Million Dollar Moment

Since most expats we meet came here for the husband/father’s job, there is an immediate connection amongst the husbands/dads for either bringing their families to this Nirvana or for being voted worst father/husband of the year.

Another common thread amongst the expat dads is our shared complaint about the costing, as the Brits say.  If I followed my wife’s advice and just assumed a dollar is a pound, then everything would be mysteriously 60% more expensive than I expect.

So while we complain this is costing “millions” to live here, the truth is we have this secret code because we keep having “million dollar moments.”  Those moments that no matter how much this costs, it’s all worth it. 

I’ve written about many of them, the everyday moments of walking the kids to school or having the opportunity for those tube-ride conversations. They are happening in bigger settings now:  Hearing about how they managed the Tube by themselves on the way to meet friends at lunch, how they signed up for that class they never would have at home, or the new friends they made and the skill they used to insert themselves in a clearly uncomfortable social situation.

And then there is going to the Royal Albert Hall for a concert with your wife.  A concert with a singer who most people don’t know, but who is a great talent and explained to the audience how this venue is much better than Congregation Beth Shalom on Long Island, where she got her start. 

It’s about walking into the most stunning building I’ve even been in, struck how every view is better than the next, how Marvin Hamlisch conducted, how grateful she was that the audience was there and how grateful we were to be there.

It wasn’t just dinner at the small club nearby, or the walk by Hyde Park on the way home.  It was all of it.  And as we left the auditorium the other expat husband looked over at me and said, “A million dollar moment.”