The adventure of being an outsider

There’s no place like home, and when you leave home it’s never the same. Until you leave home, you become a stranger waiting to settle down and call some place of your own “home”. You become what everyone would call an “outsider”. There are certain traditions and memories left behind that makes the place you once called home unique and different than any other county. As an outsider moving to the US, it became clear to me that all I had to do was install those traditions and memories inside of me all over again so I can feel the slightest of feeling that resembles the one I felt back home. Being an outsider in a country that is not yours isn’t as easy as everyone claims it to be. I graduated school in Palestine. I was ready to leave to the US, and I knew after summer ends I’m not going back to school anymore. It seemed exciting and fun at first, until the second I got to the US. It was as if a knife had hit the inner cores of my stomach, and for the first time in my entire life I felt like an outsider.

The presence of a different atmosphere is what made me feel like an outsider. The first few months in the US were the worse for me. It was hard to adapt to all the new cultures and life styles after I had left everything behind, such as family, home, friends, and finally my girlfriend. One of the most important things that had a huge effect on me was the absence of my parents, especially that I was not used to all of the responsibilities and work I had to do in living here. Being the younger of two other siblings, I was always the spoiled one who was given everything I asked for. Yet, when I got to the US, it was really different and I actually had to be more independent. There was no one there to take care of me. It was all about the new things I had to do such as: doing the laundry, cleaning the apartment, and making food, which I was definitely not ready for.Back home, I had a lot of close friends and a lot of people who were there for me no matter what the issue was. On the other hand, when I came here, I started facing problems in making friends or finding the right people to hang out with. I got to a conclusion that friends back home are different than friends in California. Friends back home are more like a family to me; it was always "you" and "I". On the contrary, people here are different; everyone is in their own world minding their own business. I think it’s all about culture differences.

Another reason that made me feel an outsider was the differences and cultural clashes between the Palestinian culture and the American culture. Back home, culture and people tends to be narrow minded, which was really difficult for me due to the fact that I grew in an open minded household. Yet, I was fully able to adapt to the culture and traditional beliefs that my country follows. As for California, my ability to deal with the cultural environment was shockingly easy due to the fact that I have been raised in an open-minded household. Therefore, it was easier for me to adapt with the surrounding atmosphere. Yet, I still faced a few issues regarding the cultural differences surrounding me such as the way people talk, the way they act, and even the smell of the air. For instance, one of the cultural differences is the different languages spoken in California compared to Palestine, where the majority of people tend to speak the native tongue language Arabic. One of the shocking things that I witnessed when I moved is the way people are organized according to the system regarding the environment surrounding them. On the other hand, growing up in an occupied country, I’ve always felt like I’m locked inside of a prison, since my country could not build a good community due to the lack of resources and different issues Palestine face. Therefore, when I got to the US, seeing how people practice their freedom and rights whichever way they wanted was liberating. It was new and different for me to feel the freedom I never had in my life.

In conclusion, being an outsider can have positive and negative impacts on your life. It all depends on how the person can turn those certain challenges into opportunities. No matter what ups and downs I may face as an outsider, I’ve learned that I’m capable of overcoming any changes. Once I overcome these differences, any place I plan to go to will feel like home.