Separation Anxiety

I think emotionally, I haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that we will be leaving Singapore in just over a month. I’ve been so busy taking care of the practical side of things like arranging moving dates, selling stuff etc. that I really haven’t had time to ruminate over what this move will mean.

This will not be the first time that I am moving away. Fourteen years ago, we left this island with an infant in tow. I was too excited about living in a new place & meeting new people to really be overcome with any kind of sadness over leaving. Definitely I missed my family & friends. But I was too busy with having to take care of a young child, & settling down to wallow in any form of misery (not that I am the wallowing kind in the first place!)

This time around, both my kids are more independent & don’t need round the clock care like 14 years ago (!!!). I will have more time to myself, since domestic help is readily available in China. I certainly don’t plan to immerse myself in self-pity. I hear that expats there make friends more easily than here in Singapore, for some reason. Hopefully that will prove to be true, as I find that the older I get, the harder it is to establish firm friendships like the kind that endures since childhood or college. That kind of comfort level where you can meet each other & feel immediately at home even though you have been apart for a number of years…that is the kind of intimacy that close & old friends share that is hard to capture in new friendships.

I know for sure that I will miss being able to visit with my parents/siblings/best friends when I feel like it. And I will miss the fluid efficiency of the way things are run here (despite our frequent complaining!), not to mention local hawker fare.

But with technology, Mom/Dad/Sis/Bro are just a phone or Skype call away, we can even use the webcam to have face-to-face conversations without having to worry about long distance phone bills. And a six hour flight is not that far away for one to visit or be visited by family.