You can never go home again….
I’ve often talked about my feelings of internal conflict as a result of my choices. Uncompartmentalized feelings that complicate my everyday. The life of an expat is inherently ridden with conflicting emotions – a passion for the foreign, exotic and unfamiliar and a wistful longing for home or what used to be perceived as home.
In September, I was transitioning between jobs and hadn’t seen my family in 9 months. I was experiencing extreme homesickness, anxiety and an overwhelming feeling of lostness. Yet after visiting for 10 days I was in an even worse state. The “home” that I was yearning for was frighteningly the same. This isn’t that surprising, really and in some ways it’s actually reassuring, but it lacked forward motion. The most changed I noticed was that another strip mall was erected with a Babies “R” Us and a supermarket, replacing farm land.
But the most troubling realization from this trip was the lack of change in some of the people I once felt close to. They haven’t left their comfort zones and were ostensibly naive to the realities and struggles of the rest of the…
