Feel quite desolate about heading “home”

[Ozgirl75]

I’m from the U.K. originally, lived in Australia for 15 years. We have a great life there, very happy, it’s lovely.
First trip back to U.K. for 3 years due to covid and I’ve loved every minute. Seeing old friends, family, going to lovely gardens, castles, London was vibrant and bustling, I just loved everything.
Going back to Aus tomorrow and I feel absolutely desolate at the thought of not coming back for a year. Also my FIL isn’t getting any younger and when we said goodbye today I thought “what if that’s it forever?”
We have talked about moving back here for ages but never feel confident to take the plunge because, on paper, all is great in Aus.
But as we all get older I just don’t know if being back here once a year is enough. Equally I don’t know if this is just the feeling of a brilliant holiday coming to an end.

Oh, I've had these feelings many times. Basically every time I go back to the U.K. to see family. Have been a long haul flight away for over 10 years.

We've decided to stay where we are because our DC are really settled in their lives here and they are the most important family members for us to consider. I definitely miss the rest of the wider family, but I'm content with a longish trip back every year to see everyone. I know that might not be possible from Australia, though.

Hope that you settle on a decision that works for you.

Yes it’s our children that make it a hard decision too. They’re just at the stage where we could come back, one more year and the oldest will be too far through school. Which also give a “now or never” feel to it which we haven’t had before!
There is a big part of me that kind of wishes we’d never gone there in the first place, even though we have had such a brilliant 15 years. We were so glib though about it when our parents were in their late 50s, but now they’re mid 70s it feels so weird saying “see you in a year”.

Can you come back just for a year?

Our kids are nearly 10 and 12 and because the school system isn’t the same i think it would be too disruptive to just come for a year. Our eldest would be just finishing year 7 here.
We actually did think that we could test it out for a year and had started planning this…..in December 2019….

I also have times of wishing that we'd never come here, particularly as for us it was only meant to be a short term thing which got extended until it was too late to move back because of differences in school systems.

It is difficult to say goodbye to parents as they get older, but we make real efforts to FaceTime regularly and I've got friends who don't see their parents much more than I see mine, even though they're in the same country!

Yes we do FaceTiming too but seeing just how well my parents especially have got on with my boys this time has been so lovely. My eldest and my dad are like peas in a pod, chattering away about planes and cars, plus my youngest and my mum talking about plants and animals.
In Australia we’re (by necessity) a tight little group and seeing them with cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents etc and seeing what they’re missing out on is hard. My youngest and his uncle also got on so well and all four cousins got on like a house on fire.

I’m sure I’ll be ok once I’m back home, I’m just feeling rather melancholy about it all.

We found the decision to return a hundred times harder than the decision to move overseas. Coming home has been the best thing for all of us though. Kids fitted into school and our families loved it.

We were away for 9 years and loved it but England is home.

Over the years I have just told myself that the time over the summer at home isn't real, it's a false bubble and if I stayed into Autumn 'home' wouldn't seem nearly as enticing. It's difficult, especially as it's been such a long time since you were last back. I'm sure in a few weeks when you've settled back into your normal routines you'll be fine. It's tough being away.

We lived in new zealand for 5 years. I'm so glad we made the decision to return as we lost 3 of our kids grandparents within the space of a few years. I'm glad the grandparents had that time with their grandkids.