We are back in California. The last six weeks were a blur of cleaning, writing letters (in French) to close our various utilities and accounts, and spending wonderful time with friends. We are now Day +8 from our departure from France.
It is strange to be back in California, and it's funny what moments of culture-shock strike us. Giant sodas with ice, free refills of drip coffee, restored cultural fluency; it has been an interesting reentry so far.
I miss Grenoble and I deeply miss my friends and community there, but at the moment I feel a bit emotionally constipated. I am sad, but not as sad as I expected. Perhaps I grieved enough leading up to our departure, or I am still too emotionally spent to feel much. Perhaps I think I am on a short vacation and will be surprised when our time in California does not end. Maybe I have been too busy/stressed/occupied to feel all the pent up emotions which will come bursting forth at a future moment in time. I don't know; I've never done this before.
But I am trying to place no expectations upon myself to feel a certain way, and I am working to provide myself time to feel what I want or need to experience.
The moments which have felt the strangest, when I have felt a bit like an outsider, have been when I spent time with friends I have not seen in three years. Of course their lives have gone on: jobs change, children are born and learn to walk, people grow, but when my mind has to catch up for the time we have been away, it makes me almost wish I had not come back. I was comfortable in the world of Grenoble where these dear friends, who I am now seeing again, were put on pause in my mind. I feel the weight of our time away most when I have to fast-forward three years of their lives to bring us to the present moment we are spending together.
I knew this day was coming and I grieved its approached. Now I also look ahead with excitement to what God is calling us to. Once again I am a maelstrom of emotions; sad and excited simultaneously. The process of re-entry will take the time it demands and I will allow myself this space. I am both home and away; resident and alien.
The idea which scares me most is when these feelings of being the stranger fade and I am fully acclimated back into my culture. Nothing will be the same, I am forever changed, but it feels a bit like I am losing my time in France. So I cling to my memories of Grenoble as I re-connect with friends and family. As we have come to say a lot these last few months, "life is weird."
