If you are lucky, you land within a community of your own people, but I'm still not sure if that is much better than landing alone, which I'm sure I will write about in one of my musings.. I landed in the community of one person who happened not to be a lay person. We parted ways after his job of 'helping me out' finished and I got in my own groove. And then I was alone. Yes, I had many friends, mostly friends I worked with. Every party I attend for about 10 years was with co-workers. Our wedding guests were 85% co-workers, with only my mom who flew in for my wedding, and my husband's parents and 2 friends with family that flew in from abroad. Then I decided to quit my job when our firstborn arrived 2 years later, and I didn't realize my circle would completely change! I was not in a community - I was just in a convenient circle so I won't feel alone! But now I had to go off and find another circle. In the 18 years I've lived in the United States, I have never attended any other baptism except those of my 3 children! I can count the number of weddings I've attended in one hand! 2 or was it 3? Funerals, a couple. Nothing I would cry at. Yet, I missed my own father's funeral which is, and forever will be, a gaping hole in my heart! I flew out for the weddings of 3 of my siblings, and missed only one because I was fully pregnant.
I used to feel so depressed that as an immigrant, I will never feel a part of an extended family here.. (I will be making that extended family for my children).. but then I realize, I'm not the first immigrant in this nation!! Thousands have taken this hard path.. how would they summarize their immigrant life? Were they happy when they died or were they sad? Or do they make amends during their later, non-working years to make up for lost years in their home country?!
Sometimes I wonder where I would want to be buried when my day comes? In my home country or my adopted country?!
