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Title : Melbourne: one year on
Link : Melbourne: one year on

Melbourne: one year on

; I read once that there is a Native American tribe who believe that when you travel, your soul follows you at walking pace. This imagery has always appealed to me, as I feel it captures the sense of displacement one has when arriving in a new place, especially to live. I was never sure in this myth whether the soul is supposed to keep walking relentlessly until it reaches you or whether it takes breaks for lunch, sleep, etc., nor whether it floats along as the crow flies or it needs to follow walking routes on dry land, but whichever way you slice it as I approach one year back in Melbourne I think my soul has finally caught back up with me.

Time to take stock.

I still miss Zurich. I think Zurich is a magical place; in a lot of ways, I wish I'd been born there. But because I wasn't, it was never going to feel quite like home. After five years we needed to decide whether to become eternal expats, or to come home to Melbourne before we'd lost too much connection with it. I can't say it's been easy, but I think we made the right decision. Still, I quite often think about Zurich and all the wonderful things we had there. In a way, I'm terrified of not missing Zurich any more. If that ever happens, it would mean that I feel separated from five important years in my life, and many people and experiences I care about a lot, and I don't want that to happen.

But I do finally feel like I'm back at home. In a lot of ways, Melbourne probably isn't quite as good a place to live as Zurich, but that's not what matters. Home is like family: you don't judge it (or at least, judging it is beside the point), it's just a part of you. It's been great reconnecting with the place I grew up, being in the same city as family and old friends and all the old landmarks of my life, not feeling like a foreigner or struggling with the language. And there is a lot to love about living here, too... just not the public transport!

Reverse culture shock is real. Reverse culture shock is a lot more insidious than "forward" culture shock. With culture shock, you step off the plane and are assaulted with everything that's different. It's a struggle at first to assimilate all the new stimuli, but as you adjust you become more comfortable. Reverse culture shock lures you into complacency with everything that's the same, but then the little cracks start appearing that remind you that time and place are inseparable, and that by being away you have become a foreigner. The shock slowly creeps in through these cracks. It takes time and patience to overcome this sense of otherness and to feel at home again.

Nobody cares what you did while you were gone. A big part of the reverse culture shock is this: people aren't really interested in your time living somewhere else. This may sound a little harsh, but basically it's just human. It's hard to take an interest in something that you can't relate to. None of our friends here have ever lived in Zurich, so although they took a superficial interest in our lives there, any in-depth story about the time we spent there (especially if it is a story about how great the public transport is) makes peoples' eyes glaze over. Those who have also been living away have some understanding of what it's like, but they have their own experiences that weren't the same as ours. This is all fair enough: when a number of our friends moved home from Canberra, we weren't very curious about their lives there, just glad to have them back. People are glad to have us back, which is nice, and it will be enough.

Same same, but different. Everything in Melbourne is pretty much the same as we left it, but this just acts to accentuate the little things that have changed. It's like those sci-fi stories where the hero finds themselves in a parallel universe where everything is exactly the same, except suddenly their shoes are a different colour. The little differences are jarring, and the jarring serves as a reminder that you were away and that it will take a while to become at one with the place again.

I'm not very good at staying in touch with people. One of the saddest things for me is how bad I have been at staying in touch with the people I care about who I left behind. It's all too easy for the wonderful life I had in Zurich, and the many great friends I made there, to all slip into the past as a closed book. I sincerely hope this doesn't happen, and I'll always have a connection to the people and the place. I think about people there all the time! Just somehow... I don't get in touch. I have to get better at that. And Zurich people: if you're reading this, don't be strangers! I'd love to hear from you.

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