We Came Here With Dreams

There is something about leaving your home country that is difficult to explain.

It usually begins with excitement. A new job, a better salary, a promising opportunity, or simply the hope of giving your family a more comfortable life. You pack your belongings, say goodbye to people you love, take a few photographs at the airport and board a flight carrying more dreams than luggage.

You tell yourself that it is only for a few years.

A few years to save money. A few years to build a career. A few years to give your children better opportunities. A few years to achieve the things that seemed difficult back home.

And then life begins.

In the beginning, everything feels new. The roads, the buildings, the lifestyle, the people and even the supermarkets. You learn how things work, find your favorite restaurants, make new friends and slowly become familiar with a place that once felt completely foreign.

Your first salary feels special. Your first apartment feels like an achievement. Even buying your first car brings a different kind of happiness.

You call home and proudly tell your parents about your new life. You tell your friends that things are going well. You share photographs of the places you visit, the buildings around you and the lifestyle you are slowly building.

And there is nothing wrong with that happiness. You worked hard for it.

But there is another side to this journey that nobody really explains when you are preparing to leave.

You miss the small things.

The ordinary Sunday afternoon when your family gathered for lunch. Your mother's voice calling you from another room. Your father's habit of asking whether you had eaten. Meeting an old friend without planning it days in advance. Celebrating a wedding, attending a funeral or simply sitting with relatives without looking at the clock.

At first, you think you can manage these things through video calls.

You call home regularly. You send money when needed. You arrange gifts for birthdays and special occasions. You try to remain involved in everything happening back home.

But a video call is still a video call.

You can see your family smiling, but you cannot sit beside them. You can hear your parents talking, but you cannot notice the little changes in their faces as closely as you once did.

Still, you keep going.

Because you have a reason.

Perhaps you want your children to study in better schools. Perhaps you want to pay off a house, support your parents, build savings or simply escape the financial pressures that made life difficult.

And slowly, the dream becomes bigger.

You upgrade your lifestyle. You move into a better apartment. You buy a bigger car. Your children settle into schools and make friends. You become familiar with your job, your neighbourhood and your daily routine.

One day, someone asks you how long you have been living abroad.

You stop for a moment and calculate.

Five years? Eight? Perhaps twelve?

It is surprising how quickly time passes when every year is spent working towards something.

You start believing that one day everything will be in place. The savings will be enough, the responsibilities will be completed, and you will finally have the freedom to spend more time with the people you left behind.

But there is one thing you probably haven't noticed.

While you have been building your future, life back home has continued without you.

Children have grown up. Parents have grown older. Friends have moved on with their own responsibilities. Familiar streets have changed, and the people you once met every weekend now have lives of their own.

You were away for a better future, but the past was quietly moving further away.

And perhaps that is the first realisation of an expat's life.

We leave home to build a better life, believing that one day we will have more time for the people we love. But what if the people we love cannot wait for that someday?

To be continued...