We are caught between two worlds. The best and the worst of our current home, and definitely the best of the States. It's no secret that there are a lot of things we don't like about Beijing...most of them having to do with any large city, so living in New York or Chicago would provoke the same feelings...but the living in Asia and all its attendant issues really is pretty good.But when we go back...the convenience, the ease and comfort of the expected and the predictable. The friends, our family...I remember how much I miss it all. We are having some great experiences and adventures, but trust me...there are many many days when I'd trade it all for cheap groceries and a Target run. For seeing friends and family more often. For knowing how my day will go when I start out. For GoogleMaps and the ability to ask directions and read a road sign. It's not just China. My friend Calandria (you can read her here but her new blog will be here) is moving her family to Spain in a few weeks. They are all fluent in Spanish, but I suspect there will days, even on the blissful Mediterranean, that she'll want to chuck it and run for the good ol' USA. Yet, they're going. And we went. And so do thousands of people--there are approximately 250,000 documented expat workers in Beijing alone!
I can't explain it. Neither Mark nor I are risktakers, really we aren't. Many many days this whole experience still feels like an aberration, a blip in an otherwise comfortable suburban Midwestern existence. I still surprise myself when I think that we may well watch Cameron graduate from high school here. It's just that somewhere there's a little voice in my head that whispers, "Not here" when I think of living in the States. I can't explain it. I feel bad when we talk to friends and I hear them justifying their lives, lives that we lived not too long ago. It's as if they feel like they should do something more or different, or feel somehow "less" because of the decisions we've made. They haven't, obviously. The best thing you can do for your family is to what is best for your family. You do the best you can, you make the best decisions you can. That's all we 've done. And there is a definite cost to living as an expat. Read studies on third or cross-cultural kids and their resulting difficulties from living as expats. Our children live lives that are very normal for them, but will that prepare them for another kind of life? So many times I wonder if we are doing right by them...
And then I hear that voice again. "Not there, not yet." I simultaneously want and don't want my old life back. How can that be?
4 comments:
I wish somethinhg would whisper not here in my ear sometimes.:) You are wise to follow that voice whatever it is.
I guess I am one of those who feel that I should be doing more.. but what? I envy that you were able to take your family and do such wonderful things. I am too fearful of what is out there, what I wouldn't know, or that I wouldn't be able to understand what is happening. I worry that if I were to do what you and Mark did, I would ruin Hannah's relationships with her friends.. or that my friends would somehow be gone.
I envy what you and others do, that you can say not here, not yet...
AND... I love that I get to read about it... with out being there!!
I think that if you really feel called--whether in a spiritual sense or whatever--the other things fall into place. We knew that if we were committed and were doing what we felt called to do, our kids would be fine. Yes, we've lost friends because we've left, but the truly close friends--they'll be my friends regardless of where we live. Kids' friendships--how many of us are friends still with our friends from junior high? (OK I am but it's just one) Kids are remarkably resilient--their strength and surety is in you and the family. Our kids have maintained a friendship with at least one friend each over the past 4 years and have gone on to easily make lots of new friends...and in at least 1 kid's case, I don't think that that child would have done as well friendship-wise had we stayed in the States.
I often envy people who are living in the same town they grew up in, close to their families so their children have cousins to play with, where they know everyone (and often everyone's business)...there's a part of me that craves that, knowing it's something now that I'll never have.
I already relate to this and we're not even there yet! You were right in your comment on my blog that I'm in the phase that everything I'm leaving behind seems so cool all the sudden. (I do still get a bad feeling in my stomach when I think of this year's
Guthrie season!) I'm starting to realize that we're leaving behind friends of many years and that many of those relationships will not survive our move. I have been in denial about that until just recently. And I'm starting to realize, too, who really cares about us. Ok, so that sounds a bit sulky and I don't mean it that way. I mean it in a little surprised way--there are people who care!
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