There's something I've been nervous to admit on this blog, dear readers. Some of the reason I haven't wanted to share it is because I'm afraid it will make you question the mission of Betsy Transatlantically; much of the reason is because putting it into words and publishing them makes it official. But, thanks in large part to conversations with Gesci and Belinda and Karen, women I respect enormously who know what it's like to expatriate, I'm gathering my courage. Ready? Here goes:
I have no idea when I will next be in England.
I traditionally spend every Christmas with Jon's family, but this year we're going to the Bahamas to celebrate my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. Anyway, schedules and finances don't really allow a flight to London between now and the end of the year. Jon will (hopefully) be moving over in early 2014 so that ties up a few months around then, and we'd love to do Easter in Suffolk but who knows what will be going on with his job hunt? If Jon does manage to find something relatively quickly after arriving, he won't be able to take off so soon after being hired. And - well, there's so much unknown right now that I can't even really think about what summer 2014 might look like. So yes: Betsy Transatlantically doesn't know when she will again be transatlantic.
(In case Jon's mum is reading this: don't panic! We promise to be there next Christmas. That's the good part about your daughter-in-law being a Jewish American. My parents always get us for Thanksgiving and you always get us for Christmas.)
However, the wonderful friends I mentioned above pointed out that, my post from last week notwithstanding, being an expat isn't just about geography. I call myself an expat/repat and really do believe I can hold both of those two identities concurrently, but we all agreed it does cause some serious confusion in my soul.
For today's Expat Q&A hosted by Belinda and Bailie, therefore, I'm going to focus on the second question they've posed but I'm turning it a bit on its head:
What is your biggest trigger for homesickness?
I love living in DC. I love being so close to my family, I love being bombarded with great customer service, and I love having access to familiar American conveniences. It's wonderful to be back in my hometown, making it my own as an adult. At the same time, part of me constantly wishes I were back in London - and that homesickness is present all the time in the littlest things. It's not about Jon being there and me being here; it's about the life and routines I left behind when I returned to the US.
Like I said in that post about what "expat" means to me, making another country your home isn't fundamentally about the momentous changes you go through. (At least, it's isn't to me.) It's about the small pieces of your new normal: remembering that you have to look up movie times by the company that owns the cinema rather than by film and neighborhood, planning your weekly grocery shop around Sunday trading hours, and knowing that some tube stations just aren't worth the effort during peak commuting times no matter where you need to go at rush hour. So those are the elements of life in London I miss the most. My homesickness is triggered by the mundane things...
- emails from TfL about trackwork on the Northern, Victoria, or Jubilee lines.
- targeted online ads from John Lewis even on American websites
- spotting a Neal's Yard Dairy cheese at Whole Foods
- ordering obscure English beers at a DC bar (Bier Baron, I'm looking at you)
- texts from Jon of live updates about the horrifying shenanigans of drunk fellow passengers on the N20 night bus in the wee hours of the morning on the weekend.
- not being able to buy my usual grocery staples at Giant or Safeway (I just want an OXO cube, okay? that shouldn't be so much to ask!)
- Instagrams of lazy afternoons spent in the garden behind The Windsor Castle
- letters from 02 and HSBC asking if I'd like to reopen my accounts
- pulling out a recipe or cookbook that measures ingredients in grams and milliliters
- getting a Facebook invite for a friend's birthday party in London
Great. Now I'm homesick for London! Thanks a lot, Belinda and Bailie... thank goodness I have a Skype with Jon to look forward to this evening! In the meantime, I think I'm going to put on the kettle and make a batch of these yummy ginger scones. That should help, right? Or it might make things worse - but at least I'll have tea and a snack to take the edge off!
