One year in the US - Culture shock
We have been in the US now for almost a year. So I wanted to take some time to write about what it's been like, after 18 years in Panama, to be back in the US.
Sometimes, you don't realize how much you have changed, or how far you have disconnected from your home culture until you come back to live. A lot of thing you glazed over on visits back now come rushing at you in full force. On visits back you didn't have to deal with the school system, health care, or taxes. You didn't worry about local officials, the state of local roads or the legalization of marijuana. The health care bills were just distant chatter... you were dealing with getting up at 5:00 AM to be seen a the local clinic, so what did you care about laws that were passed far away?
Now, suddenly, you do care. You have to care.
Culture shock is a reality, but it doesn't really have boundries. It's not something that happens in a neat period of time and then is over. Culture shock can hit you at anytime, and in unexpected ways. I have heard many stories of missionaries being hit with it at Walmart, or somewhere similar, overwelmed by the cereal options. I have experienced that.
But this time it was in Winco, when my sister asked me to buy her some lightbulbs. I don't know if you know this, but lighbulb options have changed. I walked into the isle, and nothing made sense to me. None of the options looked familiar. My brain said, "You are supposed to know how to buy a lighbulb. This shouldn't be that hard." I paniced. I didn't know what to buy. What if I bought the wrong thing? Suddenly, without warning, my eyes filled with tears. I couldn't expain it. It wasn't the lightbuld. It was the unfairness of it all. I had spent 18 years feeling out of place, figuring things out in a strange land, learning new languages, negociating bus systems and immigration offices and everything else. And now, here I was, "back home", and I didn't know how to buy a light bulb.
That moment pretty much wraps up these last months. Everything is familiar, and yet I find myself lost. I have to get our family signed up for health insurance. I don't know how. My whole adult life has been lived outside the States... I don't know how to do anything back here.
The hardest thing I think is how unfair it all seems. After spending so much energy and effort figuring out life in Panama, why does it have to be so hard to come "back".
We spent years jumping through all the hoops to get my residency in Panama. Now we have to start from scratch to get Alex's residency here. We have to translate immunization records for the girls, figure out the intricacies of health care here, learn where the best place to buy groceries, clothes for the kids, and gas for the car. Everything that comes pretty natural to people around us, we are figuring out.
Facing questions like, "why don't you just do it THIS way." Well..... because we didn't do it that way in Panama. Because I have to learn new habits for everything. And that is exhausting.
I think if you have never gone through reverse culture shock, its hard to imagine how hard it is, how tiring, how it drains you energy and makes you dread figuring out another thing.
And you may not realize it until you are crying in the grocery store aisle, trying to buy a lighbulb.
Sometimes, you don't realize how much you have changed, or how far you have disconnected from your home culture until you come back to live. A lot of thing you glazed over on visits back now come rushing at you in full force. On visits back you didn't have to deal with the school system, health care, or taxes. You didn't worry about local officials, the state of local roads or the legalization of marijuana. The health care bills were just distant chatter... you were dealing with getting up at 5:00 AM to be seen a the local clinic, so what did you care about laws that were passed far away?
Now, suddenly, you do care. You have to care.
Culture shock is a reality, but it doesn't really have boundries. It's not something that happens in a neat period of time and then is over. Culture shock can hit you at anytime, and in unexpected ways. I have heard many stories of missionaries being hit with it at Walmart, or somewhere similar, overwelmed by the cereal options. I have experienced that.
But this time it was in Winco, when my sister asked me to buy her some lightbulbs. I don't know if you know this, but lighbulb options have changed. I walked into the isle, and nothing made sense to me. None of the options looked familiar. My brain said, "You are supposed to know how to buy a lighbulb. This shouldn't be that hard." I paniced. I didn't know what to buy. What if I bought the wrong thing? Suddenly, without warning, my eyes filled with tears. I couldn't expain it. It wasn't the lightbuld. It was the unfairness of it all. I had spent 18 years feeling out of place, figuring things out in a strange land, learning new languages, negociating bus systems and immigration offices and everything else. And now, here I was, "back home", and I didn't know how to buy a light bulb.
That moment pretty much wraps up these last months. Everything is familiar, and yet I find myself lost. I have to get our family signed up for health insurance. I don't know how. My whole adult life has been lived outside the States... I don't know how to do anything back here.
The hardest thing I think is how unfair it all seems. After spending so much energy and effort figuring out life in Panama, why does it have to be so hard to come "back".
We spent years jumping through all the hoops to get my residency in Panama. Now we have to start from scratch to get Alex's residency here. We have to translate immunization records for the girls, figure out the intricacies of health care here, learn where the best place to buy groceries, clothes for the kids, and gas for the car. Everything that comes pretty natural to people around us, we are figuring out.
Facing questions like, "why don't you just do it THIS way." Well..... because we didn't do it that way in Panama. Because I have to learn new habits for everything. And that is exhausting.
I think if you have never gone through reverse culture shock, its hard to imagine how hard it is, how tiring, how it drains you energy and makes you dread figuring out another thing.
And you may not realize it until you are crying in the grocery store aisle, trying to buy a lighbulb.
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