Then I ended up teaching English in Beijing for 18 months. The expat community is small in a foreign country. Everyone knows someone that knows someone that knows someone.
Everyone you've met in the past days of your travels has most likely played a significant role in where you are today.
Expats are always coming and going. Some are finishing their contracts or obligations, others were just passing through.
The passer throughs are the people you follow on social media sites to watch where they adventure to next. You keep a small acknowledgement of each other's existences for future travel purposes in their home country/state. However, when you befriend a local, you're playing a whole different ball game.
You're submerging yourself in the culture and lifestyle of that local, too. When I adapted to Beijing as my home, I was adapting to my best friend's life. She knew all the places to shop for foreign-sized shoes and clothing. She knows all the best expat bars. She knows the tricks of street vendors. She knew everything I needed to know in order to make Beijing home.
Now, my two best friends lives 7,370 miles away from me. When you leave your foreign hometown to return to wherever you're from, your life becomes a sequence of photographs, delayed text responses and early morning and late night video calls.
Your communication becomes catching up weekly and cramming the week's events into one hour or less.
If you don't know me and my lifelong friends I probably sound like a jerk for not acknowledging that they still exist as a major part of my life. They do. And they understand what I'm saying here. They never tell me to stop talking about my friends abroad or tire of listening to my stories. (At least they never say so). You stuck by me when I had no idea who I was, where I was going, what I was doing or what I wanted in life. But so did my friends there and I miss them just like I missed you from the other side.
"You get a strange feeling when you leave a place, like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you miss the person you are at that time and place because you'll never be that way again." --- Azar Nafasi
And that's exactly how I sum up returning. Travelers adapt. It's all they know to do. We keep a part of who we were when we were away, but being that person in another environment isn't always easy or acceptable.
A year or so ago when I was living my "oh so adventurous life" in China I wrote one of my favorite blogs, "Nobody Hangs Hard Times on the Wall." It's about the obvious-to- me-yet-clearly-ambiguous-to-the-rest-of-the-world life struggles of living abroad.
Just because I live in a world away from all of your bullshit problems doesn't mean I don't have my own. It's not about who does or doesn't have problems, though; it's about how we view and handle our problems.
You can follow the link to that old blog if it'll help you better understand the rest of this one, but it isn't necessary.
After five months of living back in my hometown I've gotten most of my breakdowns and freak outs out of the way. I've cried about missing my friends, students and life back in China. I've freaked out at the grocery store in choosing basic necessities. I've had multiple panic attacks in the driver's and passengers seat of cars. I've been ridiculed for not knowing or using popular social media apps. I've patiently watched and/or listened to people witness my reactions in said situations and wonder wtf was wrong with me. I just hope they one day find the strength to put themselves in an unfamiliar setting where they don't know a damn thing and come out slightly shook up, yet stronger for doing so.
I'm reading "Looking For Alaska," by John Green and he wrote, "Well, before the adventure comes the unpacking."
I instantly put the book down to finish this blog. I've been trying to find a way to put into words what I'm experiencing. As it turns out, I haven't had a lot of reverse culture shock but a lot of unpacking to do.
When I got to China I had to adjust to everything because nothing was the same. I did so as quickly as possible and much faster than I ever anticipated. I learned quickly what I could live without when I couldn't say it in Mandarin or use some funky hand gestures to make my desires understood. Also, I gradually noticed all the past moments I once saw as catastrophic were simple on even the worst day. And I can go into the details of being lost, lonely or a number of other emotions and scenarios in grave detail but it really doesn't make sense until you've experienced it yourself. And I'm not talking about going to Europe for a few weeks or taking a Jamaican cruise on an American cruise line for 10 days. Not to dampen your adventures or anything, but it's not even close to the same.
So I unpacked everything in China. All the past I'd been finding a way to let go of, but not just that... I unpacked all of my dreams and ambitions. Once the negativity was out of sight I was able to see what I wanted in the years to come. I had it all lined out, too. Then I decided to return to my hometown. And although the decision involved temporary residency in my home town I knew the risk of packing up and coming back because I'd have to risk unpacking all over again.
And as usual, in five months time, every plan I made has been altered, postponed or tossed out completely. I've finally slowed down and decided to unpack and make home my home again and just roll with the punches ;) Because I've fallen in love with the South and all of it's flaws again. Because I've fallen in love with the hot sun and fresh air that exist even on a rainy day. Because I've found comfort in being near my family. Because I've fallen in love. And I think it's ok to want both worlds sometimes because I think adventures are whatever we make them to be. And because life is the adventure.
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