So its official, we’re heading back to live in Singapore and this time, the plan is to stay ‘til the boys get through primary school at least. Who knows, we might head elsewhere as both of us would love to experience living in India, but not until the boys understand that they can’t drink water out of a tap. That’s when we’ll seek out that opportunity.

Making the decision to move back to Singers wasn’t the easiest decision to make on some levels, but the reality is, both Steve and I have big personal/professional ambitions that we both need to achieve to be happy. The other thing is we want time for each other and the boys, and to achieve all of this, the one thing we need is time, and Singapore is the only place where we can really get that. Not that we’ll be sitting on our arses drinking cosmos, we’ll be working our arses off, but we’ll have time to do that and the other things we want to do.

Vick, our helper from before, is hopefully coming back to work for us, and that means all cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing, baby sitting, etc… is covered – I personally can’t wait. Vick is an awesome person and we miss having her in our lives. She’s also amazing with the boys, so we know they’ll be in safe hands when we can’t be around. For the last 18 months we have not had anyone take the boys off us (except for an hour here or there), and then when we entrusted them to a local pre-school, Lex got abused by his teacher! Thus having a break from each other from time to time will be good for all of us.

The reality is we just want to be able to work and be together – all of the other necessary life stuff is going to be outsourced. During this time in Australia, I’ve found the jobs of running a house, taking care of the boys, working, taking care of my husband, achieving all of my goals…. it’s impossible. Naturally, as most women will appreciate, the things that are not getting done are the things I want and need to do. I have personally decided that this is not a healthy position for me when I am champing at the bit to build a successful business and get my books published.

Now I appreciate that some people reading this may think lazy cow! Or isn’t that how most of the world does it? And I agree with them that this is indeed how most of the world does it, but I don’t agree that I’m a lazy cow. I’ve just identified that some things make me happy and some things make me blah and some things make me really unhappy.

For example, I never ever dreamed of being a “housewife,” so any duties in relation to that role make me really unhappy. There’s nothing wrong with being a housewife it’s just not something I ever wanted to do. Cooking is a bit of blah, but sometimes it makes me happy. Washing = unhappy. Shopping = extremely unhappy. Being alone all the time = unhappy. Working on the things I want to work on = happy, writing, anything really = happy.

So that’s the focus moving forward. Make it possible for more of the happy boxes to be ticked, less ticks in the unhappy boxes and life will be good!

The only reason why this decision hasn’t been easy is because we DID want to come to Australia to find our feet for a few years to get the boys through school. I definitely realise we made the “wrong” decision coming to Noosa, a where we knew no one, but as I don’t believe there are any wrong decisions only learning experiences, I think we came here to realise that we’re not meant to be in Australia and “settled,” yet.

We both miss the diversity of Asia. We want our kids to know people of all races, religions and backgrounds as a normal part of their life. We want to be able to shower each other with love and attention because that makes us happy and when we’re shagged at the end of the day with no energy for the small things, well we just don’t like that. We want great friends and people in our lives who come from vastly different places and experiences. We want to laugh a lot and don’t believe that life should be a grind. It’s definitely been a grind here.

So there you go, the decision is made. I can’t wait to reconnect with old friends, get SAJE cranking, and go out with Steve on a date – we’ve had one date in the last 18 months…. that’s not good.

BTW I can recommend to anyone with young children, who still has a lot of personal ambition and isn’t enamoured with doing the whole stay at home/take care of kids/support husband/etc.. life, that living in a country where you can employ a full time live in housekeeper, nanny, etc… is a very good thing to do for your intellectual satisfaction. That is essentially why we have made this decision. My brain needs it.

Yours, without the bollocks
Andrea