Being an Expat Parent is Hard on the Best Days. These Are Not the Best Days.

More than 10 years ago, when I decided to make aliyah--to pick up my wonderful, happy life in the US and move to Israel with the intent of building a life and a family here--my parents and I had a discussion. They would visit Israel twice a year, I'd fly to the US just as often. We'd never go more than a few months without a visit. If you've met my parents, this is not a surprise. They're fantastic.

Today, I have no idea when I will see my parents next. I've been through a lot of hard things in the last 10 years, but this massive question mark around my next trip to Rochester--this is what's keeping me up at night. We've had some health struggles in the last few years, and my ability to jump on a plane at a moment's notice is what has kept me sane until now. Being an expat is hard.

And being an expat parent is hard, all the time. It's hard when I can hardly help my kid check out his book from the library on a Friday morning, because I never learned to write block Hebrew letters. It's hard at pr-school birthday parties when I don't know the songs or traditions. It's hard on holidays, when the songs I associate with those special days are only sung in our house, not in my kids' schools. There's no 'I have a little dreidel" in Hebrew.

Sarah Tuttle-Singer captured it so beautifully in her piece about so-called "mermaid mothers" when she observed: "I can speak Hebrew. I can spend the whole day in Hebrew. I can spend the whole day and even find my way back home again and order a fucking glass of whisky in Hebrew. But I’m not smart in Hebrew. I’m not funny in Hebrew, I’m not INTERESTING in Hebrew except maybe as novelty and a “Oh, why would you leave America?” or ARGH “What do you think of Israel,” and then I have to hurry up and say it all before their eyes glaze over, and I’m just standing there with my strange feathers and fins, my funny weird voice and the quieter I am, the louder the difference, and the conversation turns into something that I can’t follow, and so I sit there with my hands clasped, drowned bird, flailing fish."

But today, it feels harder than usual. 

I'm not just dependent on Israel properly managing this crisis to drive across town and see my parents (though it will be great to do that and see my in-laws again). I'm dependent on the US managing it.

We aren't debating our Passover trip to see my parents--it's canceled, without so much as a discussion. 

And suddenly, somehow, the country where I birthed my babies, built a hi-tech career, really grew up, if I'm being honest, all feels so much more foreign, with me the outsider again. 

This week, I had a fever and a cough, so Dan (rightfully) ordered me into isolation in our bedroom. As I fought the authorities to figure out if I need a test for Coronavirus, I felt like a new immigrant again. The words stick in my mouth, though I now know how to discuss quarantine and shortness of breath in Hebrew. 

This time is challenging for so many. I am so lucky to have a stable job I enjoy, an apartment with a balcony, a husband whose competence is incomparable, and children whose energy is matched by their need for sleep. I know all of that.

But right now, this just feels hard. Brutally, incredibly, never-endingly hard. Here's to better days ahead.