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My name is Emily A. Francis and I am an author on Body Healing. This summer, during Covid, we up and moved from America to the island of Malta sight unseen for an opportunity with my husbands company to work with the government over here. I have been blogging about our journey of bringing two children and four animals across the world to start over completely new. I hope you enjoy following my journey! You can follow all of it at www.mymaltalife.com
OMG It IS Actually Happening!!
We are moving to Malta… As in the island of Malta somewhere out in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. We are moving to Malta with our daughters who are in grade school, who just completed their first year of hybrid home school and now we return into a totally new way of life, in a foreign country, to a new full-time school and I’m praying the children are kind.
We are moving to Malta sight unseen and not only taking our children, but we are also bringing our four pets; one cat and three dogs. We can’t leave them behind. They are family. I can’t even begin to figure out the logistics but I’m thinking we hire a company to help us bring our pets safely over. I’ve emailed them, and now I wait for them to respond and quote prices and find out that this might even be the most expensive part of our move. We are selling our stuff and moving to a furnished place. This would be ideal had we not finally moved into our dream home a year ago and I furnished practically the whole house. I will miss the furniture but also know it will be outdated by the time we return, if we do return at all. This is a big practice in non-attachment for sure. I’ve been asked throughout the years if I was a Buddhist because of some of the things I say and teach. I may want to study up on it a little bit more now as I approach this new art of thinking and non-thinking approaches as I help us make our way into this new life.
I am an author in my day job. I write books on body healing. I will have just turned in what I consider to be the last in my trilogy of body approaches to healing just before we move. I have avoided blogging for many years because blogging requires you to be transparent with your life and being that I come from a rather tumultuous blended family, I’ve had to defend myself more times than anyone should have to.
I’ve actually thought that my calling might be in talking to people out of the messiness that is divorce. I am an advocate for doing whatever the hell you can to keep your marriage together if you have children unless you are in an abusive relationship or are being cheated on or cheating on someone. If it’s just a growing apart, do what you can to figure out how to support the paths and work to bring them back. If you think your relationship is bad now, try adding divorce into it. They will have access to your every move. They will have access to all credit card statements and hire investigators to follow you and turn your whole world into a game of “let’s go to court and throw away all our savings”. The attorneys are making out like bandits and the rest of us are just trying to breathe. By the way…I personally have never been divorced and pray and work hard not to ever be. That will likely be my only speech on saving your marriage that this blog will entail. I put it out there from the get go because I am aware of my audience and this time, I am doing it anyway. This is my journey. It is a chance of a lifetime. It’s doing something I’ve dreamed about for many years. I am moving to Malta. I am moving to a country where GMO crops are banned. If you know anything about me, you know I despise GMO foods and believe that they poison us and cause cancer, auto immune illness, sensory deficits in children and adults and I could go on and on. I can’t wait to move to a country where the food is clean and the education includes so much more of the arts (no more common core curriculum that I had already chosen to abandon last year and try an alternative approach to education). I can’t wait to travel with my children all around Europe and give them the education of a lifetime. I can’t wait to see what it’s like to have medical, dental and vision included as your basic right as a human. Malta is fifth in the world in health care. I’m not moving to a third world country. I am moving into a dream. Buildings there predate Christ! I will be walking around amongst the ultimate history lessons! There are literally 365 churches on the islands! I want to be able to document all of this without fear or pressure…and so I will.
I am petrified to leave my family and move away. This means leaving my own mom who does so much for us and is so incredible with my children. That is scary and puts a lot of pressure on me. But when we moved across the city last year we bought a house with an in-law suite only to find out she had no intention of coming with us, just in telling us which home to choose. This time we are not including her in our move because we can’t really and because we know better this time. She will hopefully come to visit and stay for weeks or months at a time if we are lucky, but all of that is yet to be determined.
I’m choosing me and I’m choosing my family. What I can offer to my children with this experience is beyond my wildest dreams. I cannot afford to choose comfort over taking this leap. I can’t be afraid all the time, it’s been exhausting to live that way and I’m ready for the change. I’ve played big to my dreams and to my own life; otherwise I would have not have landed my publishers. But, I’ve also played small to people that like to watch me squirm and burn.
I plan on documenting this journey, mostly for myself and for my children to have but I am opening it up to anyone else who wants to come along as well. I always loved Under a Tuscan Sun. While this won’t be my romantic rebirth, it will be many things and romance will be there too! I’m traveling across the world with the people that I love the most in this world. Everything I need will be with me from the beginning. There were a great many lonely years in my life when I suffered from deep anxiety and panic and was so lonely. I never thought my life could become what it has become! This is all a result of my stepping back into life and learning how to trust myself and take risks. (It’s also because I finally tried medication which saved me and doing a whole lot of personal work and therapies to gain control over my mental thoughts and awareness).
I want to teach my children by solid example more so than preaching a bunch of senseless garbage at them. If you want to teach your children well, you must first live the life you’d most like to create for them for yourself. Woman have a difficult time becoming all that they really dream of being. I’ve had to work really hard to create the life I’m proud of and my husband did not do it for me. People often think I got really happy when I met him, which is true. But, the happiness and grabbing my life and owning it was already getting in line before he entered the ring. I had to do the work first to prepare myself for someone who was so self-assured and accomplished. This is just a new huge step in a line that I have been creating long before I ever met my husband or brought children in. They just made all the next steps way brighter and more enhanced. It is my husband’s work that is providing this opportunity for us. I’d like to believe it was my faith in him that allowed us to do a lot of things to be able to trust this next move to provide where we are now. It’s a team effort and we make a really strong team together. You’ll find in the posts ahead that my family is everything. Every one of us has a unique place in our circle, none less bright than the other. In this big move, I will be dedicated to finding the right places for the children that will support and help expand their passions and hidden treasures. I will also be dedicated to my own health, well being and quality of life and will add in to help my husband’s where I am able as well. Ready or not then…here we go!!!
About Emily A. Francis
Emily is the host of the weekly radio show on Healthy Life Radio titled All About Healing (www.healthylife.net). She has a BS in Exercise Science and Wellness from Jacksonville State University as well as a Masters degree in Physical Education/Human Performance Concentration.
Emily is the author of the books Stretch Therapy (Blue River Press), Witchy Mama (Llewellyn), The Body Heals Itself (Llewellyn), Whole Body Healing (Llewellyn) and the upcoming release Healing Ourselves Whole (HCI May 2021)
Visit EmilyAFrancisBooks.com