Being on one's own at 18 is common in the Us. But at 20 I wasn’t quite ready to be far from my family and give up the stability and safety of living at home. Back then it was not common to leave home until one had a job that necessitated a move, or is got married. Living with family is a given, a welcome stable life pattern. Growing up in an upper middle class family, I was sheltered from the responsibilities independence required.

In my senior year I had gotten into a groove. I got a part-time job at a local TV station doing the early morning news, and the afternoon 5 minute news updates. Mom and Dad had returned to Lebanon, though things were still unsettled. In my last semester I met my future husband in a Logic class. I wound up following him to Houston, where I got a job as a receptionist. We were married 2 years later. Dad returned to California where he built a small cottage in my eldest sister's back yard. Mom was too attached to her relatives and to her charity work, so she stayed in Lebanon. I didn't see her until she returned to California 2 years later.  When my daughter was born, Mom, already surrounded by 11 grandchildren and 6 more between DC and Beirut, welcomed the new addition with open arms. 

Dad passed April 1989, and Mom returned to Lebanon. My daughter was almost three. I now had a full-time job and a family, and found that while my heart and faith were still very Eastern, my intellect and attitudes were more attuned to the West. And so I began a second life, on a new continent, with older siblings and many nephews and nieces I barely knew growing up, but was happy to welcome into my life.