I know an expat who made it just one year. The comment was later made that "Joe" was "never there" (in his expat country), his mind was back home and he "couldn't get over the fact that his friends' lives were moving on without him". I am not going to say that's how we feel, we knew people would carry on with things and we knew there would be many birthdays, weddings, hockey games, festivals, camping, dinner and just good old nights out on the town that we would miss. We were okay with that, even though it is hard. But we thought it would be easier to stay connected. The time difference gets in the way and well, "out of sight, out of mind"...
Most importantly, we thought it would be easier to make new friends. It hasn't been easy.
Now that I realize the effort to making new friends, I look back at our friendships back home and I have respect for the work that went into them and I realized how blessed we are to have some truly amazing friends. I have come to realize that friendships and time are precious and I am not prepared to lose those people from my life. So I am going to have step up the effort while balancing making new friends and new connections here.
No comments:
Post a Comment