Here's my thing...

Now before I start, I just want to make a few things very clear: I'm not mad and I'm not upset.

Okay, now that's clear…

As some of you may already know, I'm going home for a few weeks this Saturday (yeah!!!) and although it's great and I'm very excited (couldn't you tell by the yeah?) it comes with mixed emotions. I worry about a few things like:
- I'll go home and not want to come back
- I'll go home and never want to go home again
- I'll go home and there's no place for me anymore.

The last one is the one that really seems to be bugging me at the moment. You know when I was in Biz School a bunch of students went on international exchange and had a tough time re-assimilating when they came back. They've done studies on expats and how they often miss home but then go home and find out its not what they remembered because a) they've romanticised home in their minds and or b) friends/family and their lives have moved forward - and moved forward without you.

Now I'm a little more realistic - I don't expect things to have remained unchanged, but I still find it unsettling.

So what is that I do expect? I expect people to mean what they say - and its so often not the case that it becomes disheartening, and it often takes the anticipation and fun out of planning a visit home. Some of my closest friends tell me how much they miss me and some even ask me to come home, but on days like today I want to just ask them why. Why do you want me to come home when you barely have time in your busy schedules to see me when I do come home for a visit? See, if I spend all this money and vacation time to come home and you don't have time for me - what makes you think you'd have time for me if I lived there? It makes it hard for me to believe that you really miss me. Now I know that they care about me. Truly I do know that - but that's different from actually missing me.

I guess I'm just at the stage in the expat timeline that strength of friendships get tested. And when I say I'm not mad - I really truly mean that. I do realise it's my own choice to live so far away - so I have no one to blame but myself, I'm just … just… the only words that keep coming to mind are sad and disappointed - but they aren't quite right… I'm trying not to be hurt by it and just enjoy the time they do have to spare, but I just wish that 'time to spare' wasn't the first phrase that comes to mind…

Maybe I'm too demanding (I probably am) but I think I view things differently from them. I view things differently because I'm the one who is away and coming for a visit, but I also view things different because I'm not married and don't have kids like the rest of them and therefore have fewer people to juggle in a priority listing. I'm realistic enough to know that kids and husbands come first, I just wish that when I came home it didn't feel like I was so far down the list….