Last weekend three of my friends emigrated, one to New Zealand and two to Oman. Our neighbours left to live in France a couple of years ago; a school friend of mine now lives in the Yukon in the middle of nowhere.
Others seem to be able to move across the world with apparently no dissention or issues with family or close friends, although perhaps they only show us the excitement they want us to see, and not the heartache or heartbreak.
I have always lived within 3 miles of my birth place, where my parents still live. When I broached the subject to them of our possibly moving to Scotland one day, it was as if I’d suggested deepest Siberia and that rather than being 8 hours by car or 2 hours by plane, they would never see me again.
On the one hand I have always felt the closest of the three children to my parents, being the only one that didn’t go to boarding school or move away when I got married; and it is good being close to them. But I also resent the hold this has over me, even if it is only in my mind; the fact that I am the one ‘on call’ because my siblings live further away and are busy with their lives and children.
I feel as though there is a huge weight anchoring me to my home town, and dread the thought that one day the struggle to lift it may outweigh any excitement about a new life; and I know that is a feeling I have to try and change.
As the neighbours, this has caused another long discussion! We neither of us have a 'home base' (both sets of parents moved around and we moved schools and friendship groups often)and we were kicked out of our comfort zone of twenty years by redundancy.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a change of mindset. We definitely don't think of this as permanent (and I was surprised by how appalled I was by someone suggesting it was), just the next phase.
Maybe take them with you if it's that big a deal, they wanted to move to somewhere different?