About a week before I was due to come home, I either got pink eye or some weird bruise on my right eye.  I know, story of my life.  Either way, I was forced to take out my contact lenses.  Although I had glasses to wear, I never see as clearly through them as I do when I have my contacts in.  Everything was blurry. 

It’s been a few days since I’ve been home.  I’m not going to lie; it hasn’t been easy.  The entire time I was organizing myself to leave Australia, I kept saying things like, “Well, I know I’ll be fine, because I have a great home life.”  And while this is true, I completely ignored the fact that coming home might take some adjusting.  So when I got here, I was ill-prepared for the reality of the situation.

I forced myself to see some friends the night I got back.  This was my first mistake.  Through my fuzzy vision and my sleep-deprived state of mind, nothing was making sense.  Each time I thought of Australia, I would tear up.  My friends joked about it because they thought I was just delirious from the flight, and that may have been part of the problem.  But what I realized after careful consideration was that this wasn’t just jet-lag.

I realized life had gone on without me.  Some of my friends had formed new relationships, while others had completely rid themselves of old ones.  Is it possible that all of this occurred while I was across the world?

The next day I completely isolated myself.  I went for a long run to try to sort out my thoughts.  It helped, but not by much.  I then did as much research I could on what is commonly called “reverse culture shock” or “re-entry shock.”  Finally, things started making sense.  When I left here to go to Australia, I obviously knew that things were going to be different.  I was as ready as I could be to come face-to-face with a new culture.  It was, after all, the reason I wanted to study abroad in the first place.

What I didn’t think enough about was the fact that, after almost 5 months, Australia had become my new home.  I had become accustomed to its culture.  So, in a sense, coming back to the United States wasn’t a return for me; I was actually going somewhere new again.  And unfortunately, it took me a couple of days to come to this conclusion.

Now that I’ve done some research and finally gotten a full night of sleep, I think I’m ready to face this situation.  It’s not going to be easy, but I’m going to slowly reintroduce myself to this town, this island, and this way of life. 

Today my eye is feeling better.  Whatever bruise or infection was hurting me is at last gone.  I’m ready to put my contact lenses back in and see clearly again.