Three weddings and a funeral

Today marks three months of living in New Zealand.

Three months seems to be a big milestone among ex-pats.They tell us that three months is when the shiny newness of everything starts to wear off and the homesickness really starts to kick in. Time begins to obscure all the things once worth leaving for and accentuate all those still worth staying for.

I'm not usually one for cheesy Pinterest quotes, but this one hits me right in the feels.

Coincidentally, today also marks the first wedding we've had to miss due to our move, and I can't think of anything that better highlights what we have given up to come here.

Back in March, I had dinner with a friend and she mentioned that she would probably get married in 2014. That night I panicked to Rob. I'd considered all the day-to-day stuff that we'd be missing, but with how expensive plane tickets are, moving to New Zealand meant missing out on a lot of the big stuff too - weddings, births and even deaths. That evening we made the decision to move to Vancouver - primarily for this reason.

Later on that night I received an email letting me know that the New Zealand office wanted to talk to me, and within a few weeks everything had changed. 

In May, my sister got engaged. I was thrilled to be there for the celebration and super excited to take her wedding dress shopping the month before leaving. She plans to get married in May 2015, and we promised to be back for it.

In October, the friend I had dinner with that night in March also got engaged, and this was much harder. We sent them a bottle of bubbly so we could toast over FaceTime, clinking our glasses against the screen of our iPads. They plan to get married in October 2014, and we promised we'd try our damnedest to make it.

But anyone who has been involved in a wedding knows that the wedding is just the icing on the cake. We're still missing out on engagement parties and bachelorette parties and dress shopping and bridal showers.

A few weeks after our friend got engaged, Rob's grandmother passed away. Contrary to the title of this post, there was no funeral, so the discussion of whether to fly back for it never came up. But much like weddings, the funeral itself is just the tip of the iceberg, and physical presence means so much more than words.

In just three months, we have missed so many things. My cousin had a baby in September, and we won't be there to meet him at Thanksgiving. Another friend is due with her first baby in April - and we won't be there for that either. And too many things have happened that demanded a hug and quiet comfort, which we couldn't provide.

Despite all of this, we don't regret our decision to move. We love our new home and have so many adventures to look forward to. At least for us, the shiny newness of this place doesn't seem to be wearing off any time soon. We are thrilled for this opportunity and if we could go back and do it all over, would make the same decision every time. We have each other, so we're not lonely. You could even go so far as to say that we're ridiculously happy.

But damn if we don't miss you all.