So I'm coming to the end of my annual trip to the UK. The menfolk have gone today and I have a few more days on my own.
Every year there are more and more things in the UK that are "unfamiliar" to me, making me wonder just exactly where I belong these days. I have lived in the USA for 23 years, 22 of those being in Chicago. That's the longest period I have ever lived anywhere, but I don't usually call it home. We have no family there and I could leave it tomorrow. The kids were all born there however, so I have a feeling Chicago will always be in my life, even if I don't live there.
I always feel like I'm coming home when I land in the UK. I talk like everyone else, I know the customs, the unwritten rules etc. But more and more of it is new to me. This year I successfully managed to put my pound coin in the supermarket trolley (I usually can't figure out what to do and end up just grabbing a basket). However, I still don't know what the "red button" on the TV remote control is for, and I still don't have a credit card with a chip and pin in it, making me stand out like a sore thumb. The other day, I handed over my credit card and chatted to a sales assistant quite amiably; she then asked me for my passport. I was shocked. Did I sound American to her? Surely not. She explained that she'd clocked my credit card as "not English" and followed "tourist procedures". The experience has left me a little wobbly to say the least.
I'm getting on the plane on Friday, but where am I going?......
Don't feel bad; I've lived here almost nine years and I don't know what the red button is for either.
ReplyDeleteI feel exactly like this every time I go back to England. I wonder if as expat you ever really know where 'home' is?
ReplyDeleteI know this feeling well.
ReplyDeleteMe too. I have lived in the States for fifty years after twenty and change in England. I suffer from increasing nostalgia—even though I know nothing is the same. It is specific people I miss. I read more and more books set in England and I try not to let home sickness worry me. Off to watch Wimbledon!
ReplyDeleteIt's a family fragmenter, all right. Your children will always call Chicago home. I raised my children in my husband's home town. Now I've moved "back" but they call where they grew up "home" and live and work near there.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand. We are mid-Atlantic now. 'Home' lives in our memories. Although, I really am beginning to think of Devon as my home. I eagerly chose to be here and hopefully, someday, it will really be Home.
ReplyDelete'We' and 'Us' really get me. I can say 'we' meaning here in England, and one sentance later say 'we' meaning Americans. Meh.
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ReplyDeleteI know that feeling exactly. I have lived in America 17 years and in Germany for 6 before that. There is always that odd feeling of feeling like a duck out of water in England but somehow know it is "home". I also often wonder where I actually belong. My kids were born here so for us Massachusetts has become home. Just wish the flights back to see family weren't so much!!
ReplyDeleteIt's not just an expat thing (although I'm sure with the expat thing it's far more pronounced). Every time I go home to Texas I feel like a visitor; even though I still call Texas "home". My son, although born in Texas and rightfully considered a "Native Texan" doesn't remember it all nor does he consider it home.
ReplyDeleteI hope, at any rate, that you had a good visit, and saw the sun a time or two. I know what you are going through; it is strange to belong to two countries, and yet belong to neither.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm.... Good to see I'm not the only one thinking like this. It's a very strange thing. I might have to write more on it.
ReplyDeleteAs I've lived in the US less than three years, I must admit that I do know about the red button. lol Plus I have a British bank account, as well as a US one, so will use my Brit card when I go back.
ReplyDeleteI think that weirdly, Britain has a built-in expat culture in some ways. Because of the old empire, Brits have been living abroad for a long time but still seeing Blighty as home.
I actually feel that being in Chicago would seem more like home to me than being in a smallish city in North Florida, in some ways. I certainly felt more familiar with the culture when I was up in the New York/Long Island area. The South is another world.
Also love your observations about the differences...My Kiwi accent just gets more and more extreme says my friends here. And I still could not handle doing the London grocery store checkout - which I saw there before here. As David Sedaris says I love not being forever an Expat - nothing is my fault!!!
ReplyDeleteWrite more on it, this expat thing of kind of always being "other" except amongst ourselves. Out with other serial expats the other night--they have started a new stint in Houston--discussing how expats make up their own community.
ReplyDeleteAnd funny, but I do have a chip and pin card, but I can never remember the number. Lately I've had to use my sign cards. I need to reset the pin as soon as I get back to London this week.
Also, didn't you used to be @expatmum? Now I have vague recollections of you changing your handle, but I've used the old one a few times in the past week. Gotta remember next time.
AHLondon - no, the Twitter expatmum wasn't me so I have always just used my name. I hope you didn't get into too many political arguments with her!!! ;-)
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