"I suppose in your early 20s, you don't consider all the future implications of living away from your home country and family. Along with navigating bureaucracy, immigration, tiny roads, how to find a job given my US qualification didn't transfer, and friendships in a country that wasn't familiar to me, I had to come to grips with what it meant to be thousands of miles away from my family."
"When I started having kids , the longing for family was more acute. I'd always imagined my family stopping by the house all the time once I'd had babies. They would tell me to go have a shower while they held the baby. Or give the ignored house a little clean while I napped. Once the kids were older, I hoped they'd grow up with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins - one big, happy family. Help with childcare would be abundant."
She moved from the United States to Wales after meeting her future husband and faced challenges with immigration, local roads, job qualifications, and building friendships. She experienced acute loneliness and grief while separated from family, including missing her grandmother's funeral due to travel cost. Parenting intensified the longing for nearby relatives and imagined routines of family support that did not materialize. She adapted by embracing alternative ways to connect across distance, using phone and video apps and other methods to maintain family bonds and create new rhythms of support despite physical separation.
Read at Business Insider
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