Looking back, I think October/November was the time at which repatriation malaise – or reverse culture shock – set in. All of a sudden, it wasn’t exciting to be back any more. My timetable felt relentless in its routine and the workload was pretty heavy. It was around this time that I wrote my post about missing aspects of the States.
Looking back I was probably trying to do too much. It was a lot to go from a relatively leisured ex-pat partner lifestyle to suddenly having three jobs. To make up for work taking over my life I tried to schedule far too many social events, including weekends away to see friends in Sheffield and Kendal in a two-week period. As I mentioned in the last post, I was also having trouble reconciling the self I had rediscovered in London with the self I had spent two and a half years with in DC, and wondering what that time away had really been for…
There were good things about this period of course, like theatre trips, and autumn/winter walks, and stunning views.
We also made an effort to celebrate Halloween as we had in America – with pumpkin carving and chilli – and we enjoyed all the fireworks around London on Guy Fawkes night (Nov 5th) from our roof terrace. And it was still lovely to be spending so much time with family and friends.
But of course, right in the middle of this term came the American election result, and at that point I think we’d all had enough of 2016.
Related post: Missing the States
Repatriation malaise. I remember it well. And when the going gets tough, it comes back – repeatedly. But then, in my case at least, it also goes again. Though less often in these difficult Brexit times …
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