Homesickness

I have a confession to make: I haven't posted in awhile because...well...I've been homesick.

I don't get it...I've now been travelling the world for a year and a half, gone through three jobs in that time, done battle with corporate China, and overcome a long and debilitating bout of thyroid disease. I have managed to do all this totally alone. And not once during these struggles have I ever thought about going home. Not once. Nor have I ever longed for my home country, it's bleak employment scene, or the broken family I left behind.

At first I thought I was experiencing some sort of delayed culture shock: ten months in, everything about Cambodia is annoying me. Motodops, workplace hierarchies, students, bosses, groceries, rich people, poor people, security guards, corruption, cars parked in stupid places, even that stinky rat that's been decaying on the sidewalk down the road from me for the last nine days. Everything and everyone has been rubbing me the wrong way.

In short, the magical paint with which my mind gilded Cambodia has been knocked off. But does culture shock happen after you've lived in a country for nearly a year? Someone recommended "expatriate burnout", and maybe that's my problem. Or maybe it's just my imperfectly-healed thyroid again, who knows?

The bottom line is, it's made me long for my home in the Ohio River valley, half a world away. I miss wide open spaces and egalitarianism. I miss people actually being able to conceive of the fact that I'm not rich. I miss the feeling of not being a hulking giant. I miss being involved in anti-climate change action, and I miss talking to other native speakers of English, in English.

While Phnom Penh can offer a great quality of life for a relatively low cost, it is not my home, and will never be my home. I'm really feeling that reality right now. And for some reason, that has rendered me unable to write blog entries.

Maybe I need to get out of town for a few days...