Foreigner

I often wonder who I am: a mother, a wife, an employee, a friend, a daughter, a confidant, a citizen, a human. How does one define one’s own existence in a single attribute? Is there really a need to do so? Our own psyche is so fragile, that we need to label its infinite spirals in order to bring some order to our dispersed souls.

It was a bright winter’s morning, mixed with diamond shaped sun-rays and intricate snow-flakes, blanketing the windshield, making the drive a bit tough, but quite enjoyable. The deep blue intoxication of a winter’s smell drew the blinds of my mind to open and I was engulfed in coldness of the moment, elevated to a more leveled moment of existence.

As always, NPR was on and I was attentively picking up bits and pieces of social events, reducing their meaning to a mere highlight. The news did not seem to spike the attention level, yet personal accounts always seem to be a bit deeper, a bit more human, if you will. A voice came on the radio, with a familiar Indian accent. I perked up, eagerly awaiting a colorful story of the foreign land, through the eyes of the native. Yet, what I got was totally different. It was a view of the foreign land through the eyes of its native, but with a lens of an American.

Not only did the story strike a note, but it also felt familiar. The narrator described his ‘removal’ from the Indian society once he has immigrated to the States and almost an outwardly experience when returning for a visit. His family did not think that he could any longer tolerate the street food. His friends did not think that he was up for indulging in the local entertainment. His motherland was treating him like a foreigner.

I thought about my own perils for the past 20 years. In 1990 my family and I immigrated to United States in hopes of finding that American Dream and living in the lap of luxury. Of course, as in any fairy tale, reality came knocking faster then we could learn the jargon and life took a shape of rather mundane existence. We were living in the same in the same air, in the same habitat….but, a whole new world. A world full of Barbie’s and over-sized drinks, packaged foods and poorly-built over-priced housing, racial ‘understated’ tension lingering from somewhat unsuccessful desegregation attempts in the South. This was a world where bigger was better, but bigger was also half-empty. This was a world that we did not understand, a world much like our own, only with a totally different logic and mentality.

Two decades have since passed and I am no longer a shy Russian immigrant, with inability to convey my thoughts and poorly stated English. I have gone through educational system, I have failed at many things, and I have over-come many problems. I am a product of an American society and proudly display it’s attributes on a daily basis. I am a citizen of this land and cherish my rights. Life is as good as I let it be.

So, why did the story strike such a bitter note? What made me reflect on the past 20 years with a minute dose of regret? Then, it hit me: I was an American…who will be a foreigner in her motherland. I was that person who would be treated as an outsider if return to Russia. I could no longer relate to lavish get up that every Russian woman would impose on herself, regardless of her mood. I could not relate to the bitter-sweet poetry of the Soviet era, regarding the government in its puny power-trip. I would no longer understand the numerous soirees which were a part of every-day Russian life, filled with salty foods and heavy liquor. I would no longer understand the fascination with driving the right car. My superficial radar was shut and I did not have the means to re-start it. It was forever gone and nothing could bring back that part of me. I realized the loss that occurred two decades ago. I felt its presence, like a ghost, lingering above me, laughing at my American persona.

I dream, speak, converse, argue, fight…lament in English. It is my mother-tongue, even if adopted. I have assumed the new shell so well that my old was no longer kept underneath. Instead of becoming Russian-American, I have become an American. Period. I have lost the intricate part of that 16 year old girl that set her sights high once upon a time in Orlando airport, wondering what Coca-Cola would taste like…

Two decades later…I know who I am – I am a foreigner, forever.