Today
marks 54 years since I left home for California at the
age of 19. When I think back on that trip and the early days after my
arrival in L.A., so many changes have taken place in my life since then,
it's as though that early me was someone else.
Of course I suppose almost all adults experience that kind of realization. Yet, in my wildest dreams back then
I never thought I'd wind up spending my twilight years living abroad,
let alone in the Philippines, a place which at that time I knew very little
about. Naturally, I had even less of an inkling that I would eventually meet and marry someone from there and that we would wind up leaving the U.S. to live in that country.
Contrast all that with some of my high school classmates with whom I've reconnected on Facebook who've never left my home town, except maybe for college but which was also in the same state. I sometimes reflect on what life must be like to stay in the same city from childhood through old age. And I have to wonder whether those who do so ever fully mature for not having engaged in the real world outside their comfort zone.
Contrast all that with some of my high school classmates with whom I've reconnected on Facebook who've never left my home town, except maybe for college but which was also in the same state. I sometimes reflect on what life must be like to stay in the same city from childhood through old age. And I have to wonder whether those who do so ever fully mature for not having engaged in the real world outside their comfort zone.
How about you, fellow expats? Do you ever ask yourself how you would have turned
out if you hadn't left the place where you spent your childhood years, and for that matter your country of origin?
