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.
I have not really lived in the USA since October 1999. Not for more than a few months at a time. We lived in Buenos Aires until April 2001, then lived in Bratislava, Slovakia until Dec 2007. Now we live in Moscow.
The past three years or so I have gone home for the summer. July and August. It’s weird, because I look American. I sound American. But sometimes I don’t know how things work. I don’t understand the cell phones, for example. Or how my expat health insurance works when I’m in the US. Or even how to get my kid an appointment to see someone to talk about her migraines.
The Spouse and I were standing in line one day this summer at a Wal-Mart or Target or something. The Spouse was going on about how Americans seem friendly, but really aren’t. We’re superficial. The woman in line in front of us turned around (Ooops!). “I’m friendly,” she said. “Welcome home!”
I miss those sorts of exchanges. My Spanish wasn’t bad, but my Slovak/Russian is pretty non-existent. In the US, I make mindless chitchat with strangers where ever I go. I make surely clerks laugh. I can talk on the phone. It is my great Summer Pleasure.
That, and riding my bike on the municipal bike paths. Now Austria (right next door to Slovakia) had killer bike paths (and FANTASTIC health care! Look at their model! Please!). But bikes and Moscow don’t mix. Alas.
Excellent blog entry. You really hit the nail on the head. Welcome home.
hello – a friend posted a link to this entry on facebook and it resonates with me as well. i’m an rpcv from romania (a couple of years before you were in bulgaria).
the first time i came back to the states for a visit, i felt overwhelming guilt as i looked out the plane window and saw huge single family homes and backyard swimming pools. i eventually adjusted to that but the feeling that we have so much in and often don’t even realize and appreciate it has never really left me.
i can relate to the jamba juice story as well – many of us probably can. for me, it was wandering the aisles of the safeway trying to find 6 things on a friend’s shopping list for dinner. i had to give up. too many choices and too many things to consider.
on a funny note, i still live overseas and i STILL have problems adjusting to standing in lines in the us. i STILL crowd people, lurching forward when the person in front of me simply shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
will read more of your blog because i enjoyed this so much. take care and have fun!
oh yes! expatresse! the random silly conversations with strangers that are so easy to have in the states! that is a pleasure! (just as not being able to understand all the conversation around me is when i’m overseas!)