The Journey Home: “What the heck? Who are you?”
Lots of feels and honesty coming up! You’ve been forewarned. But that’s why I blog—to document the unique feelings of a nomad (well, this one nomad).
I haven’t blogged in a little while because, well, I guess life has just been swimming along. But all of a sudden, I feel like I got dunked unexpectedly. We just boarded a 25-day cruise to Los Angeles (after spending a few days in Singapore), so fortunately I don’t mean I fell off the ship!
I’ve been dunked into America.
Whoa! I’m not supposed to experience this until November 5, when we arrive in L.A.! Or maybe a week earlier when we spend two days at port in Hawaii. So, I was not prepared in any way for this dunking.
I remember when I was 18, arriving in New York after spending 2 months touring Europe. I remember the huge sensory overload of new and shiny, modern and colorful, fast and demanding, and loud and in-your-face consumerism. The U.S. felt so foreign compared to the old world Europe I’d been immersed in during the summer of 1985.
The world has changed significantly in 40 years and at least here in Asia we’ve spent some time in parts of big cities that resemble New York in some of those ways. We’ve also been in quiet places that feel decidedly less modern and those are my favorites.
But city or not, we’ve come across very few Americans. We’ve met wonderful travelers from around the world who speak excellent (often native) English with beautiful accents. But not a lot of Americans.
Staying at our hotel in Singapore was like being held over that dunk tank as a huge number of cruisers waiting to board this journey with us gathered in the public areas, talking, laughing and enjoying themselves. If no other guests were there we’d have thought we were in America.
Driving into Singapore from the airport, I felt those first discomfiting feelings of culture shock begin to rumble. It was hard to put my finger on at first and then Tim and I started to realize a few things while in the taxi. All the cars stayed in organized lanes and observed traffic lights. There was no jumble of wires and lines strung along the streets. The city is organized and systematic with safe sidewalks. It’s extremely clean. Okay, it’s not all reminiscent of home haha!
In the tourist areas, you feel like you could be walking down a river in any U.S. city tourist zone. Once we walked around more, we found some older areas and more local areas that felt a little more like the SouthEast Asia (SEA) we were used to (and thankfully had those more acceptable prices!), but Singapore was expensive! At least as expensive as the U.S., I think, and this makes me afraid to try and live and eat in the U.S. while we are “home.”
As Americans, we take for granted how NEW our country is. Even the parts that are getting old and wearing out. When you travel to Europe, or Asia, or much of the world other than Australia and New Zealand, you experience a new meaning of “old”, of the way things have been for a really long time, of the legacy of so much history building through the centuries—I’m not just talking about the buildings but also about the beliefs and rituals of the culture and families and way of life.
Meeting up with our oldest son, who was on a business trip to Singapore, was a surreal experience that we sure never envisioned when he was young and we were far from reaching any retirement dream. But again, it was like hanging in the air above this thing called “home,” bringing me so close to family whom we’ll be immersed with once our ship arrives in California.
Boarding the ship yesterday (October 12th) and eating our first dinner, we continued to converse with a few Americans. And the background hum of life was suddenly more vibrant. Instead of the mostly non-English voices humming around us in SEA, we could distinctly understand most of the background hum. And familiar words would pop out as people discussed places they lived, politics, and familiar American cultural things. And some of them they did it in such an American way that we haven’t been around for a long time—loudly and with boisterousness and ringing, easy laughter.
When most nomads fly back to the U.S., I’d imagine they walk off the plane to culture shock. Since we use long repositioning cruises as transportation, I have realized that my culture shock might first come as a dunk into the ocean of feelings about my homeland. We’re basically on a tiny floating American island as we cruise, with ranch dressing (thank God! Finally!) and familiar seasoning (because Western food is SEA is familiar-ish but never quite the same), and our friendly, often very happy people. It also comes complete with some of the things I don’t especially love about my homeland…the consumerism, the over-the-top communication styles of some, a self-centered, entitled mentality that can be quick to complain and demand, and, in many, the willingness to be opinionatedly intolerant of others. Cruises can bring out the best and worst in people (especially on a long, crowded embarkation day).
Perhaps most concerning is that being on floating America for just one day, after being in a shadowland of home with one son, has already messed with my own practice of self. I don’t know what to call that, but it’s just that the me I left behind in the U.S. and spent over a year growing and changing through both exposure and intention, begins to creep into my natural feelings, relations and thoughts. The old me is trying to come back—It feels the pressure of expectations and judgement that await, and always the sense of failure to live up to family and cultural expectations of perfection. Rational me rejects that but emotional me feels the anxiety—the angel and devil I always lived with in the U.S. but have been free of these past 15 months.
I guess the best comparison would be to returning to your hometown for a high school reunion with old friends, and staying at your parents’ house. You know that concept I’m talking about? You drift into feelings and ways of relating, and your own personality traits, that you left behind long ago? And you look at and hear yourself and think, “What the heck? Who are you? You’re better than this.”
That’s exactly what I’m struggling with now. All of a sudden, ways of relating to Tim and feeling a huge weight of expectation and failure and walking on eggshells has completely overcome me. We had a perfectly lovely, positive time with our son, but was it just stepping into the role of “mother” again, in person, that did it? Then why is it even worse on the ship with just Tim? He hasn’t done anything differently---it’s just me.
I am holding stress and anxiety inside like I used to. But at the same time, I just want to relax and sleep, like I’m home safely after a long journey and can relax in the familiar. After barely wearing makeup for 15 months, I suddenly feel like I need it. I feel more conscious of my clothing. I feel judged for some weird reason. I should feel way less conspicuous around mostly Americans than I did around mostly Asians, right?
I’m already asking myself “What the heck? Who are you?” That’s not me anymore. But I’ve been dunked.
What will happen when I’m “living” at “home” in the U.S., surrounded by my family? Will I be okay, having been “inoculated” on the cruise? Will I find my true self inside and get comfortable in my skin again before I arrive in Long Beach (where I went to college and met Tim—a whole other blast from the past)?
Or will I drown in my American self?
