Thoughts have been rushing through me and they were just overwhelming. I didn’t know where to start and I aways pushed back. It is always when I am in the shower that there are ideas rushing out, sentence weaving on – and then when I am done with the shower, there is no time for me to sit down and write them down. So, they never found their life. I am hoping today will be a beginning to being what I have aways been – pouring my heart bare in words and letting that do the healing.
I haven’t even thought of what title I would give it. I just have to get them out or they will keep making rounds in my head until they haunt me. I think they will come into a series because I don’t like the writing to be too long. So, I will begin first from 2017 when our circle of friends started moving to Australia.
Some of our contemporaries will remember what we used to have called a nopkin.com. It was an online blog that our friend Sangay Tenzin (fondly known as Nopkin) started where people could write articles, poems etc. It was a platform for us to free ourselves, read and feel connected with the people of same interest. We were all in our 20s and we found meaning in volunteerism – from cleaning campaigns to labour contribution in Lhakhang construction. Anyway, fast forward five years and we were in different places – jobs and family requiring more commitments from us. We were ascending to middle management, and we were parents. I think it is also around this time that you look around and tell yourself that you don’t want to be left behind. So you go for your studies, go for better paying jobs or leave the country for better prospects.
Some people just plan their lives ahead but I think I am more the kind that plans half and leave the other half to let that unseen force that I always believe knows what is best for you do the planning for me. And so, being that person, everything kind of came together at the same time. I applied for my master’s studies when I was pregnant. So, I studied while embracing being a mother. And from then on, it was a juggle of balancing between being the best mother and the best at my job. By 2017, I was a mother of two and heading an ICT Division in one of the ministries in Bhutan. Half of our Nopkin friends were in Australia and few more left that year. They advised me to try as well and I did write the IELTS. People around me said, ‘nan gi ta nyong pe, 8’. And what an irony. When I needed that score, I couldn’t make it. Moreover, I was in a dilemma, and I wasn’t totally sure if that was the best prospect for me.
Then I was in Australia for a short course in 2018. I thought this could be an opportunity for me to sit for PTE. It wasn’t that popular then. I asked people I know who actually sat for this exam only to be told that they couldn’t really say if it was easier compared to IELTS and that it depends on people. So, I arrived back in Bhutan without doing it. But I did sit for it this time on the recommendation of a friend. He assured me that it was easier by far and he was right. It is. I will write about it soon.
And then, before I could pursue it further, I became a mother of three! I guess there is no bigger joy than being a mother but also no bigger frustrations at times. It is so true that parents experience both the biggest highs and lows in emotions. You are constantly challenged, and you are made to doubt yourself, but you can’t give up. I will tell you that if you are a mother, you can be anything, and I mean it.
I wouldn’t really say that I always achieved what I wanted – and yet, in some ways, I think I did. So not giving a total go to the prospect of going to Australia left me feeling like I failed. And there would be times when I would dream of my friends there and that I was with them too. And this is what I mean when I say that things will haunt me if I don’t let them out by writing. I am the kind of person who dreams of everything – from the assignments, exams, games I play, books I read, movies I watch to a work that is kept pending (solutions churn up in dreams sometimes but you don’t really have the best sleep). So, when the opportunity of my husband’s studies came in 2023, I told myself that as a mother who believes that family and our career should not have to be compromised for each other, I jumped to join him, along with our three children and resigned from my job. It so happened that I had to make this choice, and I wouldn’t say that I compromised my career because transformation had begun and I was not sure I would thrive in that environment. But this was a job I loved; never before did I feel more fulfilled and happier at a job than this one.
It is for sure. Our friends had all moved ahead in their career. From our circle of friends, only my husband and I remained in that steady but slow career ladder of civil service. We seemed to have found the warmth of the cocoon of civil service too warm to leave. But I was beginning to feel that while money is not everything, we were parents of three children who did not own a house and was neither in a position to rent a decent house where they could grow up having a safe, independent surrounding to play. Some might find it strange but it just remained like a thorn in my heart. I just couldn't help but feel the stab. It did not make sense for us to be content while we had three young lives that we are responsible for. And it did not make sense to be not thinking about ourselves first for once in our lives and so we did. So, we decided that he had to undertake further studies in his field for him to be able to have better prospect in his job if he remained in civil service. For them to go into the specialist position, they have to have masters/PhD in their field and we are lucky that it actually came through and in some ways fulfilled my unfinished dream that nagged me that I should have an opportunity to be in Australia again.
My friends and family members were worried that I was leaping far from home with three young children and I knew it wouldn't be easy but I dared to take the the challenge. Yes, it wasn't easy, and it isn't going to be. But I stick to my decision that we will sink or swim together and we take one day at a time.
