the storm comes just the same...

(written January 10, 2008 @ 1:00am)

Even if the timing was right, I don't think I could go back.

Some days it's an adventure, other days it feels like some kind of experiment -
or just the way things are.

It's only 1am, my first day back.
I slept from an hour past the time we arrived yesterday and this very minute.
Jet lag is a funny a thing - so I guess I am awake again until god knows when.

And even though I have barely stepped foot back in our house, the heavy feeling of life as an expat in Austria - for me - is the one thing that has already landed.
Although my mind and heart are still cozy and warm with my niece Maya on the couch or sitting up late watching movies with my mom, somewhere in this sleepy body there is full understanding it's time to return.

I am so zoned out. After a harrowing 3 long flights with 4 overweight bags, major delays, a not so great long haul to Paris and a bag (suspected bomb) being blown up in the Paris airport while we were there - I am sitting upright in my own bed, with my own covers still wondering how 3 weeks flew so fast and I am back to life in Europe.

Every year heading out for my 6+ months touring and living in England, I would leave the earliest say, May. Sometimes April but usually May was the soonest. So it feels completely unnatural to say the least, that's it's only January and I am back on foreign soil.
The longer I live here - fly out and return, the weirder it gets living abroad.
And even though I have technically been living abroad almost 5 years now, having bought a place and gotten married & being officially in a foreign-speaking country, has made it seem more permanent then ever.

Each time I return to the US or vice versa, I notice more and more things about life in America, life in Europe and myself than I ever imagined. Changes have taken place in both parts of the country that I see so much clearer now. Some things have stayed that same but the way I see them and how they, it or whatever that is affects me, is almost a full 360 degree turn.
Consumerism in America. Drivers and roads, personalities and peoples need to connect, wearing their loneliness on their faces so prominently there is just no way I can miss it, ignore it. That last remark? I am talking about watching the faces in America. I know that's a worldwide statement but I feel the 'coming at me' for it so much more in my homeland.

And because it's the middle of the night and I only went from the airport, to the autobahn to bed, I can't pin down what I see and feel about Austria at this exact moment - but I can tell you the longer I am permanently away (as in not just leaving knowing I will go back and live half the year in the US or for however long) the harder it gets both returning and imagining life in America again - and on the opposite end, coming back home to Europe where my life is now being lived, full-time and imagining never living in America again also throws me off. I feel like I don't have a country or a home - even though home is clearly here in Innsbruck.

When I go back to America, I don't feel home anymore. When I come back to Europe I know I am supposed to but I still question it. And even though I have both traveled far and lived in many different states in America, the things I am seeing and learning now as an expat, are incomparable.

Life as an expat is lived in so many strange stages. And when you are not just passing through as an 8-month student, a tourist or even a half a year resident as I was in England, it can all be such a huge confusing adventure and as I said before, experiment. Some days I am living in the adventure mode and am completely happy to be learning German, acclimating to the Austrians and lifestyle here. Other days, it feels like I'm in a living thesis, just hunting and gathering information, sounds and photos in my mind for later use. And as a songwriter and writer, I suppose that makes sense and it's just what I am doing and have always been doing - but at the end of the day, at times, that is what keeps my homesickness for my family and old life in the US at bay. Knowing I as my mom always says about writing, am just hunting and gathering for the big storm.

And isn't that what we are all doing anyway? What you do with your goods is up to you and who you are.

The storm comes just the same.