Coming back

Remember, remember, the fifteenth of November.

 

Why? Because that date was 5 months to the exact day that I walked into an oversized Pringles can (with wings, of course), hurtled backwards through time and space in an uncomfortable, cramped seat …

 

And landed back in Canada.

 

Only to be forced against my will onto a roller-coaster ride of emotions and experiences.

 

And the ironic thing? I get motion sickness. 

 

So in commemoration of that momentous occasion, I present to you The Dissipation of Myths and Legends about re-integration into one’s country of origin. (Note: I did not say “home country.” That was intentional). Some of these I knew before coming back, while others took me by surprise.

 

1)      Adjusting back to your own culture will be a breeze.

It’s an easy assumption to make. After all, it’s your home culture. These are your people. They speak your language. You know where to go to get what you need. You know social conventions and protocol.

For me, I breathed a sigh of relief when I could breathe clean air, when I could go to the store and know exactly what I was going to pay for an item without haggling (except when it comes to cars, but that’s a story for another day), when I could drink straight out of the tap.

And yet whatever time you spent in a different country does change you. I came back and balked at prices.  I reached around people in my way without apologizing.  One time, I caught myself wanting to ask for a napkin in Chinese.  Cars actually stop when I want to cross the road and drivers are predictable. 

And funnily enough, where I used to think “Why isn’t China more like Canada??” I now think, “Why isn’t Canada more like China??”

What I keep coming back to is that China changed me.  It changed the way I behave. It changed the way I think. It changed the way I look at Canada and the world.

The country changed, too.  

Life in my country of origin will not be what it was before I left.   I like to think it’ll be better; I just need a breaking-in period.

 

2)      Friendships and relationships will pick up right where you left off.

This one I knew would happen. Two years doesn’t seem like a very long time, and yet much can happen during that time.  Including being replaced in peoples’ lives. 

There have been some friendships that I’ve been able to jump back into no problem, but others … not so much.  It’s nobody’s fault; people change, move on, find someone else to fill the void you made when you left and don’t necessarily think about you when you come back because they haven’t thought about you being around for the past two years. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting a little.

I personally have had to resist the temptation to put on a glow-in-the-dark safety vest, swing around light sabers and scream, “Hey! I’m back!  Include me!”

For me, an introvert, it’s been tough to put myself out there, invite people to do things and to initiate. It really does go against the grain of my personality and it is physically draining. I kind of want to jump back into everything now, but when I tried doing something every night of the week for just one week, I wound up taking an unintentional five-hour nap on Sunday afternoon, and then still somehow slept through the night. 

So I need to pace myself, be patient, and make sure I get enough alone time to be able to fully give of myself when I'm around others.

There have been rewards amidst the challenges, the frustrations and, at times, the lack of reciprocity. And it’s the reminders of those good times and the knowledge that, at some point, I will start coming back to peoples’ minds that keeps me motivated.

 

3)      Community is the same all over the world.

In ex-pat communities, the unspoken motto seems to be “we’re all in this together … so let’s make the best of it!”  And they really do. I have never felt so accepted, included and supported than I did when I was in China.

And I definitely miss that here.  There are some fantastic people here, please don’t misunderstand me, but it really isn’t the same.

What is important to keep in mind is that this difference exists by necessity, not by design. One thing that’s helped me keep perspective is the fact that our relational webs here are so much bigger than they were when I was in China.  Over there, I lived, worked and worshiped with a relatively small group of people.  I could call them up last-minute and say, “Hey! Let me give you a break by taking your four-year-old out.” Or “I’m having a rough day. Can I come over and just talk?” or even “I have a leftover piece of pie.  Want me to drop by?”

I also became a surrogate aunt/big sister/good friend because, let’s face it, the people who used to fill those roles were no longer around (Skype doesn’t count as “around”).

Not only that, but everyone lived close by. 

I am still in awe of how quickly I went so deep with some of them.  It was mind-blowing.

Here, things are different.  Aunts, best friends and sisters are close by. Or close enough. Or, in some cases, too close.  Or too far. There are familial and friendship responsibilities.  Case in point: it has taken my family the better part of two – maybe three – weeks to nail down a date and time where we are all free for Christmas dinner.  Which turned into lunch.  The only two things that stayed consistent were a) the people attending (unless you consider my nephew’s arrival to be inconsistent) and b) the location.

And speaking of location, between the 8 of us meeting up, we span three different cities.  Sadly, I know I let affect how much I see them.

In turn, that affects how deep I go with them.

Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with a wonderfully transparent small group and a few good friends who seem to get this idea of going deep and are willing to go there with me. Interestingly enough, these friends are from outside of Toronto, which kind of makes them ex-pats …

 

4)       Whomever you became while you were away will stay with you.

In a sense, China was a way for me to re-build myself, become someone new.  I had no history with those I met, so there were no expectations. And whatever relationships I formed with people started with clean slates; no hurts, no big mistakes.  No negative impressions of me.

And I was determined to do things differently than I’d been doing them back here in Canada.

And I liked who I became while I was there.  I discovered many things about myself (I can actually be comfortable around kids, and I enjoyed hanging out in the background, encouraging people to do their best).

Only … that person didn’t make it much past the exit ramp in Toronto.  What I’ve discovered since then is that people here didn’t see the transformation I went through there and expected me to be more or less the same when I came back.

Not their fault; they had no frame of reference.

And somehow I just couldn’t help myself but simply slip back into old patterns and old roles that just make me want to hate myself, but I don’t know how to get out of them.

And the question is, which one is the real me? Or is it some crazy combination of both?

Not only that, but some old wounds, hurts and scars were torn wide open again, because I was face to face with them. Again.  And I realized that I had escaped rather than dealt with them.

What’s neat about this, though, is that, if the “now” me could time travel, I’d tell my “fresh-off-the-plane” me to hang in there and keep up the fight.  If some parts of “in China” me are starting to surface after a few months, I’m fairly confident she’ll find a place here in Canada, too. 

 

5)      The pangs of re-entry don’t last very long.

 Last week, I thought I was doing fine. Or better than fine.  China was a distant memory. But it all came rushing back this past weekend, throwing me into a funk for a day or two. And I keep thinking I should be over this by now, but I’m not.

(I am very grateful that those close to me are extending a lot of grace my way these days, because I haven’t always been the most pleasant person to be around). 

I have had it very easy compared to some, and, knowing what I’ve been spared, I am grateful.  I was blessed with a job almost immediately and things have fallen into place relatively easy. But my struggles are still very real. With every new thing I faced, I fought the urge to run away to somewhere safe, somewhere comfortable. 

Only at the time, I didn’t exactly know where that was.

What kept me going here was that I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere if I kept insisting on sticking my head in the sand and ignoring the changes around me.  Otherwise I’d still be hovering in the back room of my mother’s house, covered in blankets with lots of sand in my hair and really dry eyes. So I had to face my anxiety about car salesmen, about new bosses and co-workers, about asking simple questions such as, “When does the trash get collected?”

Sounds silly, but anything new threw me for a loop. And there were so many new things.

Every step I took made it easier, though, and, with time, the anxiety lessened.

 

In the midst of all the myths, I want to mention one truth: grace.  Thank God that grace exists.  Thank God that, because grace exists, I am blessed.  Because grace exists, others can extend it towards me in the midst of my struggles, and I can extend it towards myself when things go sideways.

 

In the end, it’s going to be alright.