People say that when you’re born in a burning house you think the whole world is on fire. I find myself revisiting this idea from my time in India.
In India it was much more obvious. I always use the story about the night sky; the fact that there’s so much light pollution in India that I basically never got to see the stars. Well after some time of not seeing the stars, I missed them a lot. I felt feelings like frustration and sadness and remorse because it seemed like the 1.4 billion people in India had no idea how beautiful and healing the stars were.
Anyways, here I’m revisiting this same feeling. If I knew how to word it in Spanish, I think I would ask “how are you able to live in an environment without ________?” out of pure curiosity. The blank could be filled in with things like safety, independence, privacy, quietness, bare feet, mountains, good coffee, a toaster or a dishwasher, etc..
Well, the obvious answer is that there’s nothing different for people who have always been the same. But this is my version of culture shock. There’s so much that’s different for me, and sometimes it feels a bit like I’ve lost all of these things that used to benefit my life. And now what do I do? How do I live without these things? Well, I have to change my perspective. I have to take off my impossible-to-take-off red white and blue tinted glasses. I have to push restart.
I’m writing about this now because after 2 months (!!!!) I think I’ve kind of figured it out a little bit. With the help of time and my beloved journal, I’m learning how to live in this so-called “new life” and I think I’m doing pretty well given the circumstances.
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