Head to one of your favorite blogs. Write a
companion piece to their penultimate post.
Okay, I
admit it. First, I had to look up what “penultimate” meant. And it means the
next to the last, so I need to write a companion piece to their next to the
last post of a favorite blog of mine. I choose my friend’s blog, Grasshopper Legs Girl (LOVE that blog
title by the way!) and her penultimate post was written on Feb. 28. Click on
the title, Fish
Out of Water to read it.
In order to
write a companion piece to this, I am going to take it paragraph by paragraph
and write what my own “moving to Kwaj” and then “moving to WA” experience has
been like because basically Grasshopper
Legs Girl is exploring what it is like to be that “fish out of water” when
you move to a new place as she recently moved to Hong Kong after living on Kwaj
for several years previous, so you could say we are in a similar boat at this
particular time of our lives. I do know
what she feels like, and I’ll explore that here.
I was very
unsure about living on Kwajalein until my first trip off the atoll after 7
straight months. I was lonely for one.
Yes, I was recently married, but he was at work all day and already had established
friends and recreational activities because he lived there for a year before I
moved there. I had no job (although I was taking college classes) and the only
friends I had were the spouses of his friends and many of them had grown up as
“Kwaj Kids” or had lived most of their adult lives there, so I felt like the
new girl trying to fit in. Although, one explanation for my feeling that way
was my social inexperience and insecurities as a young 22 year old.
When the
time came to leave Kwaj, I was excited to move back to the states and
particularly to the NW, which I fell in love with when I was dating my now
husband, but even after 7 times 2 months in WA, I am still “the new girl” in
many ways. Even though I am much more
socially adept and much older than I was when I moved to Kwaj, moving to a new
place where you don’t know anyone is still challenging in the same ways.
When I
consider one of my co-workers who came from overseas only a couple of months
before I did to work in the same position I did, I see someone who seems as if she
has been working here for years. She’s made new friends and connected with old
ones (she did grow up in the area, which does make a difference), so I am starting
to wonder if I am keeping myself from becoming more a part of things because I
too, like Grasshopper Legs Girl,
often refuse more invitations to do something than I accept.
My reasons
for not taking more time to make friends and find my niche are different
though. For one, I was used to
Kwajalein, where everyone lives within a 3-mile radius of each other. It’s easy
to get together. Here, we may all work at the base, but we live much farther
apart. I live 30 minutes from work, and my friends at work either live right
next to the base or 30-60 minutes in the opposite direction from base and from
me, so it would take me over an hour to just get to their part of the world and
vice versa.
Also, my
husband and son are in the same boat as me, so I don’t want to go visit with my
friends and leave them at home, so basically we do things together as a family,
and I only rarely get out on my own with friends. To clarify, my family would
be fine with me making plans with friends if I really wanted to, but it’s just
that we are all finding our way together, and that’s okay with me. I am
concerned though that at some point, people will stop asking if I don’t make
the effort to do more with them.
It’s a fine
line, between family and friends, and it’s best when you can put them all
together, but that poses a whole other dynamic…finding friends with husbands
and children that your husband and children will connect with too. Sigh…well, I
have been told by almost EVERYONE that has left Kwajalein, “The hardest part of
moving away from the island is making friends. It’s just so easy on Kwaj.” Ain’t that the truth?!?!
In addition
to the friend thing, I am also having trouble putting myself out there in the
community with volunteer opportunities, parent-teacher organizations, etc…I am
overwhelmed with the PTO…it’s just so big, and I don’t really feel they need me
like I felt “needed” on the island. I goggled volunteer organizations, but I
just don’t know where to start. That was easy on Kwaj too. There were more than
enough opportunities that people sought you out for there to volunteer. I
didn’t have to go to them unless I just wanted to.
And just
like Grasshopper Legs Girl, I spent
hours with my dad over the holidays completing a 3-D puzzle, and there I fit
easily (with my family and friends in the city where I grew up), but here, I am
still working on it, but I DO know that I will and do fit in the NW. I already
have such a deep love for it. I just have to find where I fit in the
community, parent, and friends puzzle here.
Work, no problem. I’m pretty settled there, thankfully, but apparently,
that’s the easy part.
All major
life changes take time, and more than not, I’m happy with how far we’ve come
already within this transition, although there’s more to come and look forward
to as we continue to settle in. Thank you Grasshopper
Legs Girl for putting my feelings into such honest and descriptive language.
Strange how we can be experiencing such similar things when we are living
worlds and cultures away from each other. It’s a small world after all, isn’t
it?
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