A Love Letter To My Family All Over The World

By

To My Dearest Family,

Next week will mark two years since this new chapter of our lives started. The day we officially became an international family, with our tight knit family beginning to relocate all over the world.

Dad, you decided to take the next step in your career, and Abu Dhabi came calling. So before we knew it, you, Mum and my brother were getting ready to go. You had announced it to the family, and we were all so excited (although a lot of us were sad as well). It’s a big change in your life when something like this happens. Going from seeing someone every day to having them relocate and only being able to talk to them online is a big deal.

I can still remember the day at the airport when you left and all of a sudden almost 50 people were standing at the international gate waving goodbye to you, tears and laughter all included that night.

You walked through the gates and that was it. The first relocation. The new chapter had started. It was me and my sister against the world. We did well for a while, everything was working and our routine was back to our version of ‘normal’.

Then she decided to leave too.

Her dreams had finally come to fruition and she was accepted into an acting school in Vancouver. It was so exciting for her, and for me too, I was finally seeing my sister live her dreams. Everything was such a whirlwind and then just like that, she was gone too. The second relocation.

Initially it was exciting, having a whole new found independence, and it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before, and I loved it. Eventually though, that excitement of the independence faded, and the reality started to kick in, and it finally hit me:

I was alone.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not completely alone. I have the extended family, I have my boyfriend, I have amazing friends, both inside and outside of work, who have now become my support system and I wouldn’t trade anyone in my life for the world.

In saying that, I don’t have any of you. I’ve grown up with you guys there. My support system, my rocks. The people that were there when I got home when I wanted to celebrate something that happened at work, or cry about a boy at school not liking me back. Now you’re gone.

I am so happy for every single one of you. I truly am. You are all living your dreams and doing what’s best for our family. I consider myself so lucky to have been able to experience some of the things I’ve experienced by having an international family.

But you’re not here.

I get home from work and open the front door to a dark, gloomy house. The vibrant house that we all lived in is gone. What’s left behind is a shell, filled with only 1 out of 5 of the people who used to reside here.

I remember all of us living here like it was yesterday before all of these changes. We would all have our specific routines and all live our lives around each other, but we were all here for each other when we needed to be.

You are still there for me when I need, but talking over a computer or an iPad is not the same as actually being there.

Now I spend my nights after work watching TV with the dog, looking over at the couches in the usual spots you all used to be wondering if we’ll ever be like that again.

Everyone’s moving on and living their own life.

I miss all of you. Every day. That makes living here alone that much harder.

But I know I’ll get to see you all again.

Love always,
The one who stayed.