When I first moved to the US, a friend of mine told me these very sweet words, "you will finally find joy in the new and recreate familiarity, but the gaping space left by your loved ones won't fill up and thank God for that. You will miss them terribly, and that will become your new love language." I didn't understand what he meant until recently.
Being away from your loved ones is never easy. At least, it's never been easy for me. There are times when I feel like I've gotten used to it, and when everything is going great, boom! Out of nowhere, my mom's beautiful smile crosses my mind. My sister's stories and jokes come back to me and start to make me laugh as if I had never heard of them before. I start remembering some of my cousin's innocent and really brilliant questions and thinking about different ways I could answer them if she were to ask them again. When that happens, there's only one thing it could be. It can only be homesickness breaking me open again.
When that happens, I talk to people, those that I miss and are far away, and those that are close by and can offer a hug in such times. This whole process is basically like an undulating graph. At a certain point in time, you can find me somewhere on the peak, on the bottom, or somewhere in between. I miss people, deal with it, miss them again, deal with it again, over and over again.
So, being away from your loved ones never gets easier, but lately, I've been learning that there is a reason why it's not meant to be a walk in the park. If being away from the important people in our lives were easier to adapt to, we would get comfortable being away from home. Perhaps, too comfortable that we would start to fool ourselves that the special people in our lives whose hearts ache for ours are replaceable. But truth is, some people are truly irreplaceable.
Whoever those people are to you, the sooner you acknowledge them, the better. Don't forget to appreciate them for who they are to you and for staying for and with you. Wherever they are, very far away or right next to you, hold on tight to them. Maybe try counting them at least twice when you count your blessings too because those are some special and rare people you've got by your side.
To 2021 and making new and memorable memories with the people we love and the ones who love us!
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