I AM WOMAN MAGAZINE Fiji - Issue 18

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS
Michelle posing in her pacific island themed attire.
My Life in a Bubble – Introduction
Michelle used to be a photographer for I
AM WOMAN MAGAZINE. She now resides
in China and will be providing us with
updates of her travels in this
column.
On May 31, 1991, a group of people
gathered at Perth International Airport
in Western Australia to wave
goodbye to a 20-year-old woman
who was flying off to live in Japan.
Those people – the woman’s dad,
brother, sisters and friends – didn’t
know that day that the woman would
never come home again.
But now they know. And I know too.
Because that young woman was
me. And I’m still roaming the globe 31
years later.
I don’t know what it is that makes
a person transition overnight from
someone who’s never left their state
to someone who transits the globe
for three decades. (Although my therapist
and I are working hard to figure
it out!). I’m not sure I ever intended to
stay away for good. I was restless in
WA and I was desperate to explore
other places and cultures. But the
staying away forever bit sort of happened
by accident. I lived in Japan
for a couple of years then moved to
London. And I loved it so much there
that I stayed. And stayed. And then I
realized that my life was there, that
I’d built some foundations beneath
my feet that were hard to walk away
from. So I stayed some more. I even
got the passport.
by Michelle Neeling
Then one sunny day I met a lovely
Englishman whose hankering for adventure
matched my own. He was living
in South Africa when we met, and
I visited him there a couple of times,
and he flew over to the UK to meet
my friends and family. And we decided
that we were the real deal, and
that we were going to stay together
forever.
And so finally it took an Englishman to
drag me away from England. In June
2010 I moved with Mike to Jerusalem,
then in 2012 to Switzerland, where the
two of us became four. Three years
later we moved to Pakistan. Then in
2017 our first ever flight on the national
carrier of a beautiful South Pacific
island nation took us to our new
home…
Ah, Fiji… What a glorious four years we
had on your stunning shores! The first
twelve months were tough - it always
Michelle with her sons.
Photos Supplied.
INTERNATIONAL FOCUS
takes me some time to find my feet
in a new place – but when we moved
into a lovely house on the beach at
Suva Point, our real Fiji lives began…
There’s so much to love about life in
Fiji. Our twins, Keir and Viggo, started
their school life at Waldorf, where
their lovely teachers gave them all
the support they needed to ease in
to education in their own sweet time.
Then when the boys were about to
turn five they were ready for the big
school… From the moment they first
arrived at ISS they were in love!
Mike was very happy in his job with a
humanitarian organisation. His work
took him all over the South Pacific so
the boys and I didn’t always see a lot
of him, but with the help of our beautiful
nanny and the wonderful woman
who looked after our house, we found
our rhythm.
And as for me… One of the ironies of
life as a “trailing spouse” is that you
have lots of help at home – help that
you could really do with in “normal
life” when you’re run ragged trying to
tick everything off your to-do list - but
you’re not allowed to work… Across
the globe, there are thousands of
expat Wives and Girlfriends and Boyfriends
and Husbands (OK, maybe
WAGs works, but not BAHs so much…)
who are trying to figure out creative
ways of contributing to the countries
they find themselves living in. As I discovered
in those early days in Suva,
you can only bake so many banana
cakes with the kids before the walls
start closing in…
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