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I Envy People Whose Families Visit them Abroad
Six years is a long time to be away from your family and friends. It’s a long time to spend half a planet away. A long time to be in a company. When you live and work in another country, you meet all kinds of people. After a while, you get to a point you can see who can succeed, and who won’t last long.
But most of these people had one big thing in common, regardless of how long they worked with me. It didn’t matter if they were there for months or a year. At some point during their time at work their families came to visit. Sometimes, it was one person. Sometimes, there were whole families. Parents, siblings, grandparents, and cousins. With each family that came my heart hurt a little more.
In the six years I worked in China, my family has never visited. Not a single family member. I feel awful for the way I think. I don’t like that I’m this jealous of other people.
The worst is that in a month, I’ll be moving back to the States, and my family won’t get the opportunity to see my life in China.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t seen them in six years.
Every year, I get a month of unpaid vacation days to go home and see my family and friends. That’s the time I see a lot of them. Because of that, I feel bad about my envy. I feel bad…
