A friend asked me after our first day back if it still feels “surreal” and I think that’s exactly what I’ve been feeling. Trying to cram almost two years’ worth of life into two and half weeks back in your passport country is impossible. There were lots of people I didn’t get to see and plenty of places I didn’t go.
Perhaps the best part of living in another culture is that you are acutely aware that you’re not home yet. When I am in my home country it’s so easy to sink into the comfortable feeling of the familiar. Everything is in my language so I don’t work too hard to be understood. I can hop in a car and get to wherever I want at any time I desire. Other than that guy at the postoffice asking for a handout and claiming to be a vet, there’s very little obvious poverty. It’s a routine I’m used to and it seldom forces me out of my comfort zone. But I’m not really supposed to be “home” yet anyplace in this world. It should feel like that itchy sweater you want to take off— and make you long for something more.
Our jubliant one told me she spent the night crying before we left. I consoled her with the fact that crying means we love someone-it wouldn’t hurt to leave if we didn’t love them very much. This month marks the second anniversary of saying “goodbye for now” to my in-laws as they started their journey in that place that will one day be home. Somedays I can relate to our youngest. A week back in the states we spent a couple nights at a hotel with my brother-in-law. She woke up crying , “I just want to go HOME.” “Which home? To Grandma’s house?” I asked. And she firmly replied, “MY home.” Multiple places that contain a piece of my heart.