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re-entry shock

i'm back on the north american continent, re-entry shock / reverse culture shock in full swing.... the initial textbook-case 'euphoria' stage of my return was short-lived, followed by the deeply painful state i now find myself in...

pervasive feelings of grief wash over me (missing my students and friends and life in korea)and i feel raw. the 'normal' has been rendered strange to me now (though at least the jet-lag has finally abated). i struggle to find words to write here to do any of it justice, my fingers sit uselessly on the keyboard as i stare with unfocused eyes at the rhythmic pulse of the cursor (it is the perfect silent metronome for my mute mental dance). there are no words for this volume of feeling, so many layers at once--there's a roaring cacophony in my subconscious that i can barely stand yet am unable to suppress.

limitless free time... i'm without a life and everyone else is busy living theirs--i feel like i've fallen into some void between 'there' and 'here' and 'past' and 'present'... i move out of sync and time with the world around me... i'm processing, having weird nightmares, crying easily, laughing rarely, feeling lost in the midst of the familiar and alienated on a deep level which does not correspond to the physical reality of my life here. apparently what i am going through is normal, which gives me comfort and the hope that it will eventually get better...

(there is so much more to say and yet i don't know how to. such irony that now, back in the country of my own language, words fail me utterly.)

before = after