The Giant Pit of Nothing

An empty shopping street in The Hague, Netherlands.

The thing about life is that you never know what you have until it's gone. We all know this because we hear it every time we lose something or the minute we experience change. It's almost become a cliché.  The problem for me is that I can only think about what I am missing in the moment, so I do not realize what I actually have. That's the irony of life, isn't it?

At some point it felt like my life had been reduced to nothing. We went nowhere because we were afraid to go to places and were insecure about the cost, the routes, and not having people to do things with. We didn't do anything because we didn't know what to do, when it rained we stayed inside, but it never stopped raining and so the joke was on us.

After our first year I met some good people from many different places, no matter where you come from, the fact that you left home, came to a new place with the hope of a better life and had something to leave behind is what unites all expats. It's easy to make friends because our experiences are the same.

I once told a friend that when you're a kid you dream of going on abroad, it's like a dream come true, but when you get here it's like a giant pit of nothingness. As time goes by, of course, you learn to adapt, the things that once bothered you no longer matter, you leave home in the rain and you learn to do things on your own. I now leave my house to breathe outside, it's challenging in a new way.

In the last few weeks my family has come to visit me in the Netherlands and although I love them so much, it was incredibly overwhelming. I was so afraid of upsetting my neighbors with noise and getting complaints, or forgetting to tell them important information and then getting them lost in an unfamiliar place. Fortunately, I realized sooner rather than later that I would miss those moments when the nine became four and I was more free to live in the moment. We had amazing experiences that I will never forget.

But the hardest thing for me was not leaving home. It was my family leaving me. When I left South Africa, every new place I saw was a constant new beginning, I would miss my family of course, but I could compartmentalize my life with my life in South Africa.

As my family comes more often, it becomes a bigger reminder when I go to or past places where we spent time together. I feel them in my space, which is a blessing in itself, but also a raw reminder that makes you miss what you do not have. I suppose that is the price of a better life, missing the lives of those you love the most.

Until next time. ♥️