This entry is especially dedicated to Katie, an American friend who asked me what else I had learnt and done when in the US.
I'm sorry, Katie, I have taken so long to go back to you. I needed to find the moment and the words. Today, talking with other colleagues at work about travelling, I remembered your question and comments. And I reminisced about the old days there in STLouis
This, by far has been one of the best life experiences ever. I cannot count the number of things learnt during this fabulous trip. Yet, the best thing I learnt was the actual meaning of the word different. It may sound senseless or silly, but it has a logical explanation. Or at least, that's what I hope...
I see that most of the time we overuse this word that seems rather plain. But if you are lucky to travel and explore on the wonders of a culture or cultures other than yours, you'll see what I'm talking about, and you'll perceive the real meaning behind this word.
You'll find out that different doesn't mean either better or worse. Different is just different. This is so because you are in a country whose people behave, think and sometimes wear differently, whose customs are not the same like the ones at home, therefore, you need to adjust to a different lifestyle.
You see, everything seems to spin around the word different. So much so that in the process of adjusting to the new lifestyle , you may discover that inside you lives a completely different person capable of doing a large number of different things that you didn't even know you could do.
In the process, you learn to love differently, not only the people there but the people back home. You learn to think differently, to connect to other people differently, to walk,touch, smell, hear, to see differently. Your world broadens, your mind turns into an incredible elastic band that stretches to the fullest and allows room to new thoughts, new knowledges, new views of life, new and unique experiences that you are not likely to repeat when you are back home. Just like you are not even likely to be the third part of what you were there.
And that is the painful part of the story, because when you are back, you need to go back to who you were before you left, otherwise there's no room for you again at home. It feels as if thousands of nails were being dug into your whole body when everybody greets you and talks to you just as if you had been on holidays for only one single weekend, and you know that what you have to tell is so intense that goes beyond a simple "yeah, everything was incredibly exciting!". But the world won't stop to welcome you back, just like it didn't stop when you arrived to where you were headed. You are just someone else who was lucky to travel and now is back. Don't look for guilties, there is no one to blame. Life goes on wherever we are. This is what it is about.
You start missing the new person that had grown inside you, the customs you had got used to, the friends you had made, the contexts where your new thoughts fit. You don't seem to belong anywhere now, because you are different. You feel sort of uncertain and afraid.
And guess why you feel like that? Because once you are back, you have grown, and now, you are suffering from culture shock.
Though a bit painful, having suffered myself from this culture shock once at home, I did feel blessed. This is the best scar of a worth lifetime experience. Now I know I will no longer be the same. Ever.
