I have just moved across the country to take a fantastic job. I’m in my mid-30s and have been studying and working precarious jobs my entire adult life, so I feel incredibly relieved and happy to get this opportunity. However, I’m sad to move away from my family. I tell myself that I’m quite fortunate to get a job that’s only a three-hour flight away (a lot of people in my field need to relocate to other countries and continents to find work). Do you have any advice for me for grappling with the sadness I feel?
I have a friend who put her debit card in the freezer when she moved to America. She was so wretchedly homesick that at the start of every week she wanted to buy a flight home, and she put her card in a block of ice as a way of stopping herself unless she was really sure. If she still felt she couldn’t take it by Wednesday, she’d let herself chip out the card and go home. Then Wednesday would come and she’d feel a little better, like maybe she could make it one more week. This went on for a year. Now she’s married and couldn’t think of living anywhere else – but she got to that place one Wednesday at a time.
Moving is hard. Let yourself feel the sad bits. There will be homesick days, and days when you wish you could go home. If, like my friend, you give yourself a system which allows you to remember that you are free to take that option if you really want to, every day that you don’t take it will start to feel more free as well. It’s easier to enjoy things when they feel like the products of deliberate choice.
But sometimes the sad bits will swallow up the exciting parts of the new place. You will have days of feeling small and lonely and unsure whether you’ll ever get a network of solid love in the new place like you felt in the old.
In those moments of sadness it’s worth holding on to the thought that what we’re doing is paying tribute to the value of the things we miss. I moved away from Australia for a PhD and when I left I didn’t feel especially Australian. Within a month of living elsewhere the sound of magpies made my heart swell three sizes like the Grinch’s, and I would look for eucalyptus oil in pharmacies so I could breathe it in and pretend I had crushed up one of those dusky green leaves in my fingers. I played White Wine in the Sun when I flew home for Christmas and the sight of Sydney Harbour from the air made me cry. It took the heartbreak of being without these things to realise how much I loved them, and I would not give up this new fondness to undo the sadness it cost.
This will be true for your relationship with your family as well. You will have to find time for each other, and while we have the blessing of living in an era when that means cooking together on FaceTime instead of hearing news two weeks late from an envelope marked Par Avion, it still takes effort. Sometimes it will make you sad to see them all without you, and it will make them sad too. But it will make you breathe that love in like eucalypt. And you will think, as they will to you, aren’t we lucky to have things worth missing.
*************************************
Ask us a question
Do you have a conflict, crossroads or dilemma you need help with? Eleanor Gordon-Smith will help you think through life’s questions and puzzles, big and small. Questions can be anonymous.
If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here.
