Are You Ready To Begin?

Home. It is a funny concept to me.. but not because I don’t have a home per say… like, I live in an apartment, but the idea of a place so familiar, so welcoming and inviting as to have the ability to draw one back after years and years away is … well, foreign. Maybe because for the greater part of my life, home was only home for 3 years, and then it was time to go somewhere new. It causes great confusion to most people I meet that 'home' for me can and does change at least once every 3 years. It is also confusing that although I say where my 'home' is, it's not where I was born, where I am from, or even where I am going. To me, home is where my parents are... and it just so happens to change a lot.

My name is Carrie. Not really, but you get the point. I’m 22 and right now I live in Canada. My current ‘home’ is somewhere in the tropics; meaning my family is a good 8 hours away by plane, a trip I make twice a year. For the first 12 years of my life I lived overseas: various parts of Asia with a brief stop in the Americas; and for the next 12 years I will be in Canada finishing my undergrad in a health science field. So why did I live in so many places? The answer is simple: my parents are diplomats. Everyday ordinary people who have been appointed to represent a government in its relations with other governments, or more importantly, people who use skill and tact in dealing with others. They have been in the service for 30 years, meaning my older brother and I have also been in the service for our entire lives.

At first glance the diplomatic life looks glamorous: movies such as Lethal Weapon 2, The Constant Gardner, and to a lesser extent James Bond make it seem as if diplomats have it easy: We’re rolling around in the tax-payers money, jet-setting to exotic places with people, houses, cars and money at our disposal, attending sexy parties in designer gowns and enough jewelry to power a small island hanging from our necks. Well let me tell you… if the dip life was anything like I had just described, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this: I’d be enjoying every second of it!

But if you look deeper, you’ll see the opposite.

My parents left me 3 years ago on post after spending 7 years back in Canada. This would turn out to be the first post that neither my brother nor I would accompany them. My brother Greg and I stayed in Canada to pursue a better education than we could receive in a third world country. Yes, the tropical island paradises are third-world countries once you step outside the front door of the resort. That means my closest biological family member is 2 hours away by train or car and has been for the past 3 years. My parents are a plane ride away in a different time zone... Hell, not even in this hemisphere. And I'm here. At 19 most teenagers move away to university; far enough to gain independence but close enough to come home if they really needed to. In my case, I didn't leave the nest: the nest left me.

So I am alone. The foreign service life is in a word, lonely. Family wise, I am alone here; my brother is alone, my parents are together but my father is often away on trips, so there are points in time where my entire family is separated from each other. And it’s been like that for as long as I can remember.

Does it bother me? Sometimes. I miss my parents and I miss my brother… but the life I’ve lead thus far at the beck and call of the government, I’ve become so used to being alone it’s at times hard to function otherwise. Everyone in my family is used to doing their own thing; to keeping themselves occupied with work or school or other social activities that although we know that we are family by blood, we’re family mostly in name. We know each other. We love each other. But we don’t see each other very often. The Foreign Service life splits families apart in more ways than one: divorce is high, family distress is high, and just wait until you hear about the children, such as myself, who grow up moving every 3 years which is, if you think about it, long enough to establish roots and finally feel like you belong... but not long enough for you to reap the benefits of these new-found ties that you eventually break, no matter what promises you make to yourself or your friends.

A relatively young diplomat and I were talking one sunny afternoon when I arrived 'home' for the first time. It was/is his very first post, and he has a young family; 2 children, around the same age when my brother had already lived in 2 countries and I was going to my first post... so 5 and 4 years old. He was confiding in me his worries about his children: How would they grow up? Would they be traumatized by the lifestyle he chose to lead? Would they be forgotten in the hustle and flow of the business of diplomacy? But most importantly, would they turn out to be ok?

I remember looking at my brother as he worked the room with his easy charm, good natured humour and intelligent and witty conversation as I sat in the shadows hoping not to get noticed, knowing that I was failing miserably. How could I answer his question without wondering myself, how did I turn out? The honest answer is ... many of the Foreign Service children, or Diplobrats, are... well, weird. We can't help it; we have no honest roots or lifelong friends or even a house that we call a home. We're here one day and there the next and who knows what else will happen? The only friends we do make are other Diplobrats, and there is no guarantee that after this post is done we'll ever see them again... and that can go for the local friends we have.. or had, I should say.

I could and can answer the young diplomats question 2 ways: the first being yes... your kids will be just fine. What an incredible opportunity you are giving them, letting them experience different cultures without the shock and awe of families who never leave their small town or see the world, but with enough shock and awe that comes with seeing, and I mean REALLY seeing and experiencing another culture and another world. Not only this, but these children will learn diplomacy skills: how to deal with a variety of different people which in my opinion, is a skill you can't live without in the PC world. I mean, when you think about it that way, we're the luckiest kids in the world, and if they turn out to be like my brother, they will have benefited tremendously from this lifestyle.

But my other answer ... is I don't know. Your kids might not be fine. They might resent you for uprooting them every 3 years. They might hate where they are posted. They might not be happy where they are. They might not make friends (and yes, that does happen). They might be miserable. They might be able to stand something or someone for 3 years and then all of a sudden get this enormous urge to leave. They may turn out to be so maladjusted and awkward and maybe even scarred due to the life you're binding them too until they can actually fight back or have a say in where you go. If you think about it that way, we're the unluckiest kids in the world.

I know what you're asking. Where do I fit in to this? Did I benefit from this lifestyle? Maybe. Do I personify answer # 2? Not always. Am I maladjusted and awkward? You tell me.

You think you know? You have no idea. This is the diary of a Foreign Service brat.