Culture Shock?

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 8

When the kids´school held its August orientation for parents who were new to Barcelona, they invited an American woman who has been here for 18 years—a therapist—to talk about culture shock.  I paid close attention—for my kids’sake, not for myself.  I remember that she said it takes about six months to adjust to a new culture, and up to two years (!) to feel like you are really living someplace.  It seemed awfully long to me.

It took going back to the states a couple of weeks ago for me to realize just how much cultural adjustment I´ve been going through.  I felt oddly relaxed, perhaps because I wasn´t translating all of my thoughts into Spanish, perhaps because I just knew where to go for things I needed, perhaps because I got to hang out with people I love and who have known me for a very long time.

The thing is, if you asked me to make a list of things that have been difficult about moving to Barcelona, I would have a hard time completing the task.  It´s nothing that obvious.  And when I think about what I miss about my life in New York City, aside from my friends, my bathtub, and pizza by the slice, there is not much I can name.

So I found it interesting to make the realization that, below the surface, there is a whole lot of adjusting going on, and that it takes this much time.  After all, it was my idea to come here for the year.  I am hardly one of those “trailing spouses” one hears so much about who gets dragged from country to country for their (usually “her”) partner’s job, caught in an endless cycle of setting up home and working to create some sort of normalcy in a foreign land.

Perhaps it’s the word “shock” that I have a hard time with.  A shock is sudden, jolting, noticeable.  For me, it’s been much more stealthy.  And yet it’s there.  Even if you are the architect of the change that occurs in your life, it’s still change.