One year has passed. Seriously? Yes! One year since we took the Noumea-Toulouse flight on July 14, 2020 that would conclude our trip around the world.
It feels like yesterday though… all these vivid memories live in us and we bring them up as often as possible either perusing through pictures or just remembering anecdotes.
The year after the trip has been a bumpy road. It has been for all of us, really, with covid and everything going on, it has tested our resilience to us all. But the uncertainty of finding jobs in a gloomy aerospace market exacerbated the whole thing for us.
On the trip back, we had left a covid-free New Caledonia where life was totally back to pre-covid standards, and arrived in France which was battling covid. We immediately grasped what people had been and were going through. Life with masks, social distancing, fear. Fear to contaminate your loved ones inadvertently if guards were lowered.
We spent the summer settling into our new reality, also going through our moving boxes, preparing to live in France. After all, our plan was to find jobs in France, which in turn would dictate where we would settle and start a new life, new school, new friends, …
We spent time with family that we hadn’t seen for almost a year, saw a handful of our friends – even attended a lovely wedding in the Tarn – but unfortunately, the health crisis kept us away from most of our friends. We were staying with my in-laws, whose age made them vulnerable, and my father-in-law was still working as a doctor in a nursing home. So we were extra cautious and limited social interactions as much as possible.
When September came around, Naema and Lana started school in CM1 (4th grade) and Kindergarten, Salah and I started looking for jobs more thoroughly. Our enthusiasm was high, we were trustful that something good would come our way. We registered to employment agencies to maximize our chances – tailoring our résumés to French standards, understanding recruiters’ mindset, building our network. We both had interviews in September but no offers. And then, the no man’s land until November, other interviews… no offers. By November, our enthusiasm and confidence to find a job in France had started to chip.
We had no income, no home of our own and above all no line of sight on when that would change… we had to rethink our strategy. While we had expanded our job search to Europe, we started considering Montreal. We sent a few résumés to gauge the market and I got interviews pretty quickly. North America is a much more dynamic market and bounces right out of crises compared to Old Europe. But without any firm offer and signed contract, would we dare crossing the pond on just prospects? Status quo was not a possibility for us so YES! Early December, we started planning our last leg around the world to come to full circle – North America – that we had left in August 2019. How ironic!
Don’t get us wrong, self-doubts were omnipresent in our minds and we had countless sleepless nights. What if we were leaving too early and an opportunity showed up in France? What if it didn’t work out? Were we mindless parents putting our daughters through yet another big life change? Were the girls going to adjust? To be perfectly honest, in normal times we would probably have left them in France just the time we could find jobs in Montreal. But in covid times, with the uncertainty of borders closing, the anxious climate, the repetitive global lockdowns, the ordeal of traveling in such times for my in-laws, it would have been traumatic to be separated from the girls. Plus we had just spent a year and a half tightly knit… So however crazy the idea was, the 4 of us were in it together. On one condition though : no more changes until the end of the school year! And like that, we made the decision – the family would leave to Montreal on January 8.
But by the time we were sitting on that airplane, a load of things would need to happen – find a moving company (for our moving boxes that remained widely unopened) with a (very) short deadline, find an apartment in Montreal (good enough to stay for 6 months) – don’t forget to breathe – find winter clothes for the girls, continue job prospecting and have interviews in France and in Montreal – don’t forget to breathe – announce to the girls that we were leaving (they were delighted! sigh of relief), see family and friends, celebrate Christmas, enjoy local cuisine and delicacies and enter 2021 with little clues as to what life had in store for us… but we were up for the challenge. Someone wise once said « Life is like a box of chocolates … you never know what you’re gonna get ». lol
As soon as we landed in Montreal, a homey feeling filled us up, it was kinda magic. Upon arrival, we had a 2-week quarantine which allowed us to get adjusted to our new (white) reality.
Life confirmed us pretty quickly that we had made the right choice.
Within a week, Salah landed a job to start early February.
Our friends showed so much generosity and support by visiting us, bringing food, kids books & games, lending warm clothes, even a car, without forgetting sponsoring résumés! What a delight to see familiar faces at our door! We will never forget that. This also helped the girls realize that we were coming back to known territory, and they had play mates waiting for them.
We finished our quarantine on a Thursday night. Friday 9am, we registered the girls at the local school. On Monday January 25, the girls started school. Naema’s class had tests all week and she did great. Lana made friends very quickly. After a week, it felt as if they had always been there. Thanks to the girls, we befriended with a nice group of parents and go hiking together now.
As a parent, nothing else really matters as long as the kids are good! All these elements were confirming that we had made the right decision for our family. Coming here might not be so crazy after all.
Salah started working early February at the company he had left in 2015. This also felt like full circle! But he had a card up his sleeve.
In the meantime, I was home and applying left, right and center although having no feedback on the December interviews. In the end, I sent 76 résumés during my job hunt, a personal record – and not one I want to beat.
End of February, Salah got a management position at Airbus, more in-line with his aspirations, and accepted. He started on March 15.
March was also my time. After 3 long months of wait, I finally got an offer for a Program Manager position at Bombardier and started on March 22. Yes full circle for me too!
Time has passed. We have now been in Montreal for 6 months. Green has replaced white outside our windows. Our boxes arrived. We all adjusted to the work/school routine. We have been working from home, which helped with the transition, and enjoying every minute of our new and such awaited work life. We even had time for a family getaway to discover a nook of Québec province.
It is now July 14, 2021 – Bastille Day but … as I was touching on early in this post, our 1-year return from the trip that took us around-the-world to discover others but also ourselves.
Not only did the trip bond us forever, but it became a pre-requisite to what would follow as far as resilience, confidence, and family bal
Coralie
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