So that time of my expat life has finally arrived… The time where I realize I miss my family and friends so much it hurts a little. I mean, you miss your family and friends when you leave regardless… You walk away, get on that plane and you miss them almost immediately. Tears start to flow sometimes (they did for me) and you just miss them. But right now, what I feel…. this is a different kind of missing them. It’s that kind of missing when I realized, "this will be my first official holiday season away."
I’ve been with my family through most of the holidays that come up in my life. I’ve never thought of what it would be like being away from ALL of them for ALL of the holidays the entire year. Then I think about those holidays where I took things for granted, or I said to myself “this year I just want to sleep in and I don't want to see anybody” and I'm starting to look back on those thoughts with a little bit of regret.
For the past few years my daughter has celebrated “the holidays” with a group we lovingly refer to as "our family friends.” They are friends that we consider family, if that wasn’t already clear (sometimes I ramble, sorry). Yesterday I went on social media and I saw that they had all celebrated the first of those holidays without us. Not that I was expecting anyone to put the holidays on hold for us or anything like but, the reality of what we did in moving over the big blue ocean just set in with those photos. The Halloween festival, what will be considered Thanksgiving in a few weeks, eventually Christmas… All those holidays, we won't be together. It’s a difficult reality… a very real and uncomfortable reality.
Being an expat definitely has its downsides… The biggest of those is spending so much time alone. You think to yourself that if you can just get settled, just get through all the moving stress and the job stress, things will be much better and you wont feel so lonely without your family. But the reality is that loneliness will persist. You will continue to feel alone as you get closer and closer to “the holidays.” It’s just how things work when you decide to move so far away.
For myself, I didn’t realize how many people I really loved in Southern California. I know that sounds bad, but it’s not like I made a list in my head of all my human assets. It’s not like I sat there and counted all my friends and felt like I had this great collection going on. Then, we moved and I started getting messages and emails from all these people telling me how much they missed us and how much glue we provided in our social groups and, as much as those messages lifted me up, they also made me incredibly sad and lonely.
The warnings about the dark and the cold and the expense, they weren't just real life warnings they were quiet pleas of “don’t go”… and I worry about how I will feel a year from now. Two years from now. Will I still be as much of a binder for my social groups? Will I find myself feeling the same way in reverse by then? How in the world do I create as much of a tight social group here that I had back there? Is it really as “simple” as learning the language? Questions that I just sit and ponder on these lonely weekends where I watch the sun set earlier and feel the air get colder.
The fantasy of moving abroad is wonderful. It consumed my thoughts and my heart for many years. I think that if I hadn’t had a child and a tight family relationship, I probably wouldn’t even be writing this blog. But having those things… I feel like I owe some of you this little warning before you join me in the world of expatriotism. It’s hardest when the moments you normally are “forced” to enjoy your family and friends come around.
I could be a wealthy person, I could have a cozy apartment in the best neighborhood in all of Copenhagen… but it’s still no replacement for that one night of the year where the kids get all dressed up in their homemade Halloween costumes and parade in front of judges for the “best costume contest.” It will never take the place of the days beforehand collecting materials at the thrift store to make a costume for your kids… planning them out over coffee and banana bread. Planning the kid’s birthdays together… who’s hosting Thanksgiving? What can we do for Christmas? Being an expat is lonely at one point or another, you can’t avoid it even with amazing new friends. The reality that you left something behind is part of the beauty in moving forward, but that doesn't mean it wont hurt just a little.
