Stranger in a Strange Land
When Heather asked me if I’d do a guest post I immediately said yes. I love Heather’s blog and feel a kind of comradeship with her as we are both expats and share similar experiences, albeit mine are with a slightly warmer backdrop. I didn’t much think at the time of exactly what I was going to write about and as my self-imposed deadline of ‘before I go back to England’ drew ever nearer I started to panic a bit.
Thankfully Heather herself actually inspired me.
Her post Homeless, really hit the mark with me. I have but 2 days to go until I fly back to Blighty myself for a couple of weeks, I haven’t done a single thing in preparation, no plans to meet up with friends finalised, no packing contemplated, not much thought into how I am going to raise enough money to fund my trip etc etc. However, this was not what inspired me, what inspired me were these three lines that she used.
“How can I go home when it’s not my home anymore?
It’s a strange land.
I don’t want to visit a strange land, I live in one of those. I just want to go home.”
I absolutely get that. I understand those sentiments so well. My last trip back to England was just a mere five weeks ago and I had one overwhelming feeling. It struck me to the core so much that it really took me by surprise. It didn’t feel like home. I wasn’t home! The thing is though, neither is Spain anymore homely to me. I feel like I am trapped in some kind of vortex of un-belonging. A stranger in my home country, a tourist in my adopted country.
I walked the familiar streets of my child and young adulthood and was stunned at how different everything looked. A shopping arcade which was once bustling was so quiet. The recession? Probably. Where had all the shops gone? There used to be at least 3 butchers, a florist, a couple of jewellers, several greengrocers, now every other shop was either a takeout eatery of some description or a charity shop.
The people, faces of folk I used to know by sight but not name, granted they were older but fatter, much fatter. Their faces lined with worry and age. Is that what I looked like? Most people seem unable to walk along without something in their hands, a cigarette, a packet of crisps, a sausage roll. Have we Brits always been this unhealthy? I thought that everyone had stopped smoking in the UK, clearly not!
Nobody smiles, not even a cursory nod of the head as you pass them by. I am shocked by the language. The accent of my youth that I wore like a badge of honour and pride seems so harsh and ugly now. I am ashamed of it. I can’t believe how much people swear, all the time, every sentence, in front of their small children. Is my own language this bad?
I’m not sure whether it’s an age factor or a time factor. I left my home town of Nottingham at 23, then spent 10 years living in Leeds before moving out to Spain 6 years ago. The slow drip feed of change that will have gone largely unnoticed by the locals has obviously been forcefed to me in one large spoonful. Are things really that bad or do I just have rose tinted glasses on? A desire for my hometown to be exactly how I left it and the people just the same. Maybe going home makes me realise I am 16 years older and 2 stone heavier. I have wrinkles and grey hairs, I didn’t have those when I lived in Nottingham. Does going back make me confront who I am now, unfairly compare the 38 year old me to the 23 year old me who was just making her mark on the world and about to embark on a new chapter in her life in a different city?
I will land again in those memories in 2 days time, I doubt this time it will hit me so hard, the shock factor certainly won’t be there. I’ll still hate the accent though and bemoan how the place has gone downhill. However, by my second week I will have consumed at least one meal at MacDonald’s, will have walked along a street eating hand held food and be using the phrase ‘me duck’ at a frightening frequency. I will have no doubt reverted to drinking pints of lager down the pub and my Notts accent will be fairly broad. I will be buying my son his first Forest top. I will get a warm fuzzy feeling when I drink in my favourite sights and sounds, because I will be with my people, I am one of them. I’ve just been borrowed for a while.
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Very Bored In Catalunya: Late 30′s stay at home mum to Joseph aged 3 and wife to t’husband. Plodding my way through my Catalan life by wasting time knitting, sewing and blogging instead of ironing and cleaning.
I'm Heather, an ex expat, now back in blighty and living in Lancashire. Which is just like Lapland only less snowy...and stuff.
I have the same feeling when I look at my village. So many new estates etc. However when I went back for the first time after a year or so living in Ireland, it was like I was caught in a time warp. The conversations between my friends were still the same, the places they went out too. It was like time had stood still while I was away and I had seen so many different things. As I said a time warp. Great post
Your post resonates with me as Heather's one did. I haven't been 'back home' yet but am hoping to get there this Christmas. I fear a little what I know I'll find – friends I no longer have a connection with, and the inevitable feeling that home is dated and no longer 'home'. It's the curse of the expat I think.
I have been living here for almost 20 years and yes I have to say I do feel like I have a home and it is here. I thin the biggest factor for me is my sense of community. IN both the communities I have lived here in Israel. I am not alone. And it feels nice.
Hope you guys can find that at some point. It is hard when you don't.
I'm a Notts gal who left too. I only moved as far as North Wales but left 20 years ago and when I go back now, I'm also shocked. The one thing I did find re-assuring (and quite a moving moment) is when someone called me 'duck' or said 'thanks me-duck', 'eh up me-duck'. I miss that. It was a shock that I'd forgotten it and how comforting it was. But you're right about the accent. It is harsh… and I no longer really have that accent until I go back to visit mum and spend some time with my brothers. My huby had hysterics when someone said.. 'oooh, doun' drop it on t'caaaaarpit
Enjoy your trip
LIke the other people commenting, I feel something similar to this alienation when I go back to my home town, Newcastle, even though it's in the same country. I love visiting and feel a sense of joy when we drive over (or usually under, through the tunnel) the River Tyne. Yet I now know my real home is here in South Lincolnshire. So when we drive back and the hills disappear I feel instantly calm. It takes a few days for my Geordie accent to soften…though daily chats with my mum ensure it will never go completely.
Ooh, what a week for expat posts. I get how you feel but not quite. That is, I feel like that when I go back to the UK. But I'm French. I feel a bit different when I go back to Paris, more alienated, maybe, because it's been longer. Btw, it looks like we were in Leeds around the same time: I moved there in 95 and stayed 5 years.
I think I would prefer it if my home town was like a time warp, especially if I could look 16 years younger every time I visited.
I hope you still find a connection with your friends, my friends are probably the only reason I ever go back at all now.
Yeah that makes sense, I'm only just beginning to feel like a part of the community here after nearly 4 years in the village. Back home most of my closest friends have actually left my home town now, so it feels a bit weird.
The destiny of an expat. Living between two worlds and missing things. Because I know the difference. Because I compare. When I'm at my newly chosen home I miss things from my old home (e.g. food, drinks, family, habits, mother tongue) but when I go back to where I came from (country of origin) it's that I feel that things are different. Not necessarily because everything has changed so much there that I cannot handle BUT because I'VE CHANGED. That's when I feel that I am living between two worlds.
It's got to be one of the oddest accents hasn't it? Take a word and see how many letters you can get away with not pronouncing ….
I get that. I guess home is where your from and where your house. 2 homes that mean something different to us.
Ooh we would have both been there at the same time. I was in Wortley for most of the time with a brief stint down in Dewsbury.
There is a lot of true in what you say. I have probably changed more than my home town has.
As others have said, I think part of this is also part of the ageing process – I think there's a certain nostalgia, not only for how things were (or we thought they were), but also the part of us /our youth that we left there.
The Nottingham accent is quite harsh…..almost as bad as my Leicestershire accent!! My daughter finds it incredibly funny to say 'eh up me duck' as often as possible!!! Things do change a lot and I agree with you about the language on the Streets too but I think it's like that in a lot of places now sadly! Hope you enjoy your visit home!!!
Yup, us poor east midlanders were somewhere near the back of the queue when it came to accents being handed out. Mind you at least we don't say Les-staarrr.
That is so true. I was slim & moderately attractive back then…. *sigh*
Your post captures the essence of how we change and are changed by our time in a new country/culture. Last summer we went ‘home’ (US); this year we aren’t. I don’t think I’ll mind it until next winter when I’ll probably start missing it. Then I’ll just tell myself to suck it up until next summer.
I tell myself it’s like looking back and wishing you were 20 years younger (and 20 pounds lighter!). You sort of wish you could go back, yet you know that you might not end up where you are now. Better to embrace the lessons you’ve learned along the way, and make peace with your older self. It’s nice to visit, but ‘home’ has become where my immediate family is. Great post.