(Originally published at ALifeOverseas.com, on May 22, 2025.)

It’s our turn: our family is transitioning back to our home country in the next two months, and I find myself looking for success stories. Or at least transition stories that have threads of hope. There are a great many stories about how difficult, traumatic, and disorienting the repatriating process is — and for good reason.

It reminds me a bit of my pre-marriage perception – I had been given so many warnings about the difficulty of marriage that I truly thought, at twenty years old, why would I even bother? In the end, marriage has turned out to be an amazing gift. Hard? Yes, at times. But so worth it. It can be hard, and it is so good.

Could our transition be this way? I wonder if I am naïve. I have six books on repatriation and transition on my nightstand right now – several for me, and some for my children. My quiet moments find me absorbing all I can, asking how do we do this well? How do we prepare to leave? How do we say good goodbyes? How do we live peacefully in the chaos of transition? Is it possible for this to be good, in the end?

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Read the rest at A Life Overseas, here.