I last wrote here in 2017, around the time we moved back to Singapore after living in San Francisco. Life was busy then. We were settling back in, continuing with work, and getting on with what was next.

At first, the return felt relatively straightforward. I moved back into familiar territory, working again in the recruitment and HR space within the start-up and technology world. On the surface, it made sense. Underneath, I was quietly reassessing.

That reassessment unfolded alongside a broader life transition, including navigating perimenopause and then menopause, and questioning what I wanted the next phase of my working life to look like. In time, that led me to retrain as a coach, establish my own practice, and begin working with clients. I found myself speaking with people across the US, Australia, Asia and Europe, often navigating remarkably similar questions and challenges, regardless of where they were based.

Alongside the career shift, relocation has remained a constant thread. In recent years I’ve been preparing for another move, this time to Europe, navigating the very practical realities that come with it: buying property in France, setting up bank accounts, managing cross-border administration, and planning a life between countries. This has coincided with an older child heading to university in the UK, while at the same time preparing a younger one to finish school back in the UK, adding another layer of transition, timing, and decision-making after nearly 30 years in Asia.

These experiences — career reassessment, relocation, health transitions, and the practical work of building a life across borders — are the kinds of changes I once lived without fully understanding. They are also the experiences I now sit alongside every day.

Foreign Far Away was always about movement, distance, and the subtle ways place shapes who we are. Coming back to write here now feels less like restarting and more like continuing — with a little more perspective, and a lot more compassion for the in-between spaces.

I don’t know exactly what form this writing will take yet. What I do know is that I want this to be a place for reflection rather than answers, for noticing rather than fixing. A space to explore what change asks of us, particularly when it intersects with work, identity, health, and belonging.

If you’ve found your way here again, or are arriving for the first time, you’re very welcome.

In the posts that follow, I’ll be writing about these overlapping transitions — relocation, career reassessment, midlife change, and the practical realities that sit alongside them — from the perspective of lived experience and the conversations I now have with clients navigating similar ground.