Who needs a Life Coach? Me, apparently.

There was an interesting letter in the Telegraph Online today.  The letter was part of their LifeClass series and featured a man wanting to leave his 86-year-old mother in England and move to New Zealand to be closer to his son.  It was an interesting read and the response to the letter was thorough and thought provoking.  The man who had written the letter felt a terrible tie to his mother but if he moved to New Zealand, he became the tie to his son.  If his son then wanted to move away from New Zealand, the man couldn’t be surprised or expect him to stay and support him.

Moving and leaving people is incredibly hard, whether it be family or friends.  I agonized over our move and what was right for the people around us.  My main focus was on Danny and the boys.  With our many trips to California, the boys enjoyed everything we did here.  When we’d return back to the UK, they’d continue to ask to do the things we did in California.  But a move would mean leaving family and friends behind.

I came to the conclusion that it was right to move by judging how I would like my boys to live their lives in years to come.  I don’t expect them to stay living near us.  There is an entire world out there to explore.  I want them to live for a year in Sydney.  Maybe Iceland for a few months.  Or India.  Or Africa.  When they ask where they’ll live when they grow up, I list all different countries and states and tell them that the possibilities are endless, it’s up to them to make a choice and make it happen.

What I don’t want to happen is for them to have the opportunity to live in Australia and decide not to take it because they’re worried about me.  I want them to grab opportunities and run with them.   I would love it if they rang me to tell me all about it, or invited me to visit them and join in the experience.  But mostly, I just want them to go and live exciting lives.

Similarly, I’ve told them that if they don’t want to travel very far, then they don’t have to move away from the peninsula!  But I don’t really see that happening.  We travel quite a great deal as a family and the boys aren’t fazed by travel.  I think it is something they’ll continue to do.

I found this letter helpful, having made the various decisions we’ve made over the last year.  I like the idea of this man wanting to move closer to his son but then if he’s made that choice then not to expect anything different from his son.  It makes sense, but people don’t always look at things that way.  Normally, if I see an agony aunt letter or a life coach article in a newspaper, I skim over, confident it won’t interest me.  But this article hooked and reeled me in almost instantly; obviously I needed a life coach for this one.