"It is always easier to be the one leaving than to be the one being left." - my mom
I feel emotional tonight. Discouraged. And a little angry.
The hardest thing about this whole move overseas is the thing that nobody prepares you for. Of all the advice and warnings we received from fellow travelers and missionaries, nobody told us about this part.
It's the feeling of knowing that you and your actions are responsible for someone else's unhappiness.
By moving our entire family away from home, we have deprived our parents of an involved relationship with our girls. We are made aware of this fact on an almost daily basis.
I have watched my mom cry several times a day for the last couple days because she is worried that CJ will forget her and that M will never have that special connection with her.
I hear it in others parents's voices, in their side remarks, and in their actions.
I know my brother resents this entire move, and I hear the sense of betrayal in his voice when I talk with him. To him, the sibling who will never leave his home town, I am disloyal to the family.
The thing is, we are very happy here. CJ gets sad when the grandparents leave,sure, but she is very resilient. She has moments of missing things about home: her cousins, her baby bed, her grandparents. But these moments are fleeting, few, and far between. She is 99.9% very happy here.
And so are we.
B and I love our home here. We are more content in our home, in our marriage, in our family, than we have ever been. We feel like we have been removed from the microscope, and so we find newfound confidence in our decisions as parents and as spouses. We can freely ask for advice when we feel we need it, but rarely do we feel the heat of judgement breathing down our backs from family about our parenting decisions.
But it's not just that. We are all in this adventure together - as a family. Before coming here, with me, B, and CJ, it felt like we were three very different people, living three very different lives, in three very different places.
Here, we are a family unit, a happy bunch.
But these are not things I can say to our family and close friends back home. Because no matter how I say it, it comes out as "We don't miss you."
Of course we miss them. Of course relationships are easier when miles and miles aren't separating us.
But they are the ones who raised us to be strong, independent, free-thinking adults. And the fact is, we have not been really homesick, not once. We miss aspects of the States all the time. But have we ever once said, "We really want to go home"? No way! Not once!
And that's the hardest part of this whole thing... Knowing that the very thing that makes us happier than we have ever been, is the very thing that brings them so much sadness.
And the thing is, I don't do guilt. At least, I don't respond to guilt the way most people probably do. It just makes me angry.
Don't get me wrong, if I have done something for which I should feel guilty, I will do what has to be done to make it right. Of course.
But this whole thing? We haven't done anything for which we should be sorry. We have followed the Lord's leading, followed our own dreams, and ended up in a place where we seem to fit perfectly. There is nothing wrong or sinful in our choices, and none of them have been made with the intentions to harm.
So I shouldn't have to feel guilty about this.
We shouldn't have to make excuses for our choices or defend our decision to come here (or to stay here, if it comes to that).
We are very happy here. And if they can't be happy for us, they could at least do a better job hiding it from us.
God knows we do our best to hide our happiness from them.
Like I said, I don't think I respond to guilt the way most people do. It just makes me angry.
So that's it tonight. There's no answer to this, I'm afraid. It's just another reminder that few decisions in life affect only the decision maker. I suppose this is no exception.