The last few months have been really difficult for me since getting back from South Africa. The visit went by too fast and left me feeling very alone after we got here. I have been spending 8+ hours a day playing Fortnite as a way to talk to family like Nadya, Wayne, Kayla, Dylan, and Damien. But my ability to do video calling, especially between my parents and Evolet has been a struggle. I can see the eagerness they have to be in her life and I can see that she wants them to be in her life, but the distance makes it so difficult to accomplish that in a way that doesn’t make her feel like she only has family over the phone. Evie talks about ouma and oupa and Nadya and Kayla and Wayne-gum almost every day. She remembers them and asks about them and talks about the things they’ve done together when we were there and as happy as those memories are for her, they just bring me mountains of pain.
Some days I wish I didn’t have parents and siblings who I love as much as I do. I wish that we didn’t have the bond that we do and that it would be easy to be so far away from them. Some days I resent my family for giving my the support they did in my first 25 years of existing, because now that I don’t have it anymore, I feel so alone and lonely and broken. I understand how some people can die of heartache, since the pain I feel can only be felt because of the love I have for my parents and siblings. It sucks, because love is supposed to encompass happy emotions, but all I feel is pain right now and I don’t quite know how to cope with the depression and anxiety that attached itself to it.
I have so much to be grateful for in my life. I have a wife who is willing to drive to Hudson in the middle of the night for my laptop. A wife that supports me and gets me through most days by supporting and loving me. I have a beautiful and strong and smart daughter who grows everyday, with another strong baby girl on the way. I am half a year away from completing my four-year degree and moving on to my Master’s. I have a good job working with a good kid. I have a lot going for me, but the fact that it feels like I have no one to celebrate these achievements with, makes it feel pointless sometimes. I look at my daughter and all I see is the emotional dependence she has towards us. There is no one aside from us and her siblings who she can rely on daily for attention, needs, etc. She has no where to go to “cool off” after being upset with us or to get a break from our house. She has nowhere to go except our bedroom and it hurts to know that her support system is so small, so limited.
I thought moving here would be easier than it is. 5 years in and it has progressively become more difficult to live without my family’s support. Every milestone or achievement that happens back in South Africa is just another painful reminder of how far away I am. I don’t know how to mentally cope with possibly living like this for the rest of my life. I don’t know if I can or ever will be able to. I am mentally and emotionally overwhelmed. It’s so unfair to expect Amanda to support me mentally and emotionally right now, because not only does she have her own emotion and mental needs, but she is in her third trimester already with the due date coming closer everyday.
I just don’t feel like I know how to cope with the pain I feel from missing my family. 1-2 weeks a year isn’t nearly enough to catch up on the endless amounts of things we miss during the other 50 weeks.