Subtle Readjustments, and Being Brave

Sorry for the delay in writing.

Last month on Father's Day, I learned that I am still adjusting to aspects of life in America. Not American culture exactly, but simply life here. On Father's Day, Mother's Day, and often on birthdays my family would buy a group card and everyone would sign it. While in Peace Corps Father's Day and Mother's Day were almost non-existent; indeed sometimes dates where non-existent, had I not have a computer and a calendar.

The morning of Father's Day I was in the kitchen with my mom and sister and one of them asked me if I had gotten a card for dad. I had forgotten to do so, or more accurately, since a parent usually got the card and all the kids signed it, it hadn't even crossed my mind. (We don't always by gifts on these days. My brother and I once bought an expensive box of chocolates for our mom one Mother's Day. Four of us had some but to dismay the dog found it and ate the remaining fifty-four pieces.)

My sister seemed a little annoyed that I hadn't gotten dad a card, and I told her simply that I've never needed to by a card. What's more I told her after Peace Corps where the holiday practically didn't exist at all, it was barely a thought in my mind. I meant no rudeness or harshness, but it was simply an aspect of American culture that had slipped my mind, especially since the holiday isn't a major one anyway. She told me that it was Father's Day and I just simply needed to think about these things.

This made me realize how in some ways I am still adjusting back to American culture even though I've been here since November. It also showed me how simple concepts were quite foreign to my sister and others around me, simply because there wasn't the same context. She's never really left her culture. This has never been an issue she or most people in my family have needed to face.

I don't blame them for this, simply because it's not their life situation. But it does make for a colorful one for me, both the traveling and the coming home.

Indeed, I feel less American and more like a citizen of the world. That may be a bit of a cliché, but I feel that national identity is valuable to a point, but not necessarily as a personal identity. It's not that I dislike America; on the contrary I've said before in my blog that I love this country and the privileges I have, and am thankful for those who make those rights possible. But in my life, I see it as important to act as a cultural bridge builder, not between nations but simply among people. The more I've traveled the more similar I see everyone to be. There are many cultural differences but at the heart of those cultures there are the people who make them up. People with feelings and dreams and concerns.

I guess this is one of the reasons I feel inclined to continue going abroad and learning languages and learning cultures. Even if it's scary. I feel wild at heart, and that I cannot keep limiting myself to what I think I want, but just go in the direction that feels truest, even if it looks harder. And going abroad is always a bit like that: taking a plunge into the unknown.

Everyone can relate to this though, even if you've never left your hometown. If a life does not have risks in it, then how has it been tested? It's easy to live in a safe zone, but how boring and, in the end, stressful.

Naturally I'm not saying we should bungee-jump into a volcanic crater for the danger element (I don't know if I'll ever bungee-jump, actually) but if we always just settle for complacency because it's easier, we might find ourselves later more stressed out simply because we didn't trust ourselves to follow our internal compass that tries to guide us through life.

We shouldn't do something because it's scary. We just need to know when to do things in spite or risk and fear.

Tristan Foy