Going Home

So here we are, after 10 months of expat life, and in five days I’m going home. It’s something that anyone who lives far away from home deals with, and it’s not as simple as it sounds.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited. VERY excited. But also nervous. I haven’t been in the US for a long time, much less at home. What if I don’t fit in anymore? What if nobody is excited to see me? Or what if it’s a letdown, and I feel like I have no home anymore? What if everyone forgot about me or moved on in their own lives?

Certainly I’ve changed. These past 10 months have been the hardest, most stressful and most challenging of my life, and that says a lot since I’ve thrown myself into some pretty out-of-comfort-zone situations in the past. But I’ve learned a lot and probably changed in a few ways too. Even something as insignificant as my accent has changed. I have adapted to Aussie culture. My sense of sarcasm has been heightened and my sense of blatant enthusiastic excitement has been toned down. I’ve had to redefine myself as a student again after well over a year out of college, redefine myself as half of a serious couple, and find out what it means to define myself as a foreigner and American (and all the mental stereotypes that come with that) outside of my home country.

Moving here shook me to my core, and forced me to look at the way I identify myself in a completely new light. Who am I really? What is my identity? Everything I was at home (daughter, best friend, PR professional, independent single girl, highschool friend, college roommate) had no meaning here. My identity in their eyes was Rob's girlfriend, international student, American, stranger.

Going home will be a re-evaluation of the last 10 months and all of my successes and failures in trying to make the biggest changes of my life. It’s going to force me to look back and see what I could have done differently, and hopefully what I’ve managed to do OK at.

It’s so much more than a quick trip home.