Have you ever gone out with someone that always wore too much cologne/perfume that you didn't particularly like but it stuck to all of your clothes and when you got home you thought, "God, I can't get this smell off of me!" Well, that's how I feel right now.
Anyways,
The other day I went out to lunch with three peruvian boys and a german girl. We were all chit chatting away, eating our rice and beans and bread, and someone brought up the topic of one of their foreigner friends. I think this friend was Japanese? maybe from Europe? I don't remember. Anyways, this boy decided that he wanted to come to South America to find himself since he didn't feel like he belonged in his home country. So he went off to go find himself on another continent. Well, the boy failed. And returned to his homeland. But didn't find himself there either. Later, I believe he returned to South America, and again, he was still lost at sea, nowhere to be found, adrift and anchorless. well. Luckily, upon returning home, the boy finally realized that he belonged right where he was, right where he started out in the first place. Imagine that.
I think Jesus wrote a story somewhat along those lines... didn't he? What a guy!
Well, my friend, at the lunch table says, "I just can't relate to that at all. I don't really understand it."
And I said, "Oh, I definitely can."
But listen, it's not what you think.
The thing is, during my four years of high school, I felt like that boy: like I didn't belong, I was unhappy and I had to leave to go find myself somewhere else. Therefore my four years of high school were dedicated to getting good grades to get me the hell out of Oconomowoc. And that's just what I did... and I ended up in... Madison, WI. Well, needless to say, even though I was only an hour away from home in what is essentially a large suburb, I successfully found myself very very lost, existentially speaking. Thankfully, after a year-long, rather confusing journey through academia, I finally got my head back on my shoulders and my smile back on my face and was ready to be a happy person again. It was grand. I was living the life.
Well, when I left for Peru, I sure has hell didn't expect to find myself in another country, but I never expected to be so certain that my identity is so definitively, irrevocably American. In fact, sometimes I find that my Americanness keeps me from being able to connect with a lot of people here- particularly females.
I mean, I too have my (many) prejudices against us Americans. But, at the same time, there is something about how Americans work that I like and I understand and appreciate and I miss it.
BUT, at the same time, there are things about how Peruvians work that I like and I understand and appreciate, and I don't want to let them go.
En fin, I definitely don't feel at home here in this country. Not one bit. But I also don't expect that when I get back, I'm going to feel at home either. I think I might be more comfortable and a little happier, but I'm sure I'll probably be feeling very very strange surrounded by all of that American individualism and materialism. Fortunately, I think that maybe someday, I will be able to find a home, wherever it maybe be; and I think that I might be able to find a way to negotiate and manage these very strange feelings of inbetweenness . I mean, that's what we do in life, isn't it? A continuous reconciliation of seemingly incompatible contradictions and paradoxes...
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