We’ve been back for over four months now. Before we left, we met with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and asked them questions about readjustment back in the States. One girl said:
“I don’t see what the big deal is. Everything here is easy and convenient. It’s a life you’ve known for years.”
Overall, she’s right. But there are a few things which surprised me.
Friends Close, Strangers Closer (so this is a long story, but its important)
On the first day of my new contracting gig, a member of my soon-to-be team was assigned to show me around. Let me say that this person is a very, very nice indivdual. I would call her both kind and sensitive. Which is why I can say with such certainty that her actions that morning were driven not from a poor decision or a personality flaw, but directly from American culture.
She asked me if I wanted to go down to the cafeteria in about an hour. I said yes. In the cafeteria, we separated, choosing our meals. When finished, I looked everywhere for her, but no luck. Eventually, I sat at one of the tables and ate by myself, assuming she’d had to run upstairs or perhaps was chatting with a friend. After about 10 minutes, she approached my table, but didn’t sit down.
She said with an apologetic smile: “Oh, I’m so sorry I lost you. You don’t have a badge to get back up.”
At that moment, I realized that she never had any intention of eating lunch with me. Even though it was my first day. Taking half an hour to get to know me or answer my questions just didn’t fit into her schedule. Even though our office is a fairly laid back place. This just isn’t what Americans do.
Gluttony
One of my primary questions to the universe upon arriving home, which I whispered at random intervals into the no one in particular, was: “How did I find justification for the purchase of so many scarves/purses/make-up bags/flip-flops/hoodies/?” It seemed that instead of one of everything, I had seven or eight of everything. And as I’ve tipped over boxes, dismantled temporary wardrobes and discovered the importance, a little too late, of airtight garment bags, everything we’d lived without for three years, I found duplicates of so many other things too: hair gel, spoon rests, hot-roller sets, spatulas, throw pillows.
The Spices of Life (Plural)
Do you get it? Do you realize how many choices we have? That there are 29 varieties of rice to choose from in Aisle 9? That milk comes in 18 different styles? That we’re the ONLY place on earth with such options? When Boudreaux and I entered a Jamba Juice on our first day in the United States, we looked at the menu, looked at each other and walked out. It was just too overwhelming. Since then, I have felt similarly about the menu at CPK and just about every other restaurant but Jimmy John’s.
Trampoline Effect
Remember bouncing through the air on that blue-rimmed, silver-banana-curl-spring thing for a few minutes and then jumping onto the backyard grass? At that moment, your physical being is jolted to a stagnant reality, you feel electric currents zigzaging up your shins and inertia keeps your mind in motion. We’ve been on a trampoline for three years. The whole time, a small voice kept explaining: Oh there’s a ground Monty, you just want me to think there aint no ground. But we just found the ground. It’s called America. Everything is still. Predictable. How else can I explain why it seems odd that when I come home at night, my Arizona Iced Tea bottle is exactly where I left it and my socks are still in the same drawer it was in last week?
Other Random Observations
Priceless: Sitting around chatting with tortilla chips and Coronas and effortless communication.
Annoying: The fact that I cannot buy birth control without a prescription.
Bizarre: The idea that four way stops totally work. I mean people pay attention so they have an idea when to go.
Expensive: Um, healthcare. Sugar snap peas. Almonds. Avocados. Anything at the mall!
Neurotic: All the planning Americans do.
Amazingly Comfortable: Our bed and our comforter.
On the Possibility for Change
I am changed. It’s clearer now than ever. To think I made progress in Bulgaria. Ha! To think I could have gone on in this life without the last three years of self evolution is a what I now term a close call. I might even say it was a near-death experience. I could have stayed here. Continued to find the red suede pumps I’d been looking for. Continued cursing traffic, customer service agents and checkout lines when they did not cater to me, me, me. Continued to hold grudges for lateness and inefficiences. To have been nervous about the salad I brought to the latest in-law gathering. (Shoud have I used ruby reds instead of spinach? Surely i overdid it on the vinegar. And this inappropriate salad bowl!)
But thank God, thank the universe, thank anyone and anything, that i didn’t.
