Mapping My Experience: A Reentry Story
Obsessed. Emotional. Torn. Transformed. These words only scratch the surface in describing the process of re-entry. One is not actually in a foreign country until coming home from one. As Michael R. Paige puts it, “…re-entry shock is the unexpected confrontation with the familiar.” It is assumed that coming home will be so much easier than having to adjust to a foreign culture and the baggage that comes with that – a new language, a new cuisine, new social norms. However, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you find home to be the same way you left it or if you find out your parents moved houses, adopted two more kids and got a cat. It’s still a different environment than what you’ve been used to for the past two, four, or twelve months of your life. Personally, I found (and sometimes, am still finding) myself yearning to repeat those two months in Italy, just one more time.
I have heard the saying, “all good things must come to an end” before, and I’m sure I subconsciously realized this during my trip. Once it was really over though, I was a woman possessed. The smallest things made me cry – I could barely talk to my mom to let her know I had safely made my connection from Rome to Germany. My experiences consumed my thoughts, speech, and dreams. It didn’t hit me until I got home how different my lifestyle was in Italy. After the first two nights at home, I woke up thinking I was still in my cozy Urbino apartment, and would walk in to the kitchen to find my roommates fighting for wireless internet. I expected to shower and then start sweating immediately after, walk down Via Raffaello to get our morning coffee at the café and head off to class. As I slumped at my kitchen table in my New York house, with coffee, wireless internet, and air conditioning at my fingertips (and no class!) I was disappointed. It wasn’t even that life at home had changed – in fact, it was as monotonous as life in the summer usually is. Friends and parents at work all day, sometimes at night; I had skating and a workout regime to occupy maybe four hours of my day, but besides that, I was left to sit in my comfortable air conditioning and vainly wish to be sitting in the Piazza della Repubblica, sweating and people watching, reading and doing homework. Needless to say, I never experienced the ‘honeymoon’ stage of re-entry, in which being home for the first couple weeks is glorious.
As hard as it was to leave my bella vita in Italy, I got extremely lucky in a variety of ways in coping with my reverse culture shock. For one, my parents are very well traveled and thus well versed in readjustment, so they understood my reaction to my reverse culture shock. My best friend had also gone abroad at the same time as I had, so we were able to compare and contrast our experiences. Out of the 22 people in my study abroad group, 21 of them go to Miami, so I also have an outlet on campus where I can go and be with those I shared such a memorable experience with. A bunch of us are currently in an advanced Italian literature class together, and we help each other out, sometimes pretending we’re still in our classroom in Urbino. Having these people around has certainly made the re-integration process easier. It gives me peace of mind as well to know that while Miami has its stereotypes (and certainly has people who live up to them), there are those who embrace cultural diversity and international experiences.
