New Year, Same _____ (Part 1)

2016. A new day, a new month, a new year, and a new opportunity for change. 

As every new year comes along, that is what most of us aim to do: change. Whether it be our weight, our health, our bad attitude towards the ass-kisser at work, etc., we all focus on areas of our lives that are in need of improvement. We examine ourselves with microscopic, critical lenses, picking out all that went wrong and all that could be better and think of ways to change. Then, per usual, we toast with glasses full of bubbling champagne as we set shaky, though well-intended, resolutions to make those changes. 

But, this year, I am going to do the reverse. I am going to focus on areas of my life that I DO NOT want to change, areas of my life that I want to preserve and keep as stable as possible amongst the whirlwind of changes around me. And, as you can probably guess, with my jet-setting, never-staying-in-one-place-too-long lifestyle, I am constantly surrounded, and sometimes consumed, by change. 

So, I want to share with you some of my "New Year, Same _______" Resolutions. Due to the fact that I am nearly incapable of writing or speaking about anything in a small amount of words, I will be breaking these resolutions up into separate blog posts -- You're welcome.
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1. NEW YEAR, SAME FAMILY.

My first "New Year, Same _____" Resolution is my Family. Yes, my heart and soul, my inspiration, my motivation: my family. 

Being away from family is rarely easy. Although I am a pretty independent person (no pun intended...hehe), I still have moments where I feel empty and I need a tall glass of family time to make me feel full again. 

I was reminded of this at the end of the fall term, 2015. I had just completed a full year in Sweden -- a new country, new language, new job, new culture, etc. EVERYTHING was different. Everything was especially different due to the fact that I had lived in Korea for the previous two years. The two countries couldn't be more different. But, as a person in my situation must do, I adjusted and survived. Despite my zest for travel and appetite for living in foreign countries, I still started to feel the wear and tear of being away from my family, especially when times got tough. Near the end of the term, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, literally. I was drowning in piles and piles of work, I felt overwhelmingly stressed and worn out from my job, I was tired physically and mentally, I had little to no free time for my friends, I felt depressed by the constant darkness, and I was honestly ready to say "Sayonara!" to the whole damn country and everyone in it.*  It was not my happiest moment, to say the least. Like I said, on-verge-of-nervous-breakdown. I knew I needed what matters most to me in life: my family.

 *I mean no offense to anyone, especially those I care about in Sweden, but a majority of expats most likely know exactly what I am talking about because we all get this overwhelming feeling every once in a while -- it is just part of living abroad, which I am fully aware of and voluntarily signed up for. I do not feel this way on a daily basis, just to be clear. Hey, we all have our moments.  

I would like to interject quickly to answer a question that some of you are probably thinking:  "If living abroad can be so stressful, and your family means the most to you in life, then why don't you just move back to the US?". Here's the thing -- I have the most incredible family. They are not perfect by any means, and I am not claiming that they are, but why I say they are "incredible" is because from my earliest memories up until now, I can only remember how loved they always made me feel. If I scan through my memories and look back at my life, there has not been a single moment where I did not feel love from my family. No matter what was happening in my life, not matter how many mistakes I made, no matter how far away I lived -- I always felt loved. THIS, my friends, is what I believe to be the KEY to life, especially to my life. This is what has given me confidence in myself and given me the confidence to move abroad on my own, to travel the world, to live my dreams, despite the difficulties this lifestyle brings. Because in reality, I never actually feel "alone" alone. I may look around an empty apartment when I am sick/stressed, crying into my cup of tea, and feel that "surface level" loneliness (the one you see in a comedy series and it doesn't make you feel sad, but kind of makes you laugh), but I never feel "alone" alone. 

Even if I cannot speak to my family, I can still feel their love. It may sound cheesy, but it is true. I think it is due to the fact that my family told me they loved me often, and they still do, daily. They also never let me think they didn't love me when I did something they disagreed with. They always made it clear that they were disappointed in my actions but that they still loved me, even when I was getting in trouble and even when they were angry with me. This distinction between the difference of disappointment and loss of love is what made all the difference. Also, they were sure to make it clear that they took the actions they did when I got in trouble because they loved me, not because they didn't love me. I will be forever grateful to my parents for this.

Through my experience as a teacher, I have seen what damage the lack of the distinctions mentioned above can have on a child. I have met and taught children and teens who felt that their parents did not love them--young people who acted out, desperately seeking attention from their parents, not even caring if it was negative or positive attention. I remember one student in particular, around 14 or 15 years old, who told me numerous stories I will never forget. She once told me how she would go out drinking with friends in the summer just so she could come home drunk in order to get her mother's attention. I was shocked and concerned when I heard this, naturally. When I asked her how her mom reacted, expecting to hear about how she was scolded and grounded for life, she replied, 'She ignored me. She pretended not to see me, and said nothing.'  She went on to explain something like, 'All I wanted was for her to notice me. I wanted her to see me, to yell at me, to do something.'  This broke my heart. 

It used to be nearly impossible for me to imagine that a parent could be different than my parents, that a parent could even be capable of being cruel to their child, that a parent could make their child feel unloved, or even worse that a parent could not love their own child -- these ideas were so far from what I knew. But, the more time I spent teaching, the more I saw that this type of emotionally damaging treatment was much more common than anyone probably even wanted to admit. I would say, during my 5 1/2 years of teaching, that a majority of the issues I have seen my students deal with have been caused by their parents. Whether it stems from abuse, lack of love, lack of attention, even lack of discipline, so many deep-rooted issues seem to come from this missing piece that I believe is essential to life. LOVE IS SO POWERFUL. This is one of the reasons that no matter how insane my students make me or how irritating they can be at times, I always try to let show them that I care, be it through positive feedback, discipline or something else. As cliche as it may sound, sometimes this type of kindness and attention is the only type they are getting in their lives. Love is powerful, but FEELING LOVED is even more powerful.

So, this is why I want in this new year to have the same FAMILY; I don't want them to change! Amongst the chaos of daily life and inevitable changes of the new year, I want to make sure that this one thing in particular stays the same. I was lucky enough this year to spend the holidays and ring in the new year with my family. During my visit, I was completely refilled with love and reminded of how incredibly incredible my family are. Every moment I spent with them felt special; every moment I spent with them made me happy. I am not sure if they even understood how much I needed their love when I came to visit, but they still gave me an abundance of it, regardless. 

I feel thankful every day for my family and for how loving and supportive they are and have been. I also feel thankful every day for the love that I feel for my family--because it is real, it is deep, and it is stronger than anything I have ever felt. Because of this, I know how important it is to hold onto that love, to be protective of it, and to help share it. So this year, I am making a strong and heart-felt resolution to be sure that that love does not change. I could now insert some motivational quote that will pull this whole post together, but I don't think there is any need for that because it is plain and simple:  

I love my family. 
My family love me. 
And just because it is a new year does not mean that every solution needs to involve change.