in which the Vaunter comes home to roost

Well, I'm back. I survived 13 nonconsecutive hours on various jet planes to get back to the U.S.A. The family reunion in Iowa is over. The journey home to California is complete. The sun has risen on a new day. The valley looks the same as ever as I gaze down upon it through a shimmering veil of heat waves. That blasting desert sun is the same muted, nebulous thing that shone upon me in Seoul, but undiluted by haze or moisture. The skies are blue, my eyes are dry and my hay fever's resurgent, but at least I'm no longer caked in sweat. (It evaporates almost instantly.)

I didn't expect there to be much difference between this short sojourn home (after 18 months abroad) than there was when I came home Korea the first time (after only a year)...but there is a difference. Odd feelings and sensations are crowding upon my consciousness. Circumstances are much changed from my innocuous return to the U.S. in July of 2009 (four years ago!) and things just aren't the same.

There's the obvious, of course: Miss H isn't here. It certainly is strange—and crushingly lonely—to drive around this town and know she isn't here. Looking up at the stars (most of which I haven't seen in 18 months) without her feels very wrong.

When I returned home in 2009 and lived with my parents for the ensuing two and a half years, the adjustment was practically seamless. My old toothbrush was still in its drawer. My furniture and possessions were still in my old room. My toiletries were still in the bathroom shower, and my clothes were still hung up in the closet. This time around, in 2013, only my easy chair and bed remain. My stuff's packed in boxes in the garage or shed. (Part of my to-do list while I'm home is sorting through that junk and retrieving the unread books and other items I want to take back to Korea with me.)

My old room is now no longer "my old room," you see? It's a guest room, nothing more. The spare bathroom is stark and barren, the old tile ripped up in anticipation of its replacement, my toothbrush drawer shanghaied for other purposes. This house has completed its awkward transition to empty nest.

I'm almost 27, and this process doesn't bother me unduly. But it's more than that. It's not that I don't feel like I belong here, don't get me wrong. On the contrary—I hardly belong anywhere else. It feels great to be back. It's great to see the folks after so long, to reconnect with good friends, to sit down in old haunts and taste familiar brews. But that's exactly what's so strange. I feel like I belong to two worlds. It's like I'm being pulled in opposite directions, as though disparate facets of my soul are engaged in a tug-of-war for my psyche. One is the hard-bitten California desert rat, with his sunglasses and his guns and an airplane and a banged-up Jeep; and the other is the globe-trotting expatriate, the dauntless English teacher entrenched in South Korea, taking field trips to Japan and China in his sweat-stained safari jacket, a fedora on his head and shabby boots on his feet, a roll of gimbap in one hand and a camera in the other.

This is the first time I've ever felt like this, and it's weird. My soul is in flux, my mindset is mutable, and (jet lag aside) I'm restless as hell. It's a tricky situation. My to-do list is lengthy and various: I want to sort through my stuff, see the dentist and the optometrist and the chiropractor, talk to the bank (and my nearest Verizon rep), and purchase a crap-ton: laptop cooling pad, digital SLR, podcast equipment, and who knows what else. I also need to relax, of course: that's the point of a vacation. But I just can't seem to do one or the other. I'll get up and wander around, wanting to be productive, but not willing to venture out into the 99-degree heat. So I'll sit down, and try to write or YouTube or play games, but soon I'll lose interest and be on my feet again. It seems the insidious cocktail of jet lag, reverse culture shock, and loneliness is contrary to the spirit of a vacation. 

So, here I am—your humble correspondent, back in the land of his birth (well, lengthiest residence, at least). The next few days will be spent centering myself, eating my mum's home cooking, watching bad daytime TV, making delicious sandwiches with real cheese and honey ham, and getting up the gumption to pursue that to-do list. Over the next three weeks, I'll be sipping my dad's home-brewed beers, reading Ben-Hur, gouging away at Novel #3, sorting through dusty boxes, sitting in the rope chair on the back porch, listening to the hummingbirds and coyotes and cactus wrens, taking walks in the evenings, missing my girl and my squid-rice, loving the California sunsets, and venturing out at night like some crawling desert creature.

Wish me luck...