Truckloads of heavy thoughts.

Now that being diplomat's spouse is becoming more and more reality than one nice fairytale, I've spent time thinking about my future. How exiting, adventorous and unexpected it will be! But also uncertain, scary and even lonely. Recently I've every now and then tried remaind myself to maintain positive attitude. So I'm trying to stay positive, and think how amazing opportunity has been given to me to explore different cultures and countries, but still have some of the "home-country-security-feeling" that I would not have if I would  have to travel all by myself. I have been given an opportunity to experience different kinds of lifestyles and jobs. For someone very career-oriented this could be a nightmare; short-time jobs from different industries is not usually the easiest way to management position. But for someone like me who was already before lost searching her own place in the work field this is a perfect opportunity. And if there's no possibility to work, which might be the case in our future "home"countries, I can try volunteering, I can study or I can housewife. :D

But 'cos I'm a hard-core realistic, side effect of growing up in Finland, I have also thought about the not-so-ideal sides of the life as diplomat's (future) wife. Right now, here in our safe collective EU where I get to work, I have nothing to worry about. I am insured by the company where I'm working, and they pay my pension (will be interesting how I'll get that when I'm 65 75). But in our next destination, which will most likely be outside Europe, it might be difficult for me to get a job. In some coutries I will not even have permit to work. For some people (me) this might sound totally ok, and I already got a taste of housewife's life when I moved here, but in the long-run there is few things that might become issues. First thing is the career - in our world where experience is everything, it might not be the best asset on the labor market to have a CV full of gaps, or CV with 4 years of housewifing every now and then. Second thing is the insurance - who will cover my doctor's visits if I get run over by tuk-tuk in Thailand. Third thing is the pension - with what money will I live when I'm old and frail well, that's the question for all of us right now, eh?. Of course insurance and pension issues can be fixed with loads of money, but my cash flow will be most likely rather limited. And anyway, why I should pay much more than fellow EU citizens for those things that should be our privilege.

So unfortunately it seems that this kind of dream life has it's downsides too.

For some time now I was childishly thinking that I must be the only one "struggling" with these things. How wrong was I? Of course with thousends of diplomats, only from Europe, there is also thousands of spouses moving around the world with them. And apparently in some countries 50% of the spouses are from some other country than the diplomat. So I'm definetely not alone. Just today I found an interesting web page of European Union Foreign Affaires Spouses Partners Associations, more friendly EUFASA. There I found some answers to my questions, which unfortunately led to more questions. But at least I know I'm not alone. ;)

Ps. I'm terribly sorry about such long (and boring?) text, just had to get it out from my system.
Pps. There will probably be more this coming in future :P

And finally one positive thought, so it would not be so heavy:

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