robinchartier

Our first spring: the first of many tornado watches and warnings, temperature whiplash from 40s to 80s and back again, and lush grass and wildflowers as the world wakes up.

Someone recently asked if I was happy here. Um, 100% unequivocally, YES. I drive around looking at the wide skies and the green fields, and the occasional cow or horse and I think “I can’t believe I get to live here. It’s so beautiful.” 

I drive around with this overwhelming amount of thankfulness in my soul. Occasionally people will ask, “do you miss living in the Middle East?” Our instantaneous, gut response is nope. Not at all. 

(To be fair, I’ve always been committed to embracing every new place, not looking back, so this is my automatic response after every move. There is no joy to be had in wishing we could go back or comparing each new location to the old one, so I fix my gaze on the present.) 

Was I dissatisfied with life while we were there? No. God’s grace gave me peace and purpose and endurance for the time we were called to be there. Was I increasingly frustrated during our last 2 years in AD? Yes. And as we transitioned out of there and over to here, God’s grace lifted and the blinders came off and I think “how did we ever do that for so long? Why did we stay as long as we did?” 

Praise God for his sustaining power. I think similarly when I look back on those early days with 3 little boys 5 and under, with a husband who would be gone for up to 7 months at a time. How did I do that? I must have been a super human! Nope, in fact that was when I was at the weakest point of my life, when I was paralyzed by mental illness. But when we are weak, he is strong. 

If God brought us back to the Middle East, I’m confident he would give me the grace and power to see it through his eyes. That he would give me his contentment in any and every situation so that I could do/endure all things through him who gives me strength. (The true application of that verse.) 

So I am happy now, but the best part is that my happiness is not based on location or whether there is green grass or cows on my daily drive, but on the presence of the king. Because happiness that is dependent on location or situation is not lasting. It’s temporary, fleeting. 

Texas things that bring delight

• Breakfast tacos with salsa 
• Dr Pepper is king 
• Restaurants offering one last refill in a to go cup as you leave 
• Chips and salsa come with individual salsa bowls for each person. No reaching or having to share. (I hear this is a North Texas phenomenon) 
• That people love land and owning land is an achievable goal. 
• Rain! Actual water falling from the sky, occasionally accompanied by thunder and lightning 
• When my weather guy talks about the incoming “hellstorm” he’s actually saying hail storm, but since hail = hell, same, same. 
• Living on the edge of the country means Camille can ride horses on a ranch 10 min from our house. 
• Buc-ees. Buc-ees is my happy place. It smells so good (a mix of sweet vanilla and bbq and freshness) and no matter how crowded it is the checkout process is a flash. And only $1 for the biggest iced tea with pellet ice (inflation just upped it to $1.19 in the last month, but I bring my own giant insulated cup and get the discount). 

Small things, bringing me joy. That is the gift that I keep being given. 

A year ago we were getting ready to travel to Italy. Last night we went to a spur of the moment fish fry and shrimp boil (or should I say “boel”) after friends had an abundant catch at a local lake. 

I’m sure to many of you, that sounds like a downgrade. But from my perspective, this life is full of abundance. I’m happy to trade linguini for hush puppies and gelato for blue bell ice cream. 

Italy was great, but this time last year we were still fussing around with masks and Covid rules and thank God that the mask rules were lifted on day 2 of our trip (except at the Vatican and on the plane). Thinking about what rules we had to follow to participate in everyday life was a huge burden. A burden that was heavier than we realized until after it was lifted.

We’ve been here less than a year and have found friends who think of us while planning something fun and saying yes is simple — what more could we want? No worries about vaccine passports or whether it’s legal to meet up here — the most complicated part is running low on peanut oil and running out to pick some up (ProTip: Buc-ees has everything, but not peanut oil). Today, I’ll take that ease over fine art in Florence or fancy brunches at the British Club. 

Does that sound crazy? Look at it another way: I am like a tourist in my own country. This is just another flavor of adventure — a new culture, new cuisine, and different social norms to adapt to. This “simple life” is exciting to us because it’s different, but it’s also so easy in comparison. I can go from the gym to the store without worrying that my shoulders are showing. I can work in my front yard and take the trash out while wearing shorts. I don’t have to stop and pull on a long skirt because my thighs are showing. I don’t have to consider a language barrier (though on occasion I do get tripped up by a thick Texas drawl). I get Elk meat and fresh eggs from various friends who hunt and raise their own chickens and I happily hand over my excess cilantro.

There are so many things that I loved about living in the Middle East, but they were overshadowed and buried in the last 2.5 years that we were there. I’m sure over time, the good memories will rise to the top and remain, but for now I’m happy to be making new ones here instead.

Over the past few months I’ve had a lot of instances where I’ve been able to say things like, “A year ago, we had no idea we’d be buying a house Texas.” Or, “A year ago today we closed on the house, but we had no idea we’d be leaving Abu Dhabi only a few months later.” Today I get to say, “A year ago I had to get my booster shot and that was the beginning of the end of our Middle East ride.”

I’ve talked a lot about what life was like for us over there during Covid, but I’ve never written about it. First, because while living there I could have gotten arrested for saying anything negative about the government, whether it was true or not. It wasn’t wise or prudent to put anything in writing over there that was anything less than glowing. After getting Covid I sent a video message to a handful of friends, ranting about what I had endured, and then panicked for 24 hours that it was somehow going to go viral and I would get locked up, fined or deported. (even now I’ve shied away from mentioning the country itself in this post, which is out of habit I guess.)

Second, I stopped writing about our lives because it took everything out of me to get through our days without succumbing to bitterness and anger. (Josh and I spent a lot of hours hashing and rehashing the latest rules, trying to predict the next steps the government would take, and their reasons for choosing one path over another.) We carried around a constant low level frustration about all the restrictions that we had to live with and that irritation increased the longer it went on. Especially once the rest of the world, including Dubai (less than an hour away), went back to normal. When I write about something I have to relive it, parse out the details, and decide what to share and what to skip. It was hard enough to live through it the first time and I was afraid that dwelling on negativity would suck the rest of the joy out of our time there.

But this anniversary marker is a happy one. It wasn’t at the time — it’s the event that confirmed we were moving to Texas, job or no job. But in hindsight, we were on the precipice of a new life — a new adventure, that came at the perfect time.

Why was the Covid booster shot the final straw? Because it was the quintessential example of how the past two years had gone for us. After getting stuck here in Texas because Caleb tested positive for Covid (that story is here) , Josh returned home to Abu Dhabi with Camille. He woke up the next morning to go to work and his app that proved he was vaccinated and declared his negative covid status (that was checked upon entry to every public place — work, school, church, shopping, etc) had turned from green to gray, meaning he was barred from everywhere.

Why did that happen overnight? Because the government suddenly decided that everyone who was fully vaccinated needed to also have a booster shot, and that booster shot requirement was effective as of YESTERDAY and anyone who didn’t have a booster was barred from participating in public life until they were injected.

On a completely unrelated note, the day before, a missile attack from Yemen was intercepted over the skies of Abu Dhabi, the second in one week (the first having hit and killed several people). But when you wake up unable to go to work, suddenly that gray status becomes the primary concern and figuring out how to turn green again silenced all talk about missiles or the safety and security of the country. How convenient. (In contrast, when Saudi Arabia required a booster shot, they announced it 4 months before implementation, giving everyone plenty of time to prepare and either exit or comply. Hmmmmm.)

Josh had already made getting a booster shot his line in the sand. Both for him and Camille, no go. Either of those requirements would be the sign that it was time to leave the Middle East. But now, it’s the end of January. We have had zero notice, we have a son who has 4 months of school before he graduates, what do you do?

First up, it was decided that we would move home in June. Done. The writing was on the wall. I was so frustrated and angry, I felt like saying, “screw you AD and your stupid unreasonable rules! I’m never coming back!” and staying in the house in Texas and letting Josh close up shop over there and join me whenever. But that would only hurt me and the people I care about: our friends from church, the gym, from school, our life group, my coworkers, the kids at school . . . I wanted to finish well.

And in order to do that, I had to get the booster shot. I told Josh it was his decision either way, but that I was concerned for his health if he had to spend the next 5 months locked up at home, unable to go to work, unable to go to church, unable to go out to eat or to the gym, unable to go see our son graduate from High School . . . that much anger and bitterness is terrible for a body and mind. There was no waiver, no covid testing substitutes (we still had to test every week or 10 days to stay green after the shots). No shot, no entrance.

So we both got it. (It took him 5 days to get an appointment as the entire emirate was in the same situation and scrambling to get their green status restored). I was fine, he was not. 30 minutes after his shot, he felt a burning and pressure begin in his chest that didn’t let up for months. His lymph nodes swelled up to the size of tangerines and he couldn’t take a deep breath without pain. He spent the next several months visiting heart specialists, pulmonologists, doing a stress test, blood work, etc and no one could explain it other than no one knows what a new vaccine will do when applied to a wide variety of people. Some people lose when you roll the dice.

I suspect that he had covid at the same time Caleb did and having just been exposed to it or having had it the week prior, his immune system was on high alert and over reacted when he was boosted. Long story short, it has taken him a year to recover and only in the last 2 weeks have we noticed that his physical capacity and lung recovery is back to what we remember as normal for him. Which lines up with studies that are showing that most symptoms of long covid resolve within a year. Happy for that. Angry that he was forced to get both the vaccine and the booster in the first place. Happy that we now live in Texas where we are free to say NO to any further demands.

Happy anniversary to us!

Every time we’ve moved over the past 12 years, we’ve had to adjust to a new culture. I joke that moving around the Middle East is more like getting a different flavor of ice cream rather than a jump from Mexican food to Chinese food. Like comparing mint chip to rocky road — different, but still in the same food family.

In one country you adapt to parking on the sidewalks, driving on the shoulder of the highway while watching for people driving in reverse, and sitting in the middle of the intersection after the light turns red, honking your horn along with everyone else. 

In another, it’s learning that people are going to take photos of your baby and touch your kids’ light hair and it doesn’t mean they are creepers. I mean they might be, but men having photos of random babies on their phones isn’t a sign of it in this country. 

And coming home to America in the summer always had it’s own version of culture shock: Why is everyone practically naked here? Kissing in public? Ack! My eyes! What is this thing called sales tax?! And the fabulousness of free water in restaurants.

So it’s no surprise that my first fall in America after 12 years away has had some moments of culture shock. 

Like when did Halloween get so big? When I left in 2010 it was a few orange lights, pumpkins, maybe a scarecrow with a scary mask on a porch … done. Halloween now? I’ve got neighbors with a 12 foot tall motion sensitive clown that looks like it’s coming to kill you. Another neighbor has inflatable pumpkins the size of a car, right next to a Ghostbusters themed yard with a larger than life Stay Puff Marshmallow man. 

It’s like Christmas Vacation— Halloween style. In my research of “is this normal?” my sisters assured me this has become an American thing, not just an “everything’s bigger in Texas” thing.

But the biggest culture shock for me has been the contrast between California culture and Texas culture. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but a lot of people have been moving to Texas recently (understatement of the week). 

Being new, I’ve met a ton of people and have been surprised by how many of them are also new: “Hi, I’m new to Texas. I just moved here at the end of June.” Reply: “Us too! We moved here in April/last November/sometime in the past 12 months.”

Always, when I ask what brought them to Texas, they don’t say “a job” or “family” they say politics. Unashamedly. Boldly. It’s like we’re all pilgrims and we made it to the New World together. No one has to explain what they mean by “politics.” All the newbies nod with understanding. We all came seeking the same thing and we’re really hoping that this mass influx of people doesn’t change the ability to own and carry a gun, to be able to choose what to put in your body, to protect unborn children, and to have a say in what is being taught in school. Most of them were content to stay put until Covid showed the difference between living in a free state and a restrictive state and that put the fire under everyone to move.

It’s surreal to be at a High School football game and 1) have a prayer before the game and 2) the student leading the prayer concludes with, “in the name of Jesus Christ our savior, Amen.” And all of those pilgrims said, “Amen.”

As a former fearful flyer (to put it mildly) I always appreciate any information from the pilot that explains something out of the ordinary. When flying out of Orange County, CA airport (AKA John Wayne), to reduce noise over the bazillion dollar homes below, planes take off and climb straight into the air — engines screaming, pressed back in your seat, rocket ship into space feeling. And then, just as suddenly, silence. It’s as if the engines have been completely cut or stalled out and you’re floating under no power, about to fall out of the air.

God bless the pilot who explained it the first time I flew out of there. There’s not always a pre-flight warning as evidenced by articles like this and even when you know it’s normal, there’s something disconcerting about going from full speed to what feels like zero speed in a heartbeat.

This move has felt a lot like that take-off. We joke that we are well practiced, aggressive movers, the type that jump in and have everything unpacked, photos on the wall and a garden planted in less than 7 days (Monterey holds that honor) and this one hasn’t been much different. We’ve been hurtling though space with a non-stop family party. A revolving door of houseguests that added up to only 3 days without visitors at Casa Chartier in the first 7 weeks (and those 3 days we spent moving 5 yards of dirt into my garden plots). On top of that we bought two cars (including one the day we landed), imported 3 animals, found a church, a gym, started another kid in college, and we were about to volunteer to host a home group when I realized it was time to cut the engines.

It’s been a great time of catching up with family, jumping in to our new lives, figuring out Texas and America and trying to do it all . . . but my brain is full. I realized it’s time to coast for a bit. On Wednesday nights instead of going to church and forcing ourselves to make friends and making Camille go to youth group through her tears (which we did for a few weeks), I decided it’s OK to take it easy, stay home, and figure out how to be a new family of 3, in this new house, in this new city, in a new country. We have time on our side here. For the first time ever we don’t have an inevitable departure date.

Slowly, slowly we’ll ease back up to speed, but with our shipment arriving tomorrow (finally!) and 17 rugs that I don’t have floor space for, I’ll have plenty to occupy my brain and my time over the next few weeks.

So much fun, so much family. I didn’t get photos of everyone — too busy exploring and eating our way through Texas! If you have any, send them my way so I can add them.