Ready to move on? Cutting the umbilical cord with BAMBI

Image by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto from Pixabay 

When moving to a new city, it's hard to cut ties with the life you've established in the old, especially when one can technically remain remotely connected. But the time comes when you can move on.


Since 2014, I've been volunteering with BAMBI and it has been amazing.

Being a meaningful part of this organization was such a big part of my identity--it represented the grown-up, professional part of me--that I was unable to immediately cut ties and step down fully despite the move to a new country.

I also felt that I still had a contribution to make on the revamping of BAMBI's website (which I'm thrilled to say has since been completed! I'm so proud of it and to have been a part of the team). And we aren't done uploading a ton of wonderful past content from BAMBI News to the website.

Thankfully, BAMBI allows for members to reside outside of Thailand and my responsibilities on the magazine-editing and website-development teams could be handled remotely, so I renewed my membership for another year and carried on.

But lately, I've been starting to feel like I'm ready to move on.

Why?

Partly recognizing that I'm not needed, that things will carry on just fine without me. Partly feeling the physical distance, not being able to join the occasional face-to-face meetings.

And probably because I've jumped ship and joined Families in Global Transition (FIGT) as blog editor :D

I 'met' FIGT thanks to my involvement with BAMBI, so in a way it's a natural progression. They're both organizations run by volunteer members and they both serve expats and globally mobile families.

Volunteering with FIGT is different from BAMBI in that (at least for the communications team) remote work is the norm. On the one hand, I feel rather isolated and, if it weren't for having physically attended the FIGT2019 conference, I'm not sure if I'd develop a strong sense of identification with the group; but on the other hand, I know that everyone's in the same boat.

I miss the BAMBI-style monthly in-person meetings and events, but it's useful to get acclimated to 'meeting' via online video/phone conferences that span five or six time zones. (What a world we live in now... (^^;)

What an experiment in finding 'belonging' to a group when the members are physically spread all over the globe. I'm curious how it'll work out!