The Newbie

I don't have many aversions in life, apart from the usual impatient car drivers and eating warm pineapple. I consider myself a fairly easy going person who can let most of the irritations in life roll off my back. As the Pastor of our previous church says 'like Teflon - let the offences slide right off'. However, in moving house recently, I've noticed one important aversion that I can add to my meagre list.

I hate being the 'newbie'. And I don't use the word 'hate' very often.

Australian slang for being a new person, it's not really a bad thing to be called such. It just means exactly what it says. A new person. And I can't stand it.

Yesterday, my three children were the 'newbies' at their new school. There were a few little emotional outbursts in the morning, but not really more than any other school morning (parents of school children will be nodding in understanding right now). Their ability to just face a new situation as it comes was in stark contrast to mine. I fired questions all morning, sometimes with no pause in between. 'Are you going to be warm enough? Do you have your thermals on? You might need them today. Is that going to be enough food for you? Do you remember how to tie a tie??' I realised I was more nervous than they were.

School drop off was uneventful, even though I don't think I will ever get used to seeing them now in green instead of the old navy uniform. The children were all taken to assembly then shepherded out by willing teachers and student 'buddies' in readiness to guide them through their first day. New timetables, new teachers, new buildings. They seemed to slot right in.

All the way home from school, the excited chatter reverberated in the confines of the car. New names and building locations spurted forth like a foreign language and I desperately tried to hang on to each morsel of detail to help fill the void of information I was used to possessing.

At our last school, all three children started there in Kindergarten, so this year marked a nine year association with the school. The buildings. The teachers. The people. Added to this, being employed in the School Office for the last six of those years and there wasn't much about the school that I didn't know. I knew the teachers, the processes, where to go on a rainy day, what to do if your child is late, who to call if someone reports seeing a snake in the school grounds (a regular occurrence in Belrose) ...I loved being such an integral part of the school's day-to-day operations.

At our new school, I know one person. (God bless her socks, she took me out for coffee yesterday so I wouldn't pine about my kids being 'newbie's. Love that woman.) I don't know the teachers, the students or where the Hall is in relation to Year 2.

There are so many things that go with being to new to anything, whether it be a school, workplace, area, house....the list goes on. All come with different things that need to be understood or mastered for the person to feel like they belong. In a new house, it might be that tricky way the front door will only unlock with your key if you pull it first. In a new job, it might finding the quickest way to get there or the fact that your boss hates coffee.

That's my problem. I can't stand not knowing all the details. Maybe my ignorance is a sign of weakness in my own mind. There are big black holes of unrealised information and I am impatient to fill the gaps. Now. Yesterday, even.

As abhorrent I may be to being the new person, my question to myself needs to be 'what am I going to do about it?'. Short of performing a Harry Potter-like flick of the wrist, there is no quick fix. Time is the only cure in this situation. Time to get to know people. Time to learn teacher's names and the subjects they teach. Time to learn all the nuances with being part of another community.

I have to realise that knowing it all isn't the answer. I can't know it all. Ever. (Insert disparaging sob here!) I need to be patient with myself (practise makes perfect) and allow the time for the transformation process from 'newbies' to locals to be fulfilled. Finding the small victories instead of looking at how far from the end goal I might be. For example, I have already worked out where Year 2 is in relation to the School Office, I remembered how to spell the Receptionist's name and that some locals don't wear a jumper even though it's ten degrees Celsius.

In celebrating the positives, the focus shifts. It changes from being what isn't, to what is. It seems like a small shift but sometimes a colossal effort to take my mind from all the things I feel I need to accomplish, to the present and what I have so far. The here and now. The blessings that I can count. If  I had 10,000 hands.

In the first week of our move, I was taken by the GPS on a quiet alternate road (supposedly the quickest route to wear I needed to go).  I felt a little lost and unsure of where I was going, but then turned a corner and saw the most spectacular view from the mountain ridge I had inadvertently driven over. I have driven that road three times now, using the spectacular scenery to remind myself to step out of the grey and focus on the amazing that is right where I am.