I heard some sad news on Saturday night. A very good friend of mine from my volunteer program in Ecuador had to rush home to be by her brother’s side. He was sick with swine flu and pneumonia, and on Friday night he passed away. Lauren and I were placed at the same university in Cuenca, and remained good friends throughout the year, often traveling together. She stayed for another year in Cuenca while I moved on to Buenos Aires.
I never knew her brother, but I feel saddened nonetheless. And it has gotten me thinking about other things. When you separate yourself from your loved ones for so long, you miss out on so much. Whether you are volunteering for a year or two, or working internationally, you inevitably take yourself away from your friends and family that have been with your your whole life. Maybe you are like me, and hope that your experience as a long term expat will help you in the future and make you better appreciate those friends and family members. But unforeseen events happen sometimes, and you could wind up taking yourself away from those people as their time runs out.
You will always have to take the bad with the good, and I just hope that this doesn’t ruin my friend’s perspective on her time spent living in Ecuador. Those of us who travel and live abroad often take ourselves away from so much, We miss out on reunions, we don’t see our little sisters grow up, and we can’t be there to forge new memories. But does this all have a worthwhile end result? I would like to believe so. Otherwise we are all just fooling ourselves, and all we have done is drain more sand from the hour glass. But this is how life goes, and living on the other coast of the U.S. instead of another continent changes little. We live with the decisions we make, and that’s that.
Latest posts by jgbrandt8
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Thanks for the comments. I’m glad that this piece is able to reach some people and is relevant to other travelers or expats.
great post
Approaching 2 years being away from “home,” I hate pondering this thought. I always end up answering it with, “it’s worth it for me to live my dream of exploring.” And until that answer changes, I just keep finding ways to be ok with missing milestones back home.