A life away
I was asked today by a client if I miss things being so far away from my family and especially if I will regret my decision when my father will pass. In some way it is a strange thing to think about but, I don't think I will regret it, life will move on as it did with my mother's passing.
How I see it is that we all have our own lives to lead and even though we can be very connected to our families, limiting experience to stay close to them is not a healthy approach. But of course, this is going to depend on an individual's approach to life and how they view family.
My brother @galenkp will be here in a little over a week and it will be the first time that I have seen him and my sister-in-law in twelve years. That is a long time and a lot has happened between drinks. It is not just the marriage or the child we now have that has changed, I am a different person, as is he.
We generally think of ourselves as somewhat static and unchanging but who we are is in a constant state of flux as experience and our reactions to it continually shape our being. When we think of others, we often imagine them with a type of generalization approach as what we remember or have experienced with them.
If you imagine the school bully, you probably imagine them as being similar to how they were then, that they haven't changed much yet, they may now be fundamentally different. It is hard to predict how someone will change in a lifetime, especially when there is no understanding of what they have experienced. That bully might have shifted into a charitable and compassionate person yet, without knowing them the image held is of a bully.
This is the same for family who live apart. Even though two can grow up together under the same roof and with the same parents, the way those things are experienced can be very different and then, as time and distance separates, what each knows of the other becomes further from the truth, more removed from reality.
It is going to be interesting when I pick them up from the airport next week how different or similar we may be to where we once were, how far removed from each other. The forks of life that push people apart also bring others together though and perhaps we may be more similar than we once were.
When it comes to the regrets of losing family, I am not a great believer in it but this might be because I somewhat prepare for these kinds of things mentally. Yes, it would have been nice if my daughter could have met her Nanna and Granddad but, she can live happily without that experience if she chooses to. We often overestimate the value of direct family.
However, we also underestimate the value of direct connection which is why more and more people are disconnecting from their real world communities and finding that they are enjoying life less, are more depressed, more lonely.
How can I regret what I have missed on one side of the equation when to have not missed it would mean that I will miss what I have now? It is difficult to imagine this perhaps but for me to have stayed with family would mean I would not have the wife or the child I now do and I count myself lucky to have the connections I have.
When my brother comes next week he will see a side of my life that he does not have any way to truly understand yet. When he thinks about meeting his niece he doesn't yet know who he will be meeting and I am pretty sure that when he does, he will know that I made the right choice to move away. But in actual fact, there are no wrong choices in these matters, there are just consequences to choices that must be lived with.
When we have regrets it is because we are unhappy with the consequences of our actions but it is too simplistic to view it on a case by case basis. Yes, I may have liked to spend more time with my father but to do so would mean a loss in another area and knowing what I know today, I wouldn't forgo my wife and daughter to spend more time with my father.
There is so much complexity in the interactions, connections and influences to life that to have regrets for making specific choices, to second guess in hindsight. Yes, we can learn from our mistakes and we can adjust for the future but, life is to be lived and that means that there are opportunities to take and costs to taking them. We spend so much time trying to work out what is perfect we forget that it doesn't exist.
There is no perfect choice, there is just the choices made and there is definitely no perfect code that solves all of the problems of humanity or even a small community. We have what we have to work with, we do what we do and we hope that in the end, the life we live will be good. I don't know anyone who wants anything other than a good life, no matter what they do or what that means to them.
I think that if we hold that view of each other we might be more willing to invest and spend time working out the best way that we can all have a good life. Perhaps one day, travel won't be as expensive or as time consuming and families won't be separated by time and distance. Perhaps one day no child will lose a parent to cancer or, a parent lose a child to war. We are a long way off from it though aren't we?
What closes the gap between where we are and where we want to be is a series of choices but at the end of the day, no matter what choices we make, we must all live with the consequences.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I too have chosen to live far from my family for most of my adult life. In fact, I have only lived within a day's travel of them for about 12 non-consecutive months out of my entire adult life.
There are times when I was in Hawaii or overseas and they were on the US East Coast. I often would only see them every 3-5 years. With the adults there was a little surprise at rediscovering them again and again, but my nieces and nephews were the big surprises.
Each time I would visit, it was as if I was meeting a new set of kids. There was the 3 year old version of Austin, then the 7 year old version, then the 12 year old version, then the 6'3" 15 year old version. Now I see picks of him at 19 and can't believe how he's changed! And that's just their physical appearances. Their personality maintain a certain fundamental identity, but so much about so much changes in how they think and communicate and what their interests are.
I sometimes miss having gotten to spend more time with the different versions of them. I will never see Austin at 3 or Shake at 5 or Dominique at 12 again. Those versions of them are gone forever. And I won't get to have been there to be a part of how they developed on a day to day basis.
Instead I get the life I came to live.
I think this is the hardest part of being away from family. One of my brothers is expecting their first next month yet, when will be the first time we will meet? I haven't seen that brother face to face for 9 years.
You are right, there is a common thread to a person but how it presents depending on what arises can change quite drastically.
This is the thing.
No one can live your life for you. The choices one makes in life are because they are for you. You have to be happy and only then will you know you made the right decision.
I think that even unhappy is a right decision too as it can lead on to things that bring happy. at the end of life, one might know or perhaps, no longer care.
I add a lot of value to family, but also has had to teach myself to make decisions based on what will be best for me, survival mode. Having lost as many people close to me as I have, I have grown a thick skin to loss and it has merely become a part of our life cycle. Some longer, some shorter. I engage the people I miss in my memories from time to time
The only way I can remember people is through situations I have experienced with them. I find it interesting that it is the only way I can really picture my mother's face.
Having lost all my photos it's the only way I remember my parents. Little things like my mom's smile when I came home from school. Leaves me a little sad sometimes.
We are in constant movement, many families even without going to distant places do not maintain closeness with their loved ones, they meet in painful situations nothing else. I think it is necessary that they make their way and fly to live their own life. Parents should understand that since our children are small, it is the law of life.
The question about whether we regret, or take pride, in our choices reminds me of the amusing poem by Robert Frost; "The Road Not Taken."
In the poem, Frost concludes
"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
Now, most people assume Frost is saying that taking the rare road made his life special, but that is false.
In fact, Frost tells the story with "a sigh," because his real point is that we make our choices, and it generally makes no difference, because every choice has its ups and downs. You pick a road, you live with it.
And Frost used to laugh about how people would selectively quote his poem to prove the opposite of the point he was making.
I'm not sure whether Frost was right or wrong, that most choices don't really matter, but I do think it's funny that so many think he was saying that they do. :)
Again, it is the art of something. The meaning of it from the artist's perspective is irrelevant to that of the audience. People hear what they want to hear, (sometimes but rarely, what they need to hear) and it will cause them to shift a little from their path.
I think the sigh isn't bout it no making a difference, it is lamenting what was the cost of taking a particular opportunity. What was down the the road? The road less travelled is not important because it is less travelled and on the road that has taken many feet can be found diamonds that the crowds passed by.
Well that is the cycle of life. We live with our parents and then we get married to have our own family, they are still part of our lives but they are not as close as before. If you live far away it becomes more difficult to have contact often. In my case I live in the same city where my parents live (my natal house), so I see them very often. If we were to move to another state of the country of course we would see maybe 1 or 2 times a year. It all depends on how far we live and the relationship they have, but I think that if you have left your parents to form a home is not something to repent but something that you should feel very proud.
Very good @tarazkp
People disappear, countries are left, everything is evolution, one can not handle those threads of life, they are avatars, nobody is the owner of the truth or the feeling or sensitivity of others.