Welcome Back - Idaho

By Rick - This is one of the first posts from the new Post-UK cultural experience experiments.

It's been weird being back in the US. I thought that when I came back, certain things would be even better than they'd been before I left. For instance, take Taco Bell. I craved it like crazy in the UK, but once I got back, I realized that it's over-processed and actually kind of gross. It's only one of a number of things that have been that way.

Reverse culture shock has been worse than the initial culture shock of the UK was. I'm going through almost all of the same emotions (anger, frustration, fear, confusion, rejection, etc.) but it's worse because this should just feel like home. I should have slipped back into life here like a foot does into a long-lost favorite shoe.

I miss weird things about the UK too. I miss smelling like cigarette smoke all the time. It's not that I enjoyed smelling like smoke, but I got used to it, and it didn't have the deep stigma associated with it there that it does here in the US. I miss decent food at the grocery store. Everything here is processed bleached carbs or full of high-fructose corn syrup... or both.

Most of all, I miss the little protective bubble I'd found in the UK. Good friends that became family, and looked out for each other. We were like our own little mock UN, except that we got along and didn't fight about money. Everyone here has to be an individual, so there's no community. I miss the safety and freedom that the UK offered too. I really can't explain it now, so I won't even try, but rest assured it was important. I've got a lot of freedoms here, but they all feel false for some reason, because everything is so contrained and directed by popular opinion.

I realize this isn't my most uplifting blog entry, but I don't feel uplifted right now. Trying to figure out where I fit in the grand scheme of things again is really tiring. I need an emotional nap.