How do you adapt and adjust?

Dear Axlusz -- your reply sounds kind of angry!  I'm not feeling sorry for myself -- I have preferences, that's all.  My preference is my family -- I miss my girls.  They are 21 and 24 and we are very close.  The phone and email aren't the same as hugs and kisses.  People here have been great!  No complaints there -- and there are a million interesting things to do as well -- sometimes I even get too busy, it seems.  Still, I'm going home in three weeks to visit for the holidays -- and just like in the Wizard of Oz, I think "there's no place like home".  I guess home for me is where my kids are.  Maybe when your whole family is with you, it is easier to get used to new surroundings.

katy

erm, don't need PMS meds thanks....I don't get a period!  
oh yes, it's good to be me.    but thanks for the offer!  And I'll be flying into Chicago next Feb!  w00ty.  

I got lots of pressies on my b-day....so I didn't cry (too much), but I know...it's hard to be away from your first family when such huge family things come along.

hugs!
wench

Americans have the highest standard of living/quality of life in the world. I think that's common knowledge.

I guess my "knowledge" isn't as common as some other people's, then...  

My quality of life has IMPROVED since moving.  I am absolutely disgusted everytime the news shows a Bush speech where he espouses America as being the best and the most wonderful and the most sacred and smartest yadda yadda yadda - as if people living anywhere else don't matter for s**t.  As a woman in love with a man who is not American - but who is 100x better than any AMERICAN MAN I ever knew - I am insulted at such a purist attitude.

Katy - I'm sorry you're not happy here.  And I understand others have moments when they'd like to go "home."  But for (maybe a very small) few of us - this IS home.  And we do not lament the lives we left behind.  You can either find ways to be happy or wallow in your unhappiness and glorify the "perfect" U.S. you left behind.

Okay - my rant is done.  

t-mac,

I've read both your posts since I left mine, and I'm still at a complete loss as to what you found offensive in what I wrote. Americans tend to have all the conveniences in the world--we're spoiled. Americans have the highest standard of living/quality of life in the world. I think that's common knowledge.

Hiya... I wasnt offended... I just strongly disagree!  

Katy - I'm sorry you're not happy here.  And I understand others have moments when they'd like to go "home."  But for (maybe a very small) few of us - this IS home.  And we do not lament the lives we left behind.  You can either find ways to be happy or wallow in your unhappiness and glorify the "perfect" U.S. you left behind.

Okay - my rant is done.  

Whoa whoa whoa whoa......
Okay guys, Katy pretty clearly stated what was making this so hard for her was the fact that her daughters are back in the States.
Now I know most of us here who are parents would agree that all the pretty castles in England, the free medical, and the cool wine selections wouldn't be worth a damn if it meant you were seperated from your kids. Many of us don't have the luxury of having our children with us and it's a little hard to tell someone to get over their 'homesickness' if that's what their 'homesickness' represents.

Katy, I understand where you are coming from completely. Though my ankle biters came with me (son 8, twin daughters 4) I come from a huge family (monthly get togethers, weekly dinners, Coppola could have directed some of the weddings let me tell you  ) and as much as I love England, and my darling British husband   much of my homesickness is wrapped up in the loss of my family for the moment.  My husband comes from a tiny family, very scattered, and we are completely without a support system which makes everything very hard.
I don't think the US is perfect...and I don't think being homesick is implying that it is.... I envy people terribly that have been able to come here without homesickness and had the satisfaction of fitting in quickly, but everyone's experience is different and we all need to remember that. What makes the US home for many of us usually has very little to do with like of washers and dryers (though I'd kill for a big ole Tim Allen loving, super quick, wash the clothes with the kids still in them if you want to, Maytag right now   )

Hang in there Katy.....we're with you.
Red

well said Red.
wench
ack the rhyme...  :O

Yes Red...  lol wench beat me to it...  very well said!
thank you.

Katy, I do not have any children or family...  I am basically an orphan...  but I do know your feeling...  I miss my family very very much...which is the main reason I wish to live in England...  Tom still has family and I would never wish for him to feel the aching for them as I do for my mom and dad...  he has 2 grown children and never ever would I think of taking him so far from them...

Enjoy your holiday's back home and think of each trip as one less one needed before you are back with your family for good...

michele

Katy - please forgive my horrible lack of paragraph division - I do feel bad for you that you can't seem to make this your temporary home and be happy here for the time you're here.

But the rest of my post was definitely NOT directed at you.  Suffice it to say that it just wasn't.  And maybe I should have found a better place to put it.

I hope that anyone who has been reading my posts for the time I've been here knows that I am completely sympathetic to those who miss what they've left behind.  I just don't miss much, that's all.

Katy - I hope you reconcile your feelings - and that you accept my apology.  I should know better than to let certain things certain people say rile me up...and you just got caught in the crossfire  

To all - This has been my first time using a chat-thing like this.  It is very interesting!  But I find that people say things that are misinterpreted and then they end up apologizing for the misunderstandings -- or restating what was said.  People have different opinions and like different things -- they have preferences and biases and a multitude of ways in which they live their lives.  So there is really no reason to defend or to take offense.  I put my question out there to find out some of these many different ways people adjust to their new lives - thanks for all the feedback.

What kills me are Americans who live in the UK and spend their entire time putting down the US as if it is going to win them favors with the Europeans!  Now I am all for people having free speech and an opinion....the more points of view the better, I'm just saying that I would not choose to hang with these people.  In my opinion it only makes sense to miss America considering how superior it is generally compared to any other country on earth, not just the UK.  Besides, Katy has a right to feel homesick.  I remember my first year here when it seemed that the sun no longer existed.  Those first few sunless Novembers are rough.  Now I seem to find a strange comfort in the gray days.  I think it's called agoraphobia!  HA HA.  But seriously, Oxford and cities like it in the UK can seem very exclusive and hard to feel at home in.  I have lived in France and Jamaica and Great Britain is the least friendly of these three countries where I was living the expat life style.  In the village I live in now, one is considered a newcomer until one has lived here for 30 years.  I have tried joining a church, attending college, trying to join a golf club, various womens clubs, art classes, handing out gifts and favors to my neighbors and it is still an effort.  Hang in there and don't get discouraged. If worse comes to worse, leave the old man and head back to the land of milk and honey!  JUST JOKING...JUST JOKING!

Beasley,

Another member on here told me to read your posts (she said you tell it like it is, as do I), and I couldn't agree more with what you wrote, especially the first few sentences. I think Americans living here have the best of intentions when they say that the conveniences here equal those in the States, but I also know that anyone saying that realizes they'd have to be sniffing glue to honestly feel that way. My tangent, but a lot of people here would agree, whether they openly admit it or not.

Suzanne

One more thing: We're all in this together. For the most part, the members here are American women, with a handful of British women and men (my hub included, though he never comments), and I'm honestly happy for those who'd be happy to live here the rest of their lives. I've enjoyed living here, but I don't want to live out my days, much less be buried, here. As a familiar person here has said: "You can take the girl out of America, but you can't (can never) take America out of the girl." That's the best quote of all here.

Beasley,

Another member on here told me to read your posts (she said you tell it like it is, as do I), and I couldn't agree more with what you wrote, especially the first few sentences. I think Americans living here have the best of intentions when they say that the conveniences here equal those in the States, but I also know that anyone saying that realizes they'd have to be sniffing glue to honestly feel that way. My tangent, but a lot of people here would agree, whether they openly admit it or not.

Suzanne

You two are just *TRYING* to piss me off, aren't you??!!      (please note smiles.... dont want anyone to miss that i have tried to say this in a humourous way!)

I still honestly dont understand this notion that things are better in America, or that America is superior, or that we don't have all the same conveniences here that you have in America.  (apart from late shopping on a sunday, but BFD??!!)  
I've been away from America for 16 years, so maybe i've pretty much forgotten what it's like.  But the only 'conveniences' i can think of that you've got there which we dont have here are drive-thru "everything"..;. banking, church, dairy, etc.  Can you add anything else?  I really want to know what you're talking about.

I just don't think anyone is going to change opinion. And thank goodness we all have them. Probably on this topic, it's just best to agree to disagree. It's all based on personal experience. Some conveniences to me are not going to be conveniences to you or to her or to that man over there.

Length of time spent here or there plays a factor as well as what is and was available locally to you wherever you live(d).

I hail from Florida and when people find this out they virtually accuse me of being nuts for having moved from there. And I am forever asked if I miss it, miss the weather, miss the beach. "NO!" before you ask me. (You may note another Florida person expressing a similar view, as peedal mentioned on this thread earlier.) I did have certain conveniences (like not having to scrape ice off my windscreen just to go some place, and I did get to ride with the top down almost daily, and I never had to wait for the car to warm up...man, I can go on and on and list thousands of things!). But the truth of the matter is, my experiences and my conveniences, are different to, hmmm, let's pick on...mfredericka, because I know she's not from Florida. Ah, but she gets Cherry Blossoms in the spring, and a beautiful drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and she could even pop in to see my mom, or lunch with my sister, because they live in the area.

On the flip side, I can't just run out and take this comedy class that Allison was suggesting on a different thread because I don't live close enough to London to just hop into town on a regular basis. But she can.

Luxuries, conveniences, creature comforts, whatever you want to call them, are going to be different to whomever is listing them. As different as who likes Marmite and who doesn't, who's even tried it and who hasn't, who can even get it or can't find it locally, who has the money to arbitrarily obtain a huge jug of it and who's saving for something needed. One person's elixur is another person's poison.

It's a stale-mate topic as far as a single, definitive answer when you bring in life experience and locale.

Katy deserves to get this topic back on track because the answer to her question is incredibly important to us all, albeit different for every one of us through our own experience.

How did I adapt and adjust? I found people who have also gone through the 'big move'. I met them, and I had lunch/dinner/drinks/get-togethers (A shamless plug for the Expat Clubs section of this forum   ). We talked, we laughed, we disagreed, but we found a kindred spirit. I love my man to bits, but he cannot understand some of the things I find odd, nor does he have complete sympathy for why it takes me a year to finally get which dispenser is the one with salt in it. He tries. Bless him. But he doesn't know the Oscar Meyer Weiner song.

(Okay, fess up, how many of you actually started singing it?)

I am proud to say that Phil DOES know the Oscar Mayer Weiner song!!!    AND the Oscar Mayer Bologna song, too!  I've trained him well...!!  

By the way - anyone wants me, I'll just be over here in the corner sniffing a BIG POT OF GLUE...