Re-Entry Shock

My re-integration into my native country has, on the surface, been a piece of cake. However, deep down at my core, it is anything but easy. I have been functioning on autopilot; I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel like I’m in a time warp and that I never even left. I got in my car after not driving for three months and everything was exactly the same as it used to be. I didn’t even need to think. I drove down the same streets and nothing had changed. Again, I didn’t even need to think. I feel like a zombie. It’s terribly disturbing that I can make my way through my days without even being conscious. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and before you know it, a life has gone by unconsciously. Maybe that is what was so personally important to me about my Rome experience. I had to live every day consciously. I had to think about nearly every move I made. I suppose after a certain amount of time in any given place, this can change. Maybe this is why I’m not sure I’m cut out for being in one place for the rest of my life, or even for long periods of time for that matter. These are all questions I don’t have answers to right now but questions that I am committed to exploring.

I had the fortune of taking one of my summer quarter classes as an intense three-day cram session the weekend I returned to Portland. The only reason this was a positive experience is because the class was Intercultural Communication, and it could not have happened at a more appropriate time for me. Much of what was studied was extremely thought provoking and helped me to understand many of the feelings I experienced in Italy, as well as what I am experiencing now, after getting back home. There is actually a cycle of stages that one goes through when entering another culture and then returning to the home culture. This cycle of course only really applies when one actually spends enough time in another culture and engages enough to become somewhat integrated into the new culture. It was eerily accurate to the experience I had and am having. I experienced every stage just as it was spelled out on a chart in black and white. Go figure…right now I am in “Re-Entry Shock.”

I am finding myself quite depressed as I experience this place I call home. It feels so quiet, so dead, so mundane. Again, I feel like a zombie. I went to the grocery store today and felt like I didn’t even know what to do there. It wasn’t even one of the giant big-box stores; just a small, local chain – a store I used to love. I found myself completely overwhelmed with all the choices, to the point where I didn’t even know what to buy. I just stared in disbelief, not knowing what to do. It’s too much. Everything here is too much. Troppo!! Troppo!!