• Emma Morrell was headed back to work after maternity leave when her husband got offered a job in the Middle East.
• After relocating and settling her kids, she struggled to figure out what she wanted next in her career.
• A woman calling her out for being a “woman of leisure” was what prompted her most popular blog post.

I was seated at the counter in our brand-new kitchen when the call came from my husband. It only took him a few minutes to tell me it had been confirmed: we would be moving from London to Doha, Qatar, in six weeks. The transfer wasn’t a total surprise. We’d spent three years in Houston, Texas, and had been asking for another international assignment since our return to the UK two years earlier. Still, it was in this home that we’d spent weeks deliberating over cream Italian cupboards. It was here where I’d personally stained the wood floors just two weeks after giving birth to our daughter. Now, we’d be leaving it all behind. Again. Excited butterflies and apprehensive jitters stirred in my stomach. We had less than two months to move our lives, two children (a one-year-old and a three-year-old), and a neurotic dog to a place none of us had even visited. Before that, though, I needed to quit my corporate insurance job in the financial district.

I handed in my notice.

As it happened, I had a meeting scheduled for the following week to discuss my return from maternity leave. I took the tube in early and walked the long way to meander through old stone alleyways and stroll past centuries-old buildings before arriving at my office. Located in one of the six-story glass towers that looks over the Tower of London, this was where I’d spent most of my career. Colleagues who were now friends sat inside on swivel chairs at faux-beechwood hot desks. I stared at the familiar glass atrium between the two buildings. All my contacts, industry experience, and everything I had worked toward were here. What would I find in Qatar? Inside a glass-walled meeting room, my boss launched into ideas for when I started back at work. “We need to talk about my husband’s job, not mine” I told her gently. She laughed, knowing we both wanted to relocate. “Where are you moving to?” In truth, I found leaving this time easier than when we’d gone to Houston. The prospect of going back while putting two toddlers through day care had been overwhelming. Wasn’t there more to life than just going to work and coming home again? Even knowing how much we had left to organize before the packers came, my shoulders relaxed.

My career break

We agreed I would take a career break when we arrived in Doha. I figured settling everyone would take a few months, and then I’d know what I wanted to do next. Three months turned into 18, and I was grateful we had enough resources to live on one income. I began to explore what my new life might look like. I tried making jewelry, volunteered at school, worked for a women’s network, and considered returning to insurance. Nothing clicked.

Emma Morrell

Then we took our first truly successful family vacation and the trip — to Bali — left me euphoric. I wanted to share my experiences of family travel with the world. A friend helped me set up a travel blog. I named it Wanderlust and Wet Wipes and started out immediately, writing about all the trips we were taking. Soon after I started writing, I met a younger, working woman while helping at a school event. “Are you what they call a woman of leisure?” she asked, smirking. Her stereotypical assumptions shocked me, and I didn’t have what it took to defend myself. It wasn’t justification that I needed. I couldn’t tell her who I was because I didn’t know myself.

Turns out, I wasn’t alone.

In the safety of my home, the tears flowed, as did the right words. To my surprise, what I wrote became my most popular blog post. My readers were people just like me: accompanying spouses, disoriented in this unfamiliar dusty world. As time went on, it wasn’t just friends who were following me, I was connecting with people all over the world. After four years in Doha, we relocated to Singapore. The tropical climate and abundance of green intoxicated me. To meet people, I reached out to friends of friends and joined a women’s choir where we occasionally broke into tears of happiness while singing. The shared gratitude of finding your people in a transient expat world can be overwhelming. While I waited for friendships to deepen, my online network made the transition easier.

Najla Nabil Photography

Today I’m more multi-dimensional than I’ve ever been. I’m a non-fiction writer and a busy mom of pre-teens, a travel blogger and a loving wife, a choir member and a long-distance daughter. There’s a saying that the dots connect backwards. I’m the sort of person who would much rather have a road map to finding myself. Now I understand my life could only have happened this way and in this order. It’s easy to say with hindsight, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Got a personal essay about living abroad or parenting that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@insider.com.