consistency

A few years back, i was having a conversation with a friend about what we would do in the event that we had to, for example, move to a different country for work. Well, actually, E had left Singapore to work in Oslo, so he was speaking from experience, while i was just talking hypothetically. E had done nothing: he just left, quietly, without telling anyone besides a few close friends. He said that he didn't understand why people had to make a big fuss about it, kick up a song and dance. i, on the other hand, told him that i would totally kick up a song and dance, to acknowledge and say goodbye to the communities of which i am a part.
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Also a few years back, i had a conversation with another friend who had moved from Singapore to Taipei to work as a missionary almost a decade ago. She was complaining about how she feels that her old friends in Singapore no longer really see her as part of their lives, that they no longer include her in things. i had rather mixed feelings about that. On one hand, i could understand where she was coming from: she missed her friends, or rather, missed the old days when she had been clearly been a part of her communities here in her home country. On the other hand, i couldn't help but feel slightly irritated at the whining. The way i see it, choosing to leave a country already comes with the certain knowledge that you're, well, choosing to leave. You're choosing to cut the old ties, to no longer be part of the lives of the people you're leaving behind. That's just the way it is. Modern life is busy; time moves on and waits for no one. For me, making choices means, inevitably, embracing the consequences of these choices. You can't make a choice and then whine about the consequences -- at least, not when you're as smart as my friend and really should be able to foresee the consequences of your choices before you make them. (And if you're the kind of person who jumps into things without thinking thrice first .... well, too bad for you. i have very little sympathy, to be honest ...... )
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i haven't changed my position on what i said in those two conversations -- my views have stayed consistent. Which makes this whole leaving thing feel rather odd. Because, obviously, knowing that what one is doing is choosing to cut ties, doesn't sit very easily with kicking up a song and dance about leaving the communities that one has grown to love, in one way or another, over the years.
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Quite the conundrum.
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