From East to East

As a young girl growing up in the Northeast of America I never imagined that I would one day be living a life in the Middle East. I always had this incredible feeling that something much bigger and way more exciting was planned for me. I couldn't explain it, it was just a really strong feeling.

I remember the day my parents drove me to college for the first time. I attended a school that is about 2 hrs away from my hometown. As we drove around the bend and the beautifully lit city was before us, I had another incredible feeling. This feeling was "you're going to meet your husband here". Prior to this experience, I had no such motive. I wasn't against this idea of meeting someone special and settling down, but it wasn't on the top of my list at that time.

Oprah calls these feelings "whispers" from God. I have to agree with her on this. I truly believe that God gives us signs and feelings to guide us through life.

So back to my college days...I ended up, in fact, meeting my hubby there. And what made it even more interesting is that he wasn't from the Northeast like me, he was from a different east...the Middle East. So after years involving school, work, long distance, and a lot of patience, here I am, in the Middle East.

I've been here for over 5 years now. And as you can imagine I get A LOT of questions. I've always loved learning about different cultures, so for me it's been quite an exciting adventure that I'm sure I'll be writing about from time to time.

One of the biggest challenges of moving from Northeastern, USA to the Middle East was learning the meaning of "home". I will forever consider America to be my home. It's my country, my birthplace, where I grew up, what I know, and feel comfy with. But at the same time, I have a home here now too. This is where I live, where I have made a home with my hubby and my son, where I work...where I am. And throughout these 5 years I've gotten pretty darn comfy here too, not to mention I've been incredibly blessed with my life here. In the beginning when I used the word "home" for here, I'd be afraid of insulting my family in the States. But I was also somewhat afraid that if I referred to "home" as America that people here would think I only considered life here as temporary (have you ever seen Not Without My Daughter?...SO DRAMATIZED and yet people believed this would be me). So after five years I've come to conclude that it's okay to have two homes. Who ever said that you could only have one. Home is where the heart is, right? So if your heart feels happy in two places it's okay.

So here I am, happy at "home" in the Middle East, and very excited to visit "home" in America this summer.