Thoughts from CA: A Feeling of Home

I've written at length at how worried I had been about coming home from Korea to find that my hometown no longer felt like my hometown. It might have been born out of necessity, but in the weeks and months leading up to my final departure from the ROK, I was so looking forward to coming home and experiencing all that was good and comforting about my hometown. I was eager to celebrate everything that was different from Korea and Seoul. And I wanted that elusive but intimate feeling of belonging. I mean, I was about to turn in everything I had going for me in Korea and travel thousands of miles away... there had to be something to make it worth my while. I did try, I swear I did, to temper my enthusiasm so I wouldn't feel too disappointed when the romanticized idea of my triumphant return didn't pan out to be what I wanted it to be. But as with everything, hope survives.

And so it should come as no surprise to anyone that the reality of my homecoming was slightly different that my expectations. My biggest worry--that I would not actually feel that sense of belonging--came true and I felt strange and awkward in my hometown. I felt too big, too fast, too loud, and the city too small, too quiet, too slow. I was out of sorts.

I didn't want to move to New York. That wasn't the plan. I wanted to sink my heels in California and start to build my life there. So I wasn't thrilled to come to New York, but I am so so glad I did. As with all travels, you often discover the most about yourself through the unexpected and the unplanned, and sometimes you end up being in the place you didn't know you most needed to be.

It was a couple days into my week in California, during the rehearsal dinner for wedding #2, and the bride-to-be's father and the groom-to-be were giving short speeches to all the family and friends that had gathered in the big room of a local restaurant. That intimate warmth of family and friends--of belonging, of happiness and joy, of home--permeated the atmosphere that made smiles and laughter contagious among all our faces. It hit me then, so profoundly and so assuredly, the feeling of belonging that had eluded me until then. It wasn't my family that I was surrounded by, but in a very real way, I was. These were people to whom I had a lifetime of connections with, people who rooted me to San Diego and made the place come alive. No matter where my travels took me, they gave me a reason to always come back home, they kept my feet grounded in a place that was real; they didn't let me float aimlessly forever. Finally, finally, and I was overcome with gratitude that I still had a place here. That I still belonged.

I also realized that I'm grateful to New York. As much as I felt out of sorts in San Diego, I felt nearly at home in New York. People are often surprised that I am not head over heels in love with New York, or that I am not, at the very least, amazed or impressed by the city. I am, frequently and often, impressed by New York. New York is a very impressive place. But for me, New York has served as a transition city and has been instrumental in my reacclimatization. It's a big enough city to make me feel small again, and gives me all the luxuries I had grown used to in living in Seoul, and yet, it is still in the US. I don't think there's another city in the US that could have helped my with my reverse-cultural shock in the way that New York has. I credit me returning to equilibrium as quickly as I have to being in this city. As I said, it was exactly where I needed to be.

That being said, I am so in love with California. This time around, I was really able to take in everything about my hometown and feel immensely attached to it. As many times as I've boarded planes at the San Diego International Airport to leave it all behind, I have to say that stepping through security this last time to come back to New York was one of the hardest trips I've had to do. I wasn't ready to go; I didn't want to leave. I had just reclaimed my love for CA and been claimed by it, and I honestly toyed with the idea of just not getting on the plane.

So where does that leave me? I feel like now, everything is geared towards finding my way back in California. It's the place I so desperately want to be.