Coming Home.

Home.

All my life California has been my home.

I was born there. I grew up there. Each brick carefully crafted into place for 31 years, forming a fully functional life of family and friendships. Memories and milestones.

Then, out of the blue, I had been packed, shipped and dumped on a Greek island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea in less than 3 months, leaving the only home I knew. Those bricks were still in place; but my life, my home, became untouchable – just out of grasp. I had to start again.

And it was there, on that incredibly generous and vibrant island where I made a new home in the lapse of four and a half years.

Mixing Greek soil with Mediterranean water; forming a thick mud consisting of emotions, memories and lifetime friendships that soon turned into bricks which became the foundation of my new home. Not replacing my former, of course, but enriching my life in such a way I never thought possible.

Living in a village, not a city. Learning a new way of living life (what Greeks describe as Filotimo) instead of the fast-paced American lifestyle. Learning and speaking a new language instead of thinking English is the only one needed. So many cultural experiences changed who I was. Changed who I am. 

Fast forward four and a half years later and the jarring realization of moving back slaps my face. Just three months ago I was yet again packed, shipped and dumped back on Californian soil, leaving my carefully crafted Greek home behind. My adapted culture behind. My friends behind. My life behind.

The feeling of gratitude and excitement to finally see loved ones again soothes my mind. Parents. Siblings. Best friends. And even through this pandemic, I know I am lucky enough to have the chance and promise to gain back all I left behind. The life I once left four and a half years ago has been restored.

All while the same time, the feeling of emptiness squeezes my heart, flooding over my soul with a heavy thickness as I reflect back on what my life once was just three months ago. Friends that became family. A foreign culture that I adapted to as my new “normal”. Memories of every moment on that island infecting every cell of my body.

So, what is home? And why do I feel so sick, wanting… needing… to be back on that island in the middle of the Mediterranean?

Nostalgia.

Or so they call it. The true feeling of being homesick.

Light and dark emotions crowding each other and blending into one massive cloud with foggy borders. Pushing and pulling on your heart like two hungry dogs fighting over a marrow bone. Those new bricks I so carefully crafted are once again ripped away; just out of my grasp with no promise of me ever returning – leaving me to feel as if I’m placed in yet another foreign land again.

Another foreign yet familiar land where, like once before, I didn’t fit in right away, four and a half years ago. And this realization arises the more appropriate question:

Where is home?

And is it even nostalgia that I’m feeling? Or is it some kind of weird twilight zone that I’m facing? Some bizarre fleeting glimpse of what was. A once tangible life that had become home is now vigorously erased with a dull, glazed over #2 pencil eraser; never fully removing the lead from the paper, blending the delicately written words of my life together into a messy blur instead of completely, neatly erasing the paragraphs off the page. A not-so-distant memory smeared between the lines of what I called home.

 

Reverse culture shock.

Is there even such a thing? Culture shock, for sure. A different language. A new way of life and thinking. The shock of witnessing first hand another culture where everything and everyone feels and is foreign.

But reverse culture shock? I’ve heard of it before, but I never knew exactly what it was until I started researching my immediate feeling of disassociation once back on California soil. This immense cloud of muddled emotions about the foreign land I just moved back to.

The foreign land I was born in.

I read about reverse culture shock through several websites, and it dawned on me that that’s exactly what I am going through. Crashing all those carefully crafted bricks down on my head. A massive earthquake shaking up my entire world.

“Do I really sound that way to others? Is this how the world perceives me? Am I so changed that my new, adapted culture does not fit in with my birth culture? What is wrong with me for feeling this way?” And most importantly, “Who am I?”

These are all questions I still ask myself every day.

Now, I know that this is where I am meant to be. My life started here. Family. Friends. Work. My first set of bricks laid down the foundation of my existence here. But who have I become to feel so unrecognizable by my own self?

After some research, I stumbled upon Ria and her co-written book, “Getting the Best Out of Your Travel and Stay Abroad!”.

I am so grateful to have crossed paths with her through the website Reverse-Cultureshock. We easily chatted via email (she’s currently living in Europe) and she was able to get her book out to me quickly. I have to say, this amazing little log book has been offering me a lot of insight and support.

See, Ria and Nynke, the authors, are European-born world travelers who also studied about reverse culture shock. They discuss the steps of entering a new country, giving tips about how to prepare your stay abroad along with tips on how to prepare returning home.

They inform you of what you can expect when you return back to your native land; back to the weirdness I have been dealing with for three months. They explain the changed relationships, the misunderstanding by your family, the alienation you feel, the inability to apply new skills like mine of a foreign language.

You see, they explain the earthquake I have been rolling and falling over in for the past three months so clearly as if there was steady land just a yard away, right in front of my eyes.

Reverse “homesickness” is what they call it. Which is exactly what I have been feeling all along. It explains every thing I have felt and endeared, crumbled bricks and all. It’s not just nostalgia. And not just reverse culture shock.

It’s reverse “homesickness”. Reverse Nostalgia.