The First Year

Written by Anah in Wednesday, July 16th 2008 under Life Here and There

As a friend of mine has reminded me due to her current experiences of coming to the USA, the first year was a most interesting year for my husband and me. So how does this count as Life Here & There? The first year is about Life Here while your heart and mind are back There.

Nearly any Filipina can tell you, the first year is loaded with emotion. The first emotion is of sadness as you fly away from the life you knew and had to say goodbye to your family. It is replaced a bit by apprehension and excitement about what the new world you are going to will be like. Will it really be like what the two of you IM chatted about? Words are one thing but how will I react to it? Will I be stared at? Will my height, my looks, my skin color bother those in my future spouses relatives? Will he really be what he was like when he visited?

Then comes the day of the wedding which is a combination of feelings, the feelings are happiness and sadness. Yes, this is truly the man you wanted to marry. However, his family is here and no one of mine can be here. Sa Pilipinas, you know your family will be there and you have the comfort of that support. Here you are alone. That is the most haunting aspect to the first year. Everything you knew is gone. Everyone you knew is thousands of miles away. Life is radically different here. You are alone (except sa asawa mo). This isn’t your culture.

So in the first year, what can the men we are marrying expect? They can expect us to be going through the grieving process during the first year or marriage. We cycle through the 7 stages of grief of the anger, pain, through a partial acceptance that this is what life is here. Then Christmas hits and we are reminded of the family thousands of miles away and we try not to cry. Yes, the emotions of homesickness, especially if something happens to one we love back and home and we can’t be there, hit really hard.

Tampo is quick to show up at just the slightest wrong choice of words by you. It is only partially your fault. The emotions are up and down for us as we adjust to the differences.
So with all that in mind, men should memorize this song as the lyrics are quite correct.

Hello, you fool, I love you. Come on join the joyride….