Reverse Culture Shock?

In 10 days I’ll be standing where I haven’t stood for the last 2 1/2 years… My former home Arkansas USA.  Hard for me to even imagine how I’m going to be feeling. I don’t know if I miss it or loathe it or what.

I just know that I’m going to be there and I have this eerie feeling in my gut that after all the nostalgia, I’m going to be let down.  When I first came to Berlin I suffered somewhat badly from culture shock.

Hated every one and everything. Now after 2 1/2 years it’s starting to really feel like my home and I have only my in-laws to thank for that. They have done nothing but bend over backwards for Steffi and me and even regard me as their own child. *tear* My father-in-law is probably the most generous man that I know. He has a really big heart and over time he’s made himself a niche in the corner of mine. My mother-in-law has also taken a liken to me. Since I started this school I really feel that their on the side lines rooting me own. Even if they don’t say it in so many words. That’s kind of the point, they speak to me with what they do and not with what they say. It’s a sort of quiet confidence that I have come to deeply respect from them. I guess I could even say that I love them. I like my sister in law also but haven’t had the chance to spend very much time with her. So as I prepare to go home for the first time in a long time it’s also at a point in my life that I realize that there’s a second family that loves me just as much as the first one and I feel really torn between the two.

Till next time

Tony

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