guessing myself in the run-up to that conversation I was surprised by how easy it was to make the choice.  Because how many people in their early 40's get the chance to pro-actively make the decision to really shake things up?

So we chose to throw the deck in the air and make the move, and whilst it was tricky to begin with, 5 years down the line I think it was the best thing we could have done.

Here's to shaking things up.  May we all have the courage to cross our Rubicon from time to time, whatever it might be.

(But I would highly recommend that if you do, you ensure you will have access to wine.  And chocolate.)