When we moved nearly five years ago, we actively made the choice to grow the distance between us and our extended family. It wasn’t an easy choice but it was necessary for our careers to advance.
When the opportunity to move south presented itself, we made a very detailed list of pros and cons. This included things like cost of living, quality of schools, and proximity to family. The distance from family definitely fell in as a negative in this case where we moved such a long distance.
A 15-hour drive in one day is just not realistic at this stage in our lives. Our most recent move was a great opportunity so we went for it.
It brought many positives into our lives but definitely have encountered some things that never crossed my mind.
We placed ‘distance from family’ as a negative for all of the obvious reasons. Missing out on family dinners and other special occasions. No free help if we wanted to get away. The expense of flying over driving if it was necessary.
Now that I have been deep in the trenches, I have learned a few things that I honestly never thought about until we settled into a new home, far away.
5 Things That Never Crossed My Mind
Emergency Contact
As I quickly learned when enrolling my girls into a new daycare, it doesn’t make much sense to list someone outside of the immediate radius of the kids as an emergency contact.
What can grandma do if she is seven hours away?
Nothing makes being alone more obvious than staring at the blank two lines on a school form where it says ’emergency contact’. I am confident that between a call to our cell phones, a text, an email and a call to our work phones one of us would be as responsive as possible to an issue.
I don’t blame the caretakers, they are just doing their job. I get why it’s there and why its important. I just don’t like the guilty feeling of having to ask a neighbor to fill in over a relative.
Time Zones
It’s not just about the time of day when you wake up and go to bed. An hour or two doesn’t seem like much but think about how much time you will spend on the phone.
Calling across time zones gets difficult to coordinate when you add in activities, bedtime, and work schedules. We have always set aside time for calls from family one day each week but just a little variation and we can easily end up missing each other.
Mail Delivery
Have you ever thought about how inefficient the US mail system is? Living far away means for every holiday and special event we want to celebrate, we can’t just pick up a card and bring it over.
We miss out on birthday parties, Father’s Day lunches, Easter brunches, and more. Just when I feel like I’ve got the hang of the prep needed to deliver a birthday card on time, it ends up late. Every time.
It works both ways. I can’t tell you the number of times my mom will tell the girls she put a package in the mail for them. Then I get asked every day for a week if it’s here yet. They wait not-so-patiently for the box to arrive.
My family has learned their lessons somewhat with the mail. It only took a few times of sending chocolate only to have it arrived a melted mess for grandma to put an end to that.
Unplanned Phone Calls
It’s easy to be in the loop when you live nearby. You know everyone’s schedule, health status, special occasions, and even the not-so-special happenings.
When you don’t see people on a regular schedule it’s easy to get out of the info loop. Every time a family member calls at an out of the ordinary time, my heart rate skyrockets.
It’s easy to assume something bad has happened if my mom calls in the middle of the workday. In reality, she has the day off and wants to check plans for an upcoming event so not a big deal. Sometimes my dad will call just to say hi but if he does it on his way to work (see time zone) I tend to freak out and assume the worst.
Balancing Two Sides
Now that we are far away from all family we have to balance the time we do get to see them all. This wasn’t as much of an issue when we were closer because all sides could come together for big events like holidays and birthdays.
Now we have to pick and choose and often can’t get hit everyone in one visit. We also have to schedule the visits to our home. We only have so much space and so much time. We want the girls to spend as much time with family as possible and really get to enjoy when guests come to visit. It’s just not realistic to have both sides of the family in town at the same time. Its a balancing act and a tab on our family calendar to organize visits.
Moving away from family means there is no such thing as “spur of the moment.” Plain and simple. Everything takes advance planning. From date night, to a request to stay late at school, to a trip to grandma’s.
There is no one to jump in and help at a moments notice. Everything has to be planned well in advance with all bases covered. Even little things like a sick child, or worse yet a sick momma, can make you crazy when you don’t have family nearby to rely on.
We have to consider our feelings along with the feelings of those we are missing. We have to balance what is best for us as a family with what is expected of us as the family that lives far away.
We have to find other ways to give our kids experiences with their aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins that they aren’t getting on a regular basis.
We have found a lot of ways to make the time we do get to spend together special. Another added bonus is that my girls have significantly improved their FaceTime game.
At first, it was like pulling teeth to get them to sit and talk or not move the phone around and make grandma sick. Now we have a routine and they often ask to FaceTime at random just to say hi or show off some new nail polish or school project.
It’s special to see the joy from both sides through the phone, even when it can’t always be in person.
Sometimes a career change means putting physical distance between your family and your support system.
I do put in the extra effort to keep family updated on our happenings because its important to us. We may have underestimated these little things but our girls know they are loved by family near and far. But mostly far for now.
If you find yourself faced with a career change that will take you away from family, how have you approached the decision making? What steps have you taken to find a local support system?
