If you’ve been following my stories for awhile, you likely may know that when we left Canada to move abroad, I was an Assistant Principal of an Elementary School in Calgary.

I dabbled in the idea of teaching when we got to Paris. I subbed a bit, and temporarily took a part time position, but it didn’t feel like a fit….and if I’m being perfectly honest, it was getting in the way of my European travel adventures.

Then I got pregnant, and I got pregnant again, and the idea of going back to work was impossible because I almost always went to Canada in March or June(or both) to see my family. The idea of teaching never came up again until last summer.

When I had my ‘I can’t do this anymore’ moment, there was a feeling of needing more. I loved the travel aspect of our lifestyle, but it was no longer enough. The good no longer outweighed the not-so-good. I wasn’t fulfilled and was lacking purpose beyond shuttling my kids back and forth to school. It was great that I could volunteer when they went on a field trip to the orangutang sanctuary or sailing(the field trip options when you live on the equator are pretty cool), but the other days just needed more. I’m not sure how else to explain it. I wanted personal growth; to feel like I was a contributing member of my community, and society as a whole, really. Something was missing.

I can now recognize that part of it was a feeling of isolation after so many years of being in a non English speaking society and living on a compound. I craved the easy breezy banter of my first language without half my brain translating and conjugating while I spoke.

Maybe I’ll go back to work?

The words escaped my lips last summer before I realized what they meant. They slipped from my mouth and created a rolling boulder of the things to come: selling the house in France, requesting a transfer to Canada, parting ways with all the wonderful and exciting parts of expat life that we love so much and knew we’d miss. Another country, another house, and a more permanent place for our kids to call home. Those words were the spark that blazed the trail of our move home.

There was more than once along the way that I wondered if it was a mistake. It would be so much easier to stay on the expat train. We could go back to France, life would be easy, I wouldn’t have to work.

Purpose, connection, and again, fulfillment. They were things I craved, and at the risk of sounding like a self help poster, good things happen at the edge of your comfort zone. Let me tell you, I was SOOOOOO comfortable being an expat. I am Canadian Expat Mom, for crying out loud, the new life I had created revolved around being an expat. It was my new identity.

It was so much easier to stay.

But we jumped. Both feet. Eyes closed. Internally screaming at times. Because we no longer knew what life on the other side of expat would look like.

Should I start a business. Maybe I’ll get a job writing full time. Am I qualified to read the news?

These are all legit things that were looked into on the path to coming home. We were definitely being pulled here, but I had to come back to teaching in my own time. And I did.

From my living room in Congo around Christmas time I sent an email. After Russia, when I went to France to pack up our house, I had a Skype interview with my old school board, and by May, back in that living room in Congo, I had been placed in a teaching position. Very ironically, the job was in the very same school I started at when I first moved to Calgary at the age of twenty three. Although, now that school is French Immersion and that is a very new position for me. Hello, comfort zone; I see your edge again!

I’ve had one week back at work, and although the kids haven’t started yet, it feels good to be back. Like I said in my last post, I feel like myself again, even though I didn’t realize I had gone anywhere. However, I’ve learned to never say never, because I have no idea what the future holds. I could look back at this post laughing at myself from my living room in Dubai down the road. Who knows!? But for right now, being here feels good, and right.

And in the spirit of keeping it real; I wanted to ease myself in. So, one month after I’ve been working full time, at the beginning of October, when the weather starts to really get crisp around here, I’ve booked myself a trip to Las Vegas to meet one of my best friends from France(who has recently repatriated to the US) for a long weekend. Because that too will bring me fulfillment and joy… and the Canadian winter is not something I want to jump into with both feet!

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In case you haven’t seen, I wrote something else about going back to work on HuffPost. You can’t have it all, but I’m glad ‘Canadian Expat Dad’ will be working his French magic over at the kids’ francophone school on their first day at school in Canada.