Reverse Culture Shock

Excerpt from Reverse Culture Shock

When I moved back from California to Europe, I spent the summer pruning trees, rosebushes and anything else I could find. It provided comfort in a way nothing else did. I got to be outdoors, didn't have to interact, nobody asked me any questions or commented on how 'American' I sounded. I could just be. Quietly, peacefully. Yep, reverse culture shock was a doozy.

Here's the thing about reverse culture shock: everything feels familiar and completely different at the same time. And no matter how hard you try to reconcile everything, it makes you feel like a puzzle put together wrong. Everything sort of fits but doesn't.

Of course, intellectually, you reason with yourself. Your brain explains that both you and the place have changed, so what you're feeling is natural. Meanwhile your insides are screaming bloody murder. That's what it was like for me, anyway.

Part of it is mourning and grief. You have to let go of the notion of home as a physical or geographical place (if that's what it was to begin with) and of the idea that operating within a comfort zone is how things should be. The next step is to redefine what home and comfort mean to you. And the biggie:

• letting go of who you were before you left to incorporate the person you became while you were gone and

• see how both now fit into a new identity within that familiar environment that feels alien.

It's mind-boggling and the whole thing is a process.

When I got back from the US, Europe had changed: there was a new currency (hello, Euro!), there were new streets, Starbucks and Subways had sprouted up all over the place, the use of language had changed, to name a few. For example, "Zähflüssiger Verkehr" had become "stop and go" and my French-speaking friends and colleagues said things like "c'est fun!"

Of course, I had changed as well. Not only in my eyes but also in the eyes of other people who kept reminding me that I wasn't quite European anymore with a steady refrain of "You're SO American!"

• Accent: I had an American accent and naturally, people who knew me before I lived in America kept saying "you sound so American." I understand the reaction, of course, but the effect was one of alienation all the same. What I heard was "you don't sound European". Which was fine too, except that I was in Europe trying to figure out how to fit back in after four years of being away.

• Language: I couldn't express myself the way I wanted to in my native languages, which can feel alarming. People kept correcting me, pointing out that I was speaking weirdly, which had a distancing effect on me and on them as well. I wasn't the way they remembered and these new aspects of me were disconcerting for them.

• Laugh: I was told I had an American laugh, whatever that means.

• Attitude/ways of thinking/seeing things: I had developed a new approach and attitude towards problem solving, thinking and managing everyday life. That attitude was also pointed out to me as being American. But it wasn't something I could shake, so living with that perspective in Europe can be alienating on multiple levels.

I spent four years becoming aware of my "Europeanness" to come back to a Europe that felt alien to me and where people kept and still keep pointing out my "Americanness".

Someone once said to me that it's like sitting on a fence: you can see both sides but that fence just isn't very comfortable.

There is definitely an initial discomfort, to put it mildly, but I think there are steps we can take to give ourselves a sense of connection, unity and wholeness. Hopefully, the rest of the book will help you with that.

Reverse Culture Shock is available on Amazon.