Our life of Goodbyes

In the days before we left for our summer trip home, we had five very rushed meet-ups to bid good-bye to friends leaving Beijing before August. It should be expected, the coming-and-going of expat and even some Chinese families who only come to Shenzhen or Beijing as a temporary stop on the way to other things. In seven-plus years, we've had a lot of good-byes.

Even coming home twice a year for a few weeks, we find ourselves saying good-bye in a sort of long-term way to people who would be more a part of our regularly scheduled life if we still lived it. You know, aunts, uncles, cousins, and old friends. We part from them, regretfully, knowing that if we could live closer it would be less of a big deal.

We say "good-bye" a lot. For me, it's more than a little heartbreaking. Not just because I miss my family and friends, but I regret the deepening of relationships that could be happening, that should be happening. I never imagined the revolving door that our lives would become.

In the spring I read Rod Dreher's The Little Way of Ruthie Dreher, thinking I would blog on it after our summer trip to Randy's and my small-town hometowns. I still haven't gotten to that, but I can't help but think about what Dreher hoped his readers would want to do after reading this book, "put down roots,"  no matter where. Our family has become so rootless, reluctant to root here, in China, where we can't nourish it with relationships with people who always leave (and our goal, too, is to leave someday). We feel more connected to Western Pennsylvania, but we don't really live there now, nor are we certain we will in the future.

So for now, we are deep in a life full of Goodbyes.