Notes on Nostalgia
An extended amount of time in the small town where I grew up has left me pondering how places shape us as individuals and if I have somehow lost sight of the values I was raised with...
Maybe it is the effects of some sort of reverse culture shock, but since returning to my hometown at the beginning of February, I cannot help but feel out of place. My closet is filled with clothes that are too formal and too warm for a community of Birkenstock and yoga pant wearers. I am used to taking easily accessible public transit and accustomed to the idea of being lost in a crowd. Returning home has brought these details of daily life to the forefront of my mind and has left me wondering if I have lost sight of who I once was or if I am merely changed as a product of growth and lived experience. This post is a collection of questions and thoughts that have been circling in my mind for months now.
Warm Smiles and Oversharing
The most significant cultural difference I have noticed since my return home ( and one I often made note of on shorter trips and holidays ) is the warm demeanour of my community in Northern California. When walking down the street or on a trail, you are expected to say good morning to passersby or, at the very least, greet them with a warm smile. In the customer service world, customers are pleasant ( for the most part ), and baristas and waiters seem to have a genuine interest in your problems. And, on that note, in the small town I am from, it seems to be completely normal, if not expected, for one to share their life’s story when ordering a coffee or asking for a third glass of wine. This warmth and openness are factors of life at home which I hadn’t noticed until they were absent from my environment. In London, the social code is strict: you look down when passing others on the street, you make your order quickly, you mind yourself, and you mind the gap. Returning to California, I have had a difficult time shaking the niceties which I had become accustomed to in England. I still am surprised when a customer at work asks a genuine question or makes a joke, and I constantly need to remind myself to be open to others.
This adjustment period has sparked questions about the person I was raised to be and if my time abroad has changed me. I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed the way people in England kept to themselves. Though I often missed casual conversation with strangers, it was equally nice to have the luxury of feeling alone in public. This sort of isolation taught me to be more self-aware but left me longing for connection at the same time. I found I enjoyed the curiosity and the openness to new opinions which I encountered abroad, but it was all the more challenging to start up a conversation. Being in a metroloitan city, I learned about the world and with that, about myself. There is no doubt that I have grown, but has that growth changed the core of who I am and who I was raised to be? ( If it has changed me, is it for the better? )
How I was Raised
My family is big, loud, and expressive. ( Italian, one could say ) My childhood was filled with laughter and what seemed to be a constant flow of social events. We hosted weekly neighbourhood dinners outside in our little colisack, I played team sports coached by my dad, and weekends were filled with time at my cousin’s house or walking downtown after Sunday mass. I was raised to advocate for what I believe in, love others deeply, and chase my goals and dreams fiercely. The love I was raised with taught me to never doubt myself and affirmed that I would be supported by my family no matter what. Though these values have not changed, my return home has filled me with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia. I miss the sense of freedom and warmth I had in my childhood, and now revisit the places I used to know with a strange longing for what I feel I have lost.
Perhaps it is merely a part of entering adulthood, or maybe it is particularly a product of the grief I am facing as a result of the loss of my father, but my childhood home feels starkly different from how I remember it to be. There is an absence of the warmth I was raised with and a sentiment of newfound responsibility in creating the home in which I wish to live. Everything seems to be quieter, more calculated. On the cusp of my 23rd birthday, it seems natural that thoughts of my role and place in the family are at the forefront of my mind. I wish to add value and stability and to continue to love those close to me as I did throughout my childhood. My family is still big and loud, expressive and strong, but we are clearly missing a key member in our home unit. When grief overwhelms me, I lose sight of myself, and I often wonder how others who experience loss have carried on. A question answered with nothing other than the fact that we must.
I also wonder what my dad would think of where I am now, where my family is now, and how we are doing. I can only hope we are living by his example and keeping his memory alive. With grief, I am learning it is not something, like most things, that is linear- it is an emotion and experience which one merely learns to live with. Other than the above sentiments, all I can really think to say is that I miss him, and returning home is a beautiful and painful reminder of how loved I was by him. Maybe this is a cause for the turmoil I am facing in this transitional period of my life, or is it just a product of change? (Clearly, I am still trying to get to the bottom of this )
Change and Termoil
This year has not been easy, to say the least…
It was off to a good start until my apartment flooded in London, and I instantly felt as though my whole world was flipped upside down. This shift opened my eyes to just how valuable the community I had made for myself in London was, and also how painful it would be to leave it behind. Leaving my tribe, part of it anyway, resulted in me feeling as though I had lost part of myself. The last few months, I have been attempting to piece together who I am and reconnect with that which drives me. This has required me to take a step back and evaluate the activities that bring me joy and the people and places which make me feel safe. I have been spending time outdoors, time with my pets, time with family and attempting to reconnect to what I had lost, a sort of spark within myself. Sentiments of isolation mixed with culture shock and changes in routes left me feeling stuck and somewhat hopeless. I stopped writing. I stopped creating. I focused on getting the mechanics of my life back into place, but I still felt something was not quite right.
All this to say, I have had ample time to evalute, to give myself a hard time, and to reach out for help. Through confiding in others and leaning into the global community I have made for myself, it seems to have finally sunk in that I am not alone, and though life may throw us curve balls now and again, everything tends to have a way of working itself out. So, now that my life is “in order” and I am back in some semblance of a routine, I am back to creating, and I feel better. Reconnecting with my gratitude and talking through issues over long phone calls with my friends in London has been more helpful than I ever could have imagined. I am still working out the kinks and evaluating how I can best take care of myself.
I’ll get there someday, but for now, the best I can do is allow myself to think, to laugh, and to cry- to go with the motions and just to allow myself to live…
So happy to have you back in my time zone. Keep up the good work kiddo. You are so loved!