Green People

Out shopping in our abayas in Saudi Arabia.

For the last six years I have thought of myself as a green person. Shortly after leaving the states for our first move overseas a friend of mine told me a story about life as an “expat” and how the experience changes people. The way she explained this change was unique and visual. It went like this, when a person leaves their home country that place is a yellow country. The new resident country is a blue country. Over a period of time the culture and traditions of the new country become a part of this person changing their once yellow color to a mixture of yellow and blue. This expatriate is now a green person. There are many green people in the world and my friend assured me that they are an interesting and supportive group. Green has been my favorite color since that day. I spent six years in my blue country. I loved it. It is an experience I highly recommend. Then came the day when this green person moved back home. I thought for sure that it would take me a while to acclimate to the yellow color of my home. Surely I was forever changed. It’s amazing how quickly being yellow came back to me. I am surprised how fast I have adjusted to life back here. The only part that hangs on for me is the constant comparisons. I try not to talk about them all the time. There are many times I can’t help it and I have to share how this country is different from the one I spent the last six years of my life in. Mostly I just miss the green people. The ones who were a part of my daily life and the ones that I knew only briefly but that touched my heart and life in special ways changing me forever and directing my path to who I am today. The girl who told me the Green People story was my neighbor in Houston before I ever knew I would move to Saudi Arabia. She lived just a few houses down from me. After I moved away we grew closer. Greenness does that to people. The reason I bring all this up here on my blog about a very different journey of becoming a full-time RV family is because I am noticing so many similarities between expats and full-time RV families. The first one is how quickly friendships form. It’s like we know we have limited time here and there is this clearing away of the small stuff because there just isn’t time for it. This happens in a foreign country as well, expats are moved away from family, friends and all things familiar in addition to the fact that they are strangers in a strange land. When one expat meets another expat, they may be from completely different countries, but there are so many experiences that are the same. This makes for quick and easy relationship. It is a need for community amongst the outsiders. Foreigners equals comrades. The people I met overseas proved to be the most satisfying deep relationships I have ever known. I miss that the most. Strangely when we started on this journey I knew there were other people out there that had chosen this path. A less traveled path. What I didn’t count on was just how much this commonality brings people closer together faster and stronger too. I have met some people on this journey so far and I can honestly say I count them as close friends. We don’t have history, but we do have something special, we are kindred spirits. I think that fulltime RV families have a color all their own. A beautiful rainbow of colors, all different, yet linked together.