active or passive? Are there stages of assimilation, like grief? At
what point are you considered to be assimilated--is it when you are
familiar with something, when you are comfortable with it, or when you
are accepted into it? When you are assimilated, have you gained
something, or lost something? Can you feel like you belong to two
cultures, or neither?
Obviously there is a reason for this: Just as I am feeling comfortable
with Britain, I've started tackling a new religion, Jess and I are
moving into a new house, and I'm about to move on to a new project at
work. That's a lot to assimilate, and my instinct is not to open
myself up to it, but to close off and try to control it. Small
changes are an irritant; large changes overwhelming
Each time I move, I find myself going back to my old area to run
errands, because I know where things are. When I got to London, I
clung to the US, watched US news, and began every other sentence with,
"In the States..." It took me a year to be familiar with British
customs, and two years to be comfortable with them. Today, I feel
assimilated, but I'm not fully accepted--my accent marks me, and many
people assume I'll be returning to the States someday. However, I no
longer feel like I'm part of the US, either.
I remember stuggling so hard to say things like 'cheers' and now I say
it automatically--even when I'm in the States! I think differently, I
dress differently, I behave differently -- nothing dramatic, but
enough for me to notice -- and if I can no longer define myself by
these superficial things, I have to dig deeper to find the real me.
And I can't help but wonder, as more and more of my life changes, what
I will eventually be left with.
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