Living as an expat comes with many challenges and rewards. So far the challenges have been relatively few, or have at least been the topic of a good blog entry. There is, however, a deeper level of emotional challenges that I know lurk out there, but have not had first hand knowledge of. Three situations occurred this week to bring these to life.
The first is the perpetual state of rotation. Rotation of friends. Friends come and friends go. You have a relatively short time in your new home/town. It is short, but you still must make the effort to establish a network of friends. It is really an unexpected situation...you have these people in your life for such a very short period of time, so why bother? You have to bother because even if they are in your life for a few months or a few years, you HAVE to have a support system when away from home. On the other hand, you make such wonderful friends here all the while knowing it is going to end. It is such a contradiction. You KNOW it is going to end and you will not share daily life experiences with them again. How do you willingly enter into a relationship knowing it is going to end?
This came screaming home for the first time this week as I went to a “good-bye” lunch for one of my friends. I knew it was always out there, but figured I would feel it when we said our good-byes in two years. I now know that I will be feeling it repeatedly before we say our good-bye.
It is such a weird feeling to be stretching your web of friends out every day, but knowing that at any time one or more of them is going to be leaving. It is almost a leap of faith to convince yourself to invest the time and energy getting to know someone and letting them into your life when you just know you’re going to hear they are going home.
BUT...you have to have that support system.
Situation number two this week was a death in Keri’s family. Her grandmother passed away and she was half way around the world. She was not able to be there to say her “good-bye” and to grieve with her family. She could not reach out and give her dad the hug she knew he needed. She is fortunate that Scot was with her. And.... she had us. There is not much we could do for our friend other than be here if she needed us, or to do our best to distract her with some of the many activities we typically do.
Third...an intense and unexpected surge of homesickness associated with Christmas. We have all been working SO hard to force the spirit of Christmas into our lives here. It has been a challenge. We have gone on the bus to see the lights, we have all bought new decorations since we all left ours at our “homes”, we have gone to see a tree lighting at the club and sang carols with the high school choir. We are playing Christmas songs 24/7. We also decided to go on a Holiday Home Tour where we were treated to 5 very nice homes that were on “show” for Christmas. The homes were for the most part stunning. Expensive and beautiful. Not unlike going to any home tour in the US. However...by the time we entered the second home we could feel ourselves deflating with each and every room. By the end of the tour most of us were downright sad.
We were rather taken aback by our reaction to what was supposed to be an uplifting day! We all had a difficult time being able to accurately verbalize what was going on in our heads and hearts but it really just boiled down to the fact that we all miss our “homes”, our “stuff” and our “normalcy” and that we are angry that we are not “feeling” Christmas as we would at home.
We agreed to all get right back on track to forcing the spirit...but we are NOT going on that home tour again next year.
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