An awkward pause later, my brain started to explode. With
over half of the world’s population living on less than $2.50 a day, it’s obviously
impossible to call West Bloomfield, Michigan—with a median family income of
over $100,000 a year (as of 2007)—the “real world.” But then, it was my real world for the first 21 years of my life. So if Michigan is,
in some way at least, my “real world,” but my Peace Corps life is the “real
world” for the actual majority of people on this planet, then… whose
reality…what’s really …what does it mean for a world or an experience to be
“real” anyway?
Oy.
And now here I am again. A week and a half ago I finally
came home… to my former real world… to West Bloomfield, Michigan. I’m currently stretched out in my queen
size bed, listening to the whistling winds of the outskirts of Frankenstorm Sandy,
still awake at 3am trying to wrap my head around what it means to be home. People
keep asking me what the strangest part about being home is. I’m never quite
sure how to respond. Sometimes I talk about the magic of flush toilets or the
miracle of microwaves. Sometimes I mention hot showers, potable tap water, or
the ease with which I can do suddenly do pretty much anything my heart desires.
That’s all part of it, of course. But there’s something
deeper I’ve been struggling to explain and haven’t quite found the words. Maybe
I can get it out here…
Sometimes it’s like waking up in an alternate reality where I’m
the only one who sees anything alternative about it. Other times it’s like
stepping into a play halfway through, terrified that I don’t know my lines,
only to realize that deep down in a part of me I didn’t even realize existed, I
already know the script by heart.
I know it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’ll
never forget how to be the person I was for the first twenty one years of my
life, but its somehow mind-boggling to feel how, even after all I’ve been
through, I can step right back into my old shoes—or rather my brand-new Ugg
boots—and I’m back to being a plain old American again. Or at least I’m able to
pass for one in public.
I keep expecting someone to read it in my face in line at
Starbucks. To see it in my terrified expression as I flee Target after an
aborted attempt at shopping. I keep fearing—or maybe hoping—that someone will
call me out on my bullshit attempt to pass as a “real” American when up until a
week ago I had never heard of Honey Boo Boo and I still don’t know the words to
Call Me Maybe.
And then sometimes, maybe even most of the time, everything
feels totally normal. Which makes the switch to unnormal feel even crazier. The
borderline moments, the real insanity, comes when I look at myself in the
mirror, spick and span wearing fresh new clothes, and get the eerie feeling
that I’m staring at an avatar of myself. Who is this person and why does she look like she belongs
here?
There’s so much more I want to tell you folks, but it’s late
and I’m exhausted… and I also want to take a moment for a quick disclaimer. A
lot of you have been following my blog because you like hearing about life as a
Peace Corps Volunteer. I don’t know where life’s about to take me, but for the
foreseeable future this is going to turn into a blog about something very
different from Peace Corps life. Along with my friends, the Zain calling plan,
excessive amounts of yoga, running, reading, cooking and baking, Blogging kept
me sane for the past two years. I don’t know why it can’t do the same as I take
on the final and what many say is the hardest challenge of Peace Corps -- coming home. So, I guess what I’m
saying is, after a long break during my travels (which I’ll try to come up with
a re-cap of soon) I’m back if you’ll have me. And the glory of self-publishing
on the internet is that I’m back even if you won’t have me.
