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A Serving of Culture Shock on the Side
When it happened last night, I didn’t think it was big enough to make an issue of and tried to let it go. In fact, I thought I had let it go, definitively. But, as this post and the early hour can attest, things didn’t work out that way. I actually spent some time tossing and turning over it last night—after going to bed late—so I figured I might as well write about it.
My brother came over to celebrate my dad’s birthday last night. Incidentally, he forgot that I’d be baking a cake so he bought another one—this one from our local patisserie—with him. The expression on his face when he walked in with a cake and saw another waiting on the kitchen table was so priceless that I couldn’t help giggling and shaking my head at his chronic absentmindedness. But, somehow, in hindsight, I can’t help but dramatize that second cake as a symbol or omen of some sort.
Nonetheless—where was I? When the time came to cut the cakes, my brother couldn’t help but inspect “my” cake carefully, trying to wrap his mind around the concept of his little sister baking something from scratch. As my mother lit candles on both cakes, he asked questions—what went in it, were those real raspberries, how long was it in the oven, how long did the prep take? At one point, I mentioned that the prep had taken me longer than usual because I’m used to thinking in metric, but all my mother’s tools were in “Imperial” measurements.
Bro: I’ve never heard anyone call them “Imperial”. Is that what they call standard units in Australia?Me: Yeah. But they’re not really known as “standard” measurements anywhere. The system itself is known as the Imperial System.
Bro: I guess I’m used to thinking of them as American Units, if I had to give them a label at all.
Me: That’s okay. I’m still thinking of some things the Australian way, I guess.
Bro: But you were only away five months, not ten years; your brain can’t have unlearned all that stuff so fast!
Me: Actually, I think mine kinda did.
Bro: But you’ve been back almost a month, and you can’t keep going in metric. When are you going to start thinking in American terms again?
Me: (with a forced grin). I’m not sure, exactly, but it might be a while.
He sounds much more outraged in text than he did his person, I think—our conversation last night was a lot more casual, almost offhand. And until that last remark of his, I certainly didn’t feel uncomfortable with any of it. But that final question, one he asked without really even thinking, touched on what I’m going through right now so painfully that I couldn’t get more than a few hours of sleep last night.
Raspberry chocolate mud cake with a serving of culture shock on the side—how very bloody appetizing!
Sigh. I didn’t deliver the rant about reverse culture shock that leapt, wholesale, into my mouth right then—and I can’t bring myself to regret it. My dad had been looking forward to his cake since I’d pulled it out of the oven shortly after midnight the previous night—sometimes I wonder how he hasn’t developed diabetes by now—and I wasn’t about to ruin it for him by saying something my brother couldn’t ignore. And I understood even then that my brother wasn’t at the root of my anger to begin with.
But, oh, how frustrating! I tried to ignore it, and then to make my peace with it, but I’m obviously still struggling. Because, for all the wonderful times I had in Melbourne—the friends I made and the memories I cherish, there are days when I wish it were really that easy to forget. That, on the long plane ride home, I could just compartmentalize the different things I learned into precise and tidy slots of the mind—ready to be used only when convenient or necessary or appropriate. That, once the jet lag wore off, I could just fit seamlessly back into my old life with nothing but a handful of funny stories, some good friends, and a pile of fabulous photos to memorialize my Great Australian Adventure.
How pleasant that little fantasy would be; it’s quite worthy of a Perfect Disney Movie™. But after the film finished and the credits rolled, I’d still be here trying to fit my new pentagonal shape into my old square hole. I’d still be here frustrated and confused and not a little hurt. I’d still be here without any real tools to get me through this besides a rapidly dwindling stock of patience, the support of friends old and new, the conviction that I don’t regret my months away, and the hope that one day—one day very soon—the pain will fade.
Damnit.
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