Growing up in the Northeast region of America, I was always under the impression that my little world is quite historical. While my tiny hometown might be awfully suburban in its mundane way of life, the houses date back to the American Revolution, are built into the rolling hills of the natural landscape, and vary in shape and size. Native Americans walked the same paths I tramped along every morning on my way to school and Thomas Edison once shared the same view of the sunset I’m currently watching from my bedroom window. I grew up feeling as if I was constantly breathing in my beloved country’s past, connecting me to my ancestors who bravely embarked on a voyage to a mysterious land.
The American adventurousness permeating my heritage acted as an inspiration to me, propelling me to take advantage of every chance I was given to explore a new horizon. I rode a trolley in San Francisco, kayaked between islands of the San Juan Islands, hiked the Colorado Mountains, experienced the never-ending starry skies of Texas, swatted mosquitoes in New Orleans, and went to college in snowy Maine. But these adventures were all rooted in my homeland, treks to different parts of the United States that allowed me some comfort in knowing that, not only were my family and friends connected to me through the mass of land under our feet, but the memory of my American ancestors was also was constantly with me. After seeing much of the Land of the Free in my early life, my American footloose spirit led farther than the borders of the United States and to my travelling abroad in search of my own personal “New World.”
From the very first moment I stepped off the plane in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, my new home, I felt my spirit dip and soar. This was the first time my feet were on a ground untouched by anyone from my direct past or present—a land that had the potential to be my own. For the first time, I was completely disconnected from my roots, both physically and figuratively, a feeling that was both emancipating, as well as terrifying. Slowly, as I settled into my new life in the UK, the initial feelings of discomfort dwindled, until I found myself hopelessly in love with my independence, and each daily unknown – between figuring out what to make myself for dinner or figuring out a reasonable cost for shampoo – became an undertaking on which I was eager to embark.
No longer did I shy away from going somewhere on my own. I spent hours and days walking the winding streets and alleys of my medieval city with only an iPod for company, marveling as secret after secret revealed itself to me. The street on which I was living once harbored victims of the Black Plague, my neighborhood had been a center for the events of the Scottish Reformation, and my university acted as a driving intellectual force in the Scottish Enlightenment. The extensive history of my new city burst past the constraining wall of 1776, opening up an expanded world of mystery that enriched my outlook on the world. The more immersed I became in the city’s culture, my American spirit was joined with a British one—my adventurousness for new, unexplored horizons was joined by a solemn respect for traditions and the past.
However, as I mentioned, my spirit not only soared while abroad, it also dipped. While this spiritual dip had to do with the everyday worries of living alone, it also was so much more than that. For the first few months I was abroad, my ardent romance with my newfound British life was unconscious and I was unaware of the change in myself. I thought my initial unfailing happiness had more to do with the tangible, physical sights I was seeing and experiences I was having, and less to do with the deeper emotional relationship I was building with a city that began to bring out new and unique qualities in myself.
Yet, as the months went on, and my return home began to loom near, I began to recognize that ending my affair with Edinburgh would have a violently damaging effect on my understanding of the person I had become. I began to recognize that, without a doubt, I loved my independent city life, but, moreover, the place became an integral part of my identity. Not to get too cheesy, but it felt as if leaving Edinburgh would spiritually tear me apart. Every day, I fell in love with the Scottish cobblestoned streets again, but there was also an underlying and nagging understanding that my days in Great Britain were numbered. More than anything, I began to view America as no longer a safe haven, but a foreboding mass that would soon imprison me.
Adventuring in my New World freed me in many ways, but the overall experience also wounded my outlook on my home country. When the long-dreaded time came for me to return to America, I ripped the Band-Aid off and refused to even look at Edinburgh getting smaller and smaller as the plane flew farther into the sky. The pollution from New Jersey’s smokestacks callously welcomed me home, and I wanted nothing more than to run back onto the next flight back to Scotland, to find refuge in its clean, rainy air and heathered mountains.
The first month at home helped me understand the phrase “reverse culture shock.” It’s defined as: “The shock suffered by some people when they return home after a number of years overseas. This can result in unexpected difficulty in readjusting to the culture and values of the home country, now that the previously familiar has become unfamiliar.” I no longer appreciated or identified with the scrappy, fearless American way of life – I longed to don a Barbour coat and live as a no-nonsense, witty Brit for the rest of my days. I became unimpressed with America’s short past, as it was diminished in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle and the United Kingdom’s far-reachinglong history.
But as time heals every wound, soon my reverse culture shock left less of a gnawing, gaping hole in my heart, and slowly became a dull, throbbing injury. The moment I truly began to rekindle my relationship with America was largely in part to my summer spent at Amherst College in Western Massachusetts. The ghosts of many American greats, such as Emily Dickinson, Noah Webster, and Robert Frost, were present in the small, rural town, and their brilliance slowly worked their way back into my consciousness, reminding me of the many unparalleled accomplishments of those who share my nationality. Not only did the ghosts of the American past remind me of the many wonders of America, but the beautiful New England landscape also chipped away at the ice that had set in my heart. And, to be honest, being able to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July and developing a growing obsession with the Hamilton soundtrack also surely had an effect on my being able to forgive the shortcomings of America.
The reverse culture shock has faded, but Edinburgh’s effect has not completely left me. I still find myself longing for the sensation of absolute freedom and historical wonder I felt while living in the city, but I also have moments where I find myself swelling with patriotism while “watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast,” (to quote Kerouac, of course). Perhaps loving a country’s culture is not mutually exclusive, and it is possible, and beneficial, to identify with more than one place. My relationship with America is still constantly changing, but I suppose it’s important to remember that, while I have my whole life to travel and build relationships with various new places, I only have one home country.