A Stranger at Home

We have now been back in the States for a month.

Even after spending six months back last fall, I feel like a stranger in my home culture.  Re-entry is going to take so much longer than I ever anticipated.  Grieving leaving Italy is going to be so much harder than I ever anticipated.

All packed up.  So weird to see our apartment empty.  I am missing the view from our living room window immensely.

"Normal" things in our lives: The kids are enjoying their new school and seem to be doing well.  Gavin is playing organized soccer and thrives at it.  The big kids already have friends who come over to play after school.  Ben got to have lunch twice with Papa at Chick-Fil-A last week.  We grilled thick bacon-wrapped steaks last week and savored every last char-grilled bite.  Cody is loving carpooling into the office.  We visit Target just about every other day.  We comment, just about every day, on how thankful we are for air conditioning in our apartment.

And we've been to DisneyWorld twice (we got season passes, as a part of our internship)!  Granted, I think we might have scarred Ben from ever going on another ride after the Pirates of the Caribbean kind of freaked him out, but he could ride the train that circles the Magic Kingdom all day long.

The kids on their first day of school

Not-normal things in our lives: We hear so much Spanish here (which is very close to Italian) that sometimes our brains are quite confused as to what language to reply in.  I am paralyzed by what to buy at the grocery store--somehow I've forgotten how to cook American food.  I'm aghast at the price and quality of the pasta here.  Our kids complain almost every day they have to eat lunch at school--they've become total foodies.  We stay at home on Sunday afternoons because we forget things are open in America on Sundays.  When I pick up the phone, I find myself still rehearsing how I would ask for what I want in Italian.  I still can't bring myself to touch produce when buying it, since that's a major taboo in Italy--I pick everything up with the bag you purchase it in.  And I find myself a little disgusted with all the people who are putting their hands on the apples I might buy!

I know one day our normals will outweigh the not-normals.  But I also know we are permanently different than we were when we left for Italy three years ago.  We will always be part-Italian now.  I wish figuring out what that looked like didn't feel so strange, but it comforts me to know we don't have to leave Italy across the ocean.

And soon more of it will be arriving at our doorstep! We got word our container arrived in Miami last week.  We're just waiting for it to be cleared through customs so we can sleep in our own beds again and unpack the treasures we picked up while we were there.  Hopefully it will be delivered next week. . .