And Another One Bites the Dust

Expat life in general is great (in Singapore at least). We travel to great places, we benefit from tax breaks, we have pools, we have professional opportunities, we have no obligations. We basically can do what we want with our time.

The two things that stink are (in order of importance):
1) Being so so so so far from friends and family - particularly when there are kids, weddings, holidays, etc. involved.
2) Having friends leave. All the time.

I remember when I lived in DC I called it a transient place. People came for two to three years and then left. There was sort of a core group of people who were committed to staying, and then others came for opportunities in their 20s and then left. That's sort of what it's like here, but there are a few differences. Here, we don't have any other support network to fall back on, while in DC we could still rely on our support network that was permanent in DC as well as family that was close-ish, or at least a short flight away. While our social life might have changed often, our support network didn't change as much. Also, now we're talking about families and people in their 30s who are "meant to settle down."

Since I work during the days, I generally talk to friends and family at home on the weekends. Sometimes I can scam a no-yoga morning (Tuesday and Thursday) and call a friend, and some evenings I can talk to my mom (since she doesn't work), but mostly, contact with my US support network over the phone is quite limited (much more limited than I would like it to be). Even if I don't want to, I have to rely on a support network in Singapore. The US/Canada/Israel is just too far away in a lot of ways.

The thing that sucks about having a network here is that it leaves. It took me a really long time (for me a long time, at least) to find a couple of people here that I trusted, liked and wanted to hang out with. I got a good year or two with them, and now they have all started to leave, one by one. My closest friend here left in December. Many of our other friends have left since the fall, and many more are planning to leave. Part of our Jewy community is leaving the first week in July, and two other couples whom we love are leaving in December. There was a point that I reached a few months ago where I just stopped wanting to hang out with people. When I met someone at a party who said they were here on short assignment or leaving soon, I stopped listening. I bet I even inadvertently walked away. There's only so much you can take of getting attached to people...and then they leave.

Especially now (with the fetus) I think that I will really need a support network. I need people I can call for advice, and I need people who can help in a pinch (since both of us will be working full time). I need to talk to other people, because it will be hard for me, and that's what I do when things are hard - I talk to people.

Well - I just found out that one of my closest friends here is leaving. BOOO!!!!

The challenge is that I do have to build this network (at least more than I have now - but that's not to say that I'm alone here), but I'm also a little hardened and having a difficult time opening myself to new people - because somewhere in me I know they will leave too. I think I just need to be less attached, but that's not really how I work.