Sending my love from afar
Moving away is a tangled web of emotions… adventure and promise, longing and shame. I don’t think it ever feels better, really.
There’s never been an easier time to call your parents, and still, I can’t seem to do it enough.
When I was younger, my grandparents would tell me stories of adolescents spent roadtripping across Europe, writing long letters and sending them home when they’d finally reach a post office. There seemed, to me, so much love in that gesture—the great lengths, the well-considered words. Now all it takes is a few clicks and there’s a voice at the end of a line. But despite how much I love my own family, I don’t call, and I sit in my guilt of silence and passing time.
I have some expat friends who are on the phone constantly, FaceTiming their mums every day, talking just to talk. I want so badly to be this kind of person. I set up reminders in my calendar. I’ll send through a few messages, say I’ll call, won’t call and will feel awful about it. When I finally do, it’s met with a “Haven’t heard from you in a while” or a “Long time no speak”, which always gives me that sinking feeling because I know it’s true. Sure, there’s the time difference and life gets busy. But if I’m being honest with myself, I know that’s not the real reason.
When you live abroad, as I have for most of my adult life, home becomes a place that lives in your imagination. Maybe you’re lucky enough to return once a year, maybe more. But the rest of the time, it’s just a memory, and your relationships with the people there are just phone calls and photographs.
Because all I’ve got left of my relationships with my home are these little moments of digital connection, I always want to make sure I’m doing them right, like getting all dressed up for a reunion. This means I avoid calling when I’m tired, or upset, or confused, or stressed out—which, to be real, is a lot of the time. I want to give off the impression that everything is great, that my life is going just how I wanted, not only because I don’t want my family to worry (and I know they’ll worry), but also because I feel like I’ve got something to prove. If my life’s not perfect, why did I have to leave?
Moving away is a tangled web of emotions… adventure and promise, longing and shame. I don’t think it ever feels better, really. The missing is always there, sleeping inside me, and if I wake it up I could cry all day. There will always be the moments when we reconnect, scanning each other for signs of change, the tears flowing beneath big sunglasses at the airport, the bittersweet feeling of holidays and birthdays apart, the putting on a brave face when I say goodbye for the thousandth time. Beneath it all, there’s the understanding that I did this—that I’m the cause of the distance and the suffering on both sides, all because I wanted more.
But I’m learning to accept that love means showing the softer sides of yourself. It means coming to my parents when my life feels messy and letting them give me advice from afar; that’s what parents are supposed to do, after all. It means realising the significance of leaving home and working hard to make it a worthwhile decision, but still being human, and embracing all the conflicts, crises and mundane concerns that go along with it. It means, in the good times as well as the bad, picking up the phone.