Being an Immigrant

A Day 144 – Yesterday I went to a 40^th birthday and a farewell party, all in the same time. They came here three years ago, like so many others and it is so tempting to stay, life is simpler, not so much pressure, you make more money, and the opportunities are great – the sky is the limit. But then you start looking at the people who are here for a very long time and you hear all too often the regret of no going back home when it was still a valid option, the feeling if being trapped here when it’s too late to change. So some do go back after many years and some are going back before they feel they had enough, just so they will not be in the regret position, (and some of course love it and happy here). My friends decided to go back when it still feels like more. The party was fun but there is an undertone of sadness, she is going back because her head tells her it’s the right decision but she is leaving her heart here.

Today it was a graduation party I attended. The girl is 18, and lovely, full of life expectations, looking with bright eyes to the future. She will start college in three months. Her family is the one torn. Her brother is in the military in our homeland, her mom really wants to go back and her dad doesn’t. There are so many such families. And each one of us finds himself on the spectrum in a different position; each of us has a story to tell and a pain we bury deep inside, kids with blurry identity. How much are they really like their peers here and how much they are different, more like the parents, like the “old world”. It is the story of this place. People are coming from all over the world, looking for the opportunities they don’t have at home and we all carry the scars. The families we left behind, living as a foreigner, the accent that always gives us away, sometimes even the color of our skin, and the most painful of all – we go back to burry our aging parents, too many times with no time to say good bye ; and we endure it all in the hope to create a better world, a better opportunities for our children. But the catch is that if our kids actually make it as we hoped when we came here, then there is actually a little gap between us, “The old world”, and them “The new world”, so we create a divide, a tear in our own nuclear family. And sadly this one you learn after many years here, no one can prepare us for that one. The” BIG one”.

So what am I thankful for? I am thankful for the opportunities we had here for so many years. I am thankful for many wonderful years. I am thankful I am back before I had to burry my parents, and got to spend some quality time with them. I am thankful that my younger daughter is looking for her identity now and in our homeland and maybe she will not be so confused later in life. I am thankful for the opportunity to sort and re-evaluate my choices. I am thankful for my life.