What does home feel like?

# Chapter 318

Almost I feel like an American again. After 28 months of living here pretty much full time, its starting to feel . . . normal. I am neither sad nor proud of that statement, just glad to not feel like a fish in the wrong tank for the longest spell of time. For the last 28 years, American has kinda been like Disneyland. A quick visit, hit the highlights, maximize the fun, shop till you drop, ride the rides, spend some focused time with family, catch a few shows and then back to home again, wherever that may have been in the world. Even furloughs were just one big Disneyland trip. To actually feel like an American again, is a seismic shift in my internal landscape, in my understanding of how I see myself and my place in the world, in my psyche, in my id, in my innermost being, something is breaking free and taking a new shape.

If you have not lived for decades in a foreign country and spoke another language and have experienced different politics and police states, and have been the foreigner for every moment of those decades, then you think I am probably crazy and going mad. But if you are a person who has done any of those things listed in the sentence above, then the process I have been describing makes perfect sense, even if I am describing it poorly. This internal transformation is painful and slow, and very necessary. But I have less patience with myself coming BACK to something than I do, when I am going to some entirely new place. This has to become our home again, because it is now our home.