Reverse Culture Taser pt. 2

Static pierces my eardrums as I scan through the radio stations in search of anything remotely appealing to my hearing.  Aha! Could it be? Yep. It was that familiar accordion instrumental I’ve grown to love while in Spain that could only belong to the song “Stereo Love”.  That melody immediately brought me back to my Spanish life. My friends’ faces popped up in my head almost immediately, all of them smiling as they danced to this catchy tune.  Man those discotecas were to epic, especially when I was with my team. Now it was in Spain that I heard that song for the first time, and it sure is guilty by association.

Then, I happened to hear “Barbra Steisand” at the mall this weekend.  The melody swirled into my ear canal almost immediately. My smile was there and my head-bop definitely came alive. I was back in Valencia again.  That song is guilty by Spanish association also.

But how can I explain something like Rihanna’s songs drifting my reality back to Spain? Everything I did, or heard in that Mediterranean peninsula reminds me of it no matter where I did or heard it first.  It’s like I’m homesick yet I’m at my original place of residence as we speak.

I guess I don’t mind it much because they’re good memories that are being revamped.

The Reverse Culture Taser pt. 1

So it’s been 1 month and 2 days since I parted ways with my ISA family at the Mestalla in Valencia and then the airport in Madrid.  That experience left me with many tears still puddled inside.  Only a few escaped on that sad farewell day.  I managed to suppress most of them with the thought of the reunion I was going to have with my mother, aunt and sister that day.  Bittersweet moments always seem to creep up on me at the right instances. The order of that compound word created such a simultaneous series of events on May 7th.

After a couple of weeks of enjoying the terrain of Spain on the peninsula and the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands), I found myself boarding Delta with my mom, the same feeling I felt the day I left for Spain in January.  It’s funny how different moments can contradict themselves by giving off the same internal sensations. My fear of flying quickly tapped me on the shoulder and snapped me back into the reality of the situation. Yep, I was leaving my fantasy life to return back to my awaiting real one.  The real one missed me so much that it began to caste a burden on my fresh memories created in a 5-months time period.  I probably should have felt like I was abandoning the life I left behind in the states and that reuniting with it would clear up the guilt that I should have been feeling.  It was actually the opposite.  I felt a block in my brain that wouldn’t even let fear interfere with my current emotions.

“Sorry Amygdala, but you lose this time.  Your center is under construction.”

In fact, I blocked every emotion I could.  Denial was the only monster trying to breath fire down my neck but it only felt like a single ray of sun barely scanning my skin.

As I arrived in Sweet Home Alabama, the silence was louder than I remembered.  I suddenly felt like an outsider.  Was THIS what I left behind in the first place?  The Sweet wasn’t so sweet anymore, just bitter.  I can’t believe that the compound I grew to understand just divorced that quickly.