"Lost in the Supermarket"

Below is an article I recently wrote for an expatriate newsletter on repatriation since I couldn't bring myself to send the one titled Like A Wrecking Ball. Enjoy!

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There’s an old song by the Clash (okay so that’s a bit of an oxymoron – anyone who knows the Clash knows it is old) but I digress… So there’s this song that has been running through my head almost daily since we, ugh, “repatriated” (don’t you hate that word?). Maybe you remember it (“I’m all lost in the supermarket, I can no longer shop happily”..)? The song comes to me, like a haunting - without warning, in my very large car, in a very large parking lot, with other very large cars closing in on my space and judging my hesitancy (I’m sorry but I haven’t driven in three years okay?!!).

Mostly it comes to me as I stand there in the cereal aisle of a larger-than-my-college-campus-H.E.B, in a fog, wondering what could possibly have been wrong with the original Cheerios. Why are there 15? Is nothing sacred?! Yes, there are fifteen different types of Cheerios. I actually went to the website for the purposes of this article to check. Fifteen. (Dulche de Leche? Seriously?) And there I am – in a repatriated stupor in the supermarket. And here comes the song (“And the silence makes me lonely”). It’s tragic really. But no more tragic than the fact that I’ve just spent the last three years in Lagos dreaming about food; dreaming about shopping for food; dreaming about eating American food and all the choices that come with it.

This basically sums up repatriation for me. It is a nonsensical roller coaster. And it is far more intense and scarier than I anticipated. It’s a rollercoaster of every emotion possible - sadness, fear, anger, happiness, frustration, with a hearty side order of soon-to-be-doomed-expectations. Some days I am riding the euphoric high of Americana (the movie theatre has waiters? And wine?! ) The next day is a kick in the gut (what do you mean our public school has a wait list?). Actually several days (weeks?) have felt that way. Can we please discuss the special type of Hell that is the DMV? Getting my license, getting the car, getting the car insurance, finding a pediatrician, finding a dentist, finding the health insurance cards, understanding the health insurance cards – it is exhausting. And it is certainly not the warm welcome you hope for when you return to a place everyone but you calls Home.

Friends and family don’t always understand either. They assume we are happy (nay, thrilled!) to be “out of there”, out of harm’s way, and finding some “normalcy” (I’m starting to loathe that word) when in reality I miss my friends desperately. I miss my driver. And our nanny. I miss the nail lady (and the waxer, the masseuse, the plumber) that came to our house. I even miss the annoying estate manager constantly trying to fumigate our flat or clean the air cons. I miss our old life every day. I know I should be grateful for all the wonderful advantages our home country has to offer (family, friends, a malaria-free environment) but I’m just not there yet.

Years ago, I read that famous book “A Moveable Marriage” (c’mon, you know you have it too) and the chapter on reverse culture shock. I scoffed and snickered at the image of the newly repatriated “trailing spouse” (ick! Can we please do away with that word? Geez.) who can’t even operate the dish washer and vowed that would never be me.

Says the woman staring blankly at 15 boxes of Cheerios…