When you come back you soon realize that there are three groups of people. One group is the expert group, you try and talk to them about various things from your year and they are quick to tell you all about the things they know about the topic (whether right or wrong), and they tell you all the things you must be feeling. They are sure that they understand even though they have nothing to relate to anything you are trying to say.
The next group are the ones that don't really care. The first time they see you they ask how you are and how your experience was. But once you give anything more than a three word response they cut you short with excuses of having to go do something or meet someone. They are the ones that are too busy to really care about anything you have to say.
The third group is the group that really thinks that they care and maybe they do. They just don't have anyways of understanding or identifying with what you have to say. They can't offer the support that you so desperately want. They don't understand how you can go on and on about all the things that you hated and all the bad experiences you had but in the same breathe talk about how it was the greatest thing you have ever done. They have no hook to hang your story.
People are just as confused as I am about how I can be such a stranger in my own culture. It is frustrating. Going through reEntry is like a computer with things running in the background. When you have a lot of programs open and a lot of things runnings running in the background it slows the computer down. The same is when you come home. You are always subconsciously processing and dealing with things. It slows you down and leaves you just as tired and frustrated as the user of the computer.
Trying to figure out how to deal with the new ways that you see things can be all but possible at times. Home feels different, foreign even, you notice different things that you never did before. How do you deal with them?
You love the things of home, warm comfy beds, hot showers, familiar language, familiar food, loved ones, cleanliness and the list goes on and on. However you miss things of the place you left behind, new friends, food, weather, culture, lifestyle, and on and on. You come to despise things about your home culture, ungratefulness, impatience, materialism, business, etc. You want so desperately to fit in, for things to be normal again, yet, a part of you wants to be nothing like these people full of greed and selfishness. You don't want to let go of the place and things that you learned and experience in your new home. You find yourself bitter and angry, with a short fuze, critical and angry at yourself. What happened? How did I get like this? How do I move on? Do I even want to move on? Why did I even leave? Why did I even go in the first place?
People don't understand how the thought of going to a crowded place gives you anxiety. How doing normal everyday things seems weird. How you do things and sometimes don't even know why you do them.
Your values and beliefs have shifted or solidified and your friends may not identify or understand them. It leaves you feeling more isolated, unsure of who to trust, or spend your time with.
ReEntry is a process. The most frustrating process ever, yet a process. It brings joy, hurt, pain, laughter and tears. It causes you to grow yet again in ways you never thought you would have to but in the end you are richer because of it.
