Oh f**k! Why does it always fall together right as they're about to leave?

[expatinscotland]

my folks have been here, as you all know.

they're leaving Friday.

and after a week of all of us being ill, it's all starting to come together, all of us.

and fuck, it's so damn hard, saying goodbye like this.

you cherish every moment.

you think, 'what the fuck am i doing?'

it makes you call everything into question.

just as i found a folk music group, inviting me along.

and things start to fall into place, after so much hardship these past few months, so much self-doubt, so many really bad things, and you hang tough and then it all starts to make sense.

fuck, i wouldn't wish this on anyone!

i wish i'd have been happy there, in houston, with Eric Soliz back when i was 14 and we'd marry and have 4 kids by the time i was 30 and live minutes away from both our mothers and brothers and sisters with ready childcare and i'd have been a lawyer like was planned and a mother and all that shit.

but instead i'm closer to 40 than 30 in agryll on prozac and playing in some pub in the middle of nowhere.

and FUCK, for your new year's, i hope your kids aren't like me.

in Edinburgh, OR, 80 very long miles away.

Well, I've come to the conclusion we can't do right for doing wrong in life. In raising our dc we've encouraged them to get out there, embrace what life has to offer, look beyond the nearest horizon. But in doing that we've unwittingly been the cause of physically distancing ourselves from each other and dh and I have made ourselves rootless, to boot. I guess we didn't think it through to the logical conclusion, d'oh.

And I see my siblings' families, who all live less than 10 miles from where they were born and within 15mins walk of each other, and I see their involvement in each other's lives and I want that too. But then I look again, and, actually, they are all so goddam boring that not one of them could be bothered to come a few miles to ds2's wedding in November (pics on profile!!) and I know that whatever the cost, I'm glad my dc don't have such parochial, mundane attitudes to life.

fuck, we love it here now and it's so, so beautiful, but we so miss our people.

expat

Having had problems with my medical insurance refusing to cover me for much of my treatment in 2007, I was not surprised to hear that 1/3 of all bankruptcies in the US are due to medical costs.

i so miss my mother already.

i miss MIL, too.

how strong she is!

how she was there for me, during the whole M/C thing, how she wrote me and told me how, if i fell pregnant again, how i wasn't alone and i was their people now and i could come home, to edinburgh, and have my baby there like my other two.

how that felt so good, knowing we were of someone, of some people.

and man, i miss them both.

Thats a good way to look at it Suedonim. But it is sooo hard in the moment, when you miss people so much, isn't it?

OR, I had a bankrupcy in Jan., 2002 due to medical debt.

People no longer have this option in the US.

But we just can't take the chance, you know?

And it sucks.

And 71 isn't old, Expat!! Dh is 63 this year but has been headhunted by several big companies this past year and is starting a new job this month. There's life in the old dog yet.

Mama came to stay with us after DD1 was born.

But before she did, I missed her so badly, it caused me physical pain.

I got PND and she took DD1 away with her for 3 months, but had to stay here in the UK till DD1 was granted a US passport. That was about 2 months.

That time was one of the sweetest of my life.

Oh, I'll never forget it!

The most brilliant summer we'd seen then or since.

We'd picnic in the park, take DD1 in the buggy, although I was so ill.

I wish, for my children, happiness without having to wander so far.

DH went with her, and I just remember, the sweetness of it all.

I can't believe the time has gone by so fast.

I have so many thank-you's to write.

So much to 'get over'.

I didn't know, expat

Your parents sound lovely. And your in-laws.

i feel the same expat. we lived 3 hours drive from my parents and whole extended family, i thought that was bad enough then dh gets a job move to singapore, parents see us once or twice a year, go through hellishly long journey and jetlag to see us. dh travels loads. when we lived in uk i'd just go to my mums for a week or 2. cant now, cant go anywhere. kids too young for me to manage alone. then if u do go have to travel length of uk to see dhs family too. sometimes wonder what life would be like had i stayed with teenage bf, had kids in same city as his and my families.....

Oh expat, you sound so sad.

But it sounds as though your parents' visit was timely - and your MIL sounds like a gem and your Mama sounds like a diamond.

You have family where you were and where you are.

sorry expat didn't mean to self indulge, wanted you to know i can empathise. your family get on great, that's a blessing. even when my parents are here it is like walking on eggshells as dh is difficult, he is jealous of mum's relationship with dd1 and mum is scared to enjoy herself with it incase she is told she is suffocating her or interfering. bless her, i feel so much resentment towards him.

OR, I don't miss my own family at all nowadays. In fact they just make me bl%dy angry because none of my three siblings has visited our mother even once in the past six years, yet I see her eight or nine times a year despite the fact I live in f*cking Africa!!!

I dread my own dc becoming distanced from each other like that but I hope they won't because they've got more in common than my siblings and I ever had.

Re the insurance issues. I was horrified when ds1 told me of a 24yo guy he knew who died recently of pneumonia. He had a cold which went onto his chest but consulted no one because he had no insurance (couldn't afford it) and he couldn't afford to take time off work to go to a public hospital as they usually have 4/6hr queues. By the time someone took him for attention it was too late and he basically drowned in his own body fluids. There's something wrong when a country as wealthy as the US can afford to waste the lives of fit and healthy young people and god help those who aren't so fit and healthy. 'For want of a nail' and all that.

KNow exactly how you feel expat.

When my family visit I start getting a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach about halfway through their visit.

I dread saying goodbye.

They are getting on now and I may never see them again.

I wonder all the time about how my life,and my dc's, would be different if they lived near my family.

I sooo don't want my dd to move to a different country when she leaves home.

I did it to my mum,my mum did it to hers.

at your siblings Suedonim. And you're right about the US. Makes me soooo

I'm glad that you are able to see as much of your mum as you do.

I know that sick feeling all too well, Ggirl. I almost don't want visits to start because I know where it's going to end. The worst goodbye I've ever had to say was with dd1 when she was 15yo. We lived in Indonesia at the time and she was so unhappy there that she insisted on coming back to the UK to live with her older brother. Putting her onto that plane, knowing I wouldn't see her again for six months was the hardest thing I've ever done.