To Be Called "Foreigner"

Frau Eilken said to me,

"There comes a point where you have to ask yourself...

If you're willing to never be home again,

If you want to be called 'foreigner' for the rest of your life,

And let it define you..."

Ha! I always wanted to be the 'foreigner', or something equally as strange, as mysterious. Now when the time comes, how can I be frightened of it?

I may not feel as though the United States are truly HOME, as they should be... I don't feel the spirits of my ancestors in the earth or feel this incredible sense of belonging or identity...

I chase this dream, that somewhere in the world there is a place that I can call home... but it cannot truly be. I am expecting to much from home, as I expect too much from family and even from community.

At my age, no one knows with certainty quite where they belong. Leave it to me to make a mountain out of a mole-hill, to make it a national question where most people content themselves with changing their lunch table. I'm such a shameless dreamer...

I chase this dream even knowing that if I leave America I'll leave the closest thing I have to home, imperfect as it may be. I scan everywhere and pass nowhere, except in the one place I don't scan at all, the one place I'd like to repudiate. America may already be in my blood... not deep but deep enough, deeper than aught else.

"Have you ever wondered..."

My mom said,

"If the problem isn't everyone else...

But if the problem was you..."