Vacation!

In about a week and a day, I will be going back to the United States of America. I am really excited to see family, friends, and to eat some good old fashion American cuisine, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. It is something I often feel when I return to the states, but this time it feels a bit stronger. It is probably because I usually wait only a year to go back, and this time the wait was about 6 months longer. I also feel like since I have changed so much in the past year and a half, that perhaps those familiar people and places will have changed as well.

Who am I kidding though? Once I come back, I will probably go back to the person that everybody knows back home, and then the people will say that one phrase, “Wow, you haven’t really changed that much at all!” or some variation of that. For most people, how a person acts and defines themselves actually starts at a very young age. Any changes after that usually just fit the base that a person built in their childhood. This is not to say that how a person is raised determines their future (or should I say fate?), but it certainly can effect it. But does that mean I haven’t changed at all? I don’t think so. It is just that what has changed is just not all that apparent sometimes.

Maybe a part of that is also a part of confirmation bias. People are more willing to see things that confirm their hypotheses than to see anything that defies it. Or maybe it goes deeper than that. Maybe，in my heart of hearts, I really want to be seen as the same person I was a year ago because I value the familiar and respect the years of memories I have had with all those people. Perhaps it is that familiarity that allows old friends and family the ability to talk to each other as if nothing had changed that allows them to be intimate enough to be able to see what indeed has changed.

It is that mix of old and new I am hoping when I come back. It will probably be harder this year to get with friends and family due to everybody living so far apart, but I’ll try my best to see people. Hopefully my peeps have not been turned into pod people or some other science fiction metaphor for communists, but even then I hope that I would gain some knowledge about how our friendship could have possibly affected this new direction in life. I just hope I can live up to people’s expectations while possibly jet-lagged, possibly sick, and possibly have the worst back pain (those airplane seats for 14 hours can be a killer), but hey, the best way to see who your true friends are is to see how they act when you aren’t 100%. Or is that just the best way to find out which one of your friends has the best medical and/or psychological training? I guess there is only one way to find out! See you on the other side of the Atlantic!