{"id":5837,"date":"2015-10-15T14:11:03","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T14:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/?p=5837"},"modified":"2015-10-15T14:23:25","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T14:23:25","slug":"being-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/?p=5837","title":{"rendered":"Being Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s good to be home, it\u2019s good to be home!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been five weeks since we landed and we\u2019re still a bit nomadic visiting family and friends all over the Midwest. We have signed a lease in our old apartment complex and I almost have a job squared away so our nomadic life is almost over. I am really, really, really, looking forward to a normal life. I traveled 50-75% of the time during my last 18 months of\u00a0my job, spent 13 months traveling around the world with Jacquelyn, and will have traveled around the US for around two months before finally settling down. After almost three years of being a nomad, my feet are no longer itchy and I\u2019m ready to have some sort of roots!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been fun to hear what we missed during the last 13 months and catch up with the people who mean the most to us. I thought we did OK keeping up with what was happing back in the US but it\u2019s clear we missed a lot. I\u2019m happy we\u2019ve had a handful of weeks to catch up with family and friends before jumping back into real life!<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t had any real difficulty coming back to the US and haven\u2019t had \u2018reverse culture shock\u2019 at all. I have a couple theories why: 1) we never had time to fully adapt to a different culture since we moved around so much, 2) we were ready to come home. The most difficult issue I encountered, driving on the correct side of the road, is no longer a problem so I\u2019d say we didn\u2019t have any problems returning and were able to sort of pick up from where we left off.<\/p>\n

The weirdest thing I encountered was realizing I have lost A LOT of English words. This has been especially difficult when interviewing for technical positions as there\u2019s a lot of words I haven\u2019t used for some time so I\u2019ve had a difficult time explaining technical\/complex problems simply because I\u2019ve lost the words! But that\u2019s not the worst, the worst is forgetting simple words like \u2019rust\u2019; I\u2019ve had to resort to saying things, \u2018that red stuff that grows on metal when it\u2019s wet\u2019. It has been surprising to say the least.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m happy we came back to the US in the fall. It\u2019s been great weather so far and I\u2019ve been able to enjoy some hiking, star gazing, and beautiful leaves. Overall, it\u2019s great to be back :).<\/p>\n

Enjoy the photos!<\/p>\n

Chris W.<\/p>\n

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