A Season of Becoming

Two Years That Rearranged My Life, Somewhere Between Stability and Change

2024 and 2025 passed by in a blur. Sometimes I look back and wonder how so much could have happened within such a short span of time.

2024 was a year filled with milestones. Looking back, it almost felt like life was moving faster than I could fully process.

We returned to Switzerland twice that year, once in June for L’s baptism confirmation, and again in September for C & E’s wedding. During the September trip, we decided to make a short detour to Helsinki and Tallinn.

• Moving abroad had always lived somewhere in the back of our minds. We had explored the idea in different ways. In 2023, we travelled to New Zealand, where S proposed to me. While it was a meaningful and memorable trip, we also knew that the job opportunities for both of us in New Zealand would be limited.

Finland was actually my second choice for relocation. I was drawn to its systems, safety, and quality of life. Tallinn, however, was never part of the original plan. At that point, it was simply meant to be another holiday destination. Instead, it quietly changed something in us. That trip planted a thought that slowly became a question: what if we really moved there?

We started researching the city more seriously and found ourselves increasingly drawn to it: the digital readiness, efficient infrastructure, food culture, people, tax structure, and even the fact that English was widely spoken. Tallinn felt modern without being overwhelming, efficient without feeling stressful. With S being Swiss, the possibility of relocating to Europe also suddenly became much more accessible for us.

At the same time, life in Singapore continued moving at full speed.

2024 became one of the most eventful years of my life. I completed my MBA, obtained Singapore citizenship after waiting for two and a half years, and got married on 12.12.2024.

• Sometimes I still laugh at the irony of it all: finally receiving Singapore citizenship during the same season I was beginning to imagine leaving. But in many ways, it worked out exactly how we wanted. Citizenship became a kind of safety net for us. Many of our close friends assumed it meant I had decided to settle in Singapore permanently. Strangely, it had the opposite effect. Instead of tying me down, it gave me even more assurance to pursue the adventures we wanted. There was comfort in knowing that no matter where life brought us, Singapore (and Switzerland) would always remain an option to return to if things did not work out.

After the wedding in December, S and I started discussing relocation more seriously. We had just renewed our lease until December 2025 because, at that point, we still thought we would remain in Singapore for at least another year.

• Negotiating the rental agreement turned out to be unexpectedly stressful. Looking back, I probably overcalculated and hesitated too much. If I had simply signed once the landlord agreed on the price, we would have saved more money. But maybe that was also one of the quiet lessons adulthood keeps teaching: sometimes you try so hard to optimise every decision that you forget life will always contain uncertainty anyway. You win some, you lose some.

In 2025, life continued moving quickly.

S’s family visited Singapore for a short trip before attending our wedding celebration in Kuala Lumpur on 12.04.2025. Shortly after that, we travelled to Seattle and Vancouver with my parents for almost a month.

Somewhere during those travels, our conversations about relocation became less hypothetical and more real. We started discussing timelines, budgets, resignation plans, and the practical realities of visas, work, and housing.

Our original plan was simple: S would resign in August, I would resign in September, and we would leave Singapore before our lease ended. He hoped to find opportunities in the game development industry, while I planned to explore roles in health tech and digital transformation.

The idea was both exciting and terrifying. At the same time, there was a quiet confidence between us. We had worked hard for years and had saved what we believed was enough to sustain ourselves for at least a year or two without stable income. For the first time, we felt like we had earned the freedom to take a risk and build a different kind of life.

• For most of my life, Singapore represented stability: predictable careers, familiar systems, financial security, and proximity to family and friends. Leaving meant stepping into uncertainty and walking away from a version of life I had spent 17 years building.
• At the same time, we were also beginning to feel increasingly exhausted by the intensity of life in Singapore: the constant noise, fast pace, rising cost of living, and the unspoken pressure that always seemed to follow people around.
• Even though S was earning well, the pace of life in Sg was slowly wearing him down. He would often come home late on weekdays, exhausted from work, and we realised how little quality time we actually had together despite living under the same roof and building the same life.
• For me, work itself was manageable, but I struggled to imagine building a family in an environment that often felt so competitive and high pressure. Conversations around parenting, education, enrichment, and expectations already sounded exhausting before even becoming a parent. Even though I knew that God would take care of us, that whatever life brought our way would also come with the grace and strength to handle it, yet, part of me still longed for a slower and softer way of living.
• As an Asian, I sometimes wondered if that mindset would be seen as 没大志 (lacking ambition, settling for less, or not striving hard enough). But beneath all those thoughts was a deeper question I kept wrestling with quietly: who am I actually called to be in God’s plan? Was I meant to keep chasing achievement after achievement simply because I could? Or was there another way to live: one that made more room for peace, presence, relationships, faith, and eventually family?
• I began to realise that perhaps success was not only about how much I could accomplish, but also about the kind of person I was becoming along the way. Because every life comes with its own trade-offs, and every path asks something from you in return.
• The more I reflected, the more I found myself questioning not just what I wanted out of life, but who I was becoming in the process. I did not want to spend my entire life chasing milestones only to arrive exhausted, disconnected, and constantly waiting for the next break just to breathe again. Perhaps that is one of the quiet struggles of modern adulthood: spending so much energy building a life that you barely have time to live it.

Since we were already set on leaving, I booked a trip to Korea on 10 December 2025, right after our lease ended on 9 December. It almost felt symbolic, as if we were already stepping out of one chapter and into the next. When we eventually shared our relocation plans with our respective bosses, we were honestly overwhelmed by how supportive they were.

For S, his boss genuinely wanted to retain him and even proposed alternatives that would allow him to continue working after relocation.

For me, things unfolded in a way I did not expect. In most cases, once you signal your intent to resign, it usually means stepping away from bonuses and year-end considerations. I gave my boss a soft heads-up: “Hey, expect my resignation letter next month.” Instead, he asked if I could stay until January 2026 since the December bonus was significant and I would still be eligible for it. I was genuinely surprised. It felt rare to be met with such understanding and fairness, and I was grateful for it.

We then adjusted our plans slightly and decided to rent a serviced apartment for another two months before we eventually moved. It gave us a small in-between space, not quite here, not quite there, to slowly close one chapter and step into the next.

When we shared our plans with close friends, the support continued in ways we did not expect. One of our dear friends, R, even offered for us to stay with her rent-free, only asking that we cover utilities, internet and cleaning. It felt like an unexpected safety net appearing at exactly the right time, when everything else was in transition.

• Around the same period, our church family also walked closely with us through this season. We shared our plans, uncertainties, and timelines with them, and instead of fear or hesitation, we were met with prayer, encouragement, and quiet confidence that went beyond what we could see at that point.
• Looking back, there were moments that felt like divine appointment, timing we could not have engineered even if we tried. Support came exactly when we needed it, decisions became clearer at the right time, and even uncertainty seemed to carry a strange sense of direction underneath it all.

We stayed with R until 10 February 2026, when we finally left. S had already been on sabbatical since January, and I became officially unemployed from February onwards.

Shortly after, we returned to Kuala Lumpur to spend Chinese New Year with my family, before heading to Japan for what was meant to be a five-week honeymoon.

And somewhere in the middle of that trip, life surprised us again. We found out I was pregnant, just two weeks into Japan.

We returned to Kuala Lumpur at the end of March and confirmed the pregnancy. Naturally, there were concerns from friends about how we would manage prenatal care in a foreign country, especially with so much transition still unfolding.

We proceeded with our plans and flew back to Switzerland in April, before eventually making our way to Tallinn, where we are now settling.

In many ways, it felt less like things were falling apart and more like things were quietly falling into place, almost like a reassurance that this step forward was not something we were taking alone.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

Proverbs 16:9 “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

Isaiah 30:21 “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to give you hope and a future.”