Even though this past half year has had many challenges, I am very grateful to have this opportunity for my family to live overseas. The more time I spend in Singapore, the more tightly embraced "American" ideas I'm able to identify and reconsider, some even release.
Living abroad is a great way to challenge your beliefs and who you are. When you're surrounded by others who have been raised to believe differently than you and are living out a different cultural norm than your own, you start to consider whether or not your way is the only way and whether it's even the best way to think and live and act.
One of the benefits to living out of America is to be able to see my country through a different perspective. When one is in a home country all of their lives, they get so wrapped up in all of it that they may loose the ability to see things in a broader view. The longer I live outside of the US, the more I interact with people from other countries, the better I'm able to acknowledge the flaws of my home system, as well as truly see the good that's there, too.
One thing that I didn't expect when moving abroad is to lose my sense of involvement, and even my desire to be involved. The more time that goes by, the less intensity I feel for American issues. The longer I live here, the less I care about the situations going on back home. While I still feel distinctly American, removing myself from the center stage of American drama allows me to disengage and reconstruct my scale of "urgent issues". But it's sort of a lost feeling I have now. I am aware of the issues in my host country, but am not too engaged in them because this is not MY country. And I am aware of the issues back home but I'm not too engaged because I do not live there. It feels both relieving and scary to no longer feel wrapped up in political drama. I have an understanding for the large community of artists living expatriate lives in the 1920s. But it leaves me feeling as if I really have no place to call home.
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