As some of you might already know, I permanently left Russia back in the middle of April last year due to my work contract/visa being ended prematurely. It was, however, time to come back due to a few different factors, and I left with my head held high. That isn’t what I wanted to discuss though, since there’s one thing a lot of people experienced when returning from abroad: reverse culture shock. For those of you who haven’t come back home after being outside your home country’s borders, there genuinely is a sense that “whoa, I can’t believe that things are like this”. One year after the fact, I’ll try and break things down.

For starters, the process of getting settled in was for all intents and purposes super straightforward. I know when I’d come home to visit in the past, I had a few days of “Whoa, this is weird” given how I had to readjust (namely paying sales tax, driving, hearing English around me, and sleeping in an actual bed) to a few things. This time? There was none of that. I don’t know if I was more prepared to come home or what, but I honestly can’t place why things are different this time around; maybe nothing really changed since the last time I was home, which was about three years ago. So in a way, the real shock was not experiencing that shock. Even to this day, I’m still kind of surprised that it was business as usual the next day. I’m still trying to think about if that’s just my peace of mind caused by being home at play, or if life really was that unchanged after all this time.

Was there anything I’ve been able to take from my time abroad and apply it to America? Yeah, some things. This first winter back was a lot easier by comparison, and I had to tell myself “just because it doesn’t feel as cold, it doesn’t mean that it’s not cold outside”. My memories of cheering the sensation of sweating when it was just above freezing in late March in Moscow came to mind at times, especially when everybody around me here was complaining about the cold. Case in point: I was that guy only wearing a sweatshirt when everybody else was bundled up to the nines. I think I also have mellowed out more, since I witnessed a lot of madness in and around Moscow–my threshold for blinking at something is has now been raised. This has been incredibly when I’ve been substitute teaching, since there have been occasions when things got rowdy and my levels of tranquility carried me through those moments. Overall though, I just feel a bit more…mature, if I can call it that. I’m still an idiot but at least I know that I got through and even thrived for almost a decade in a location that demands respect as a foreigner. Navigating life in America is a bit more complicated in some ways, but I know I’m equipped to handle things.

I’ll also have to be honest: by this point Russia feels like a distant memory. Nine and a half years’ worth of experience living abroad seems like it would carry some protection against it, but given the distance, time difference, and not being in the swing of things, that was bound to happen; it genuinely sucks to move on, so to speak, from it that fast. Don’t get me wrong, I still communicate with friends there, but the degree of connection of I feel is just moving further and further into the past. Even last month some of my last connections started coming to an end, in the sense that my bank account was frozen (since I have no proof of being able to stay in the country) as well as the inevitable loss of my Russian number (due to having to get biometrics done now, which I obviously can’t do). It’s bittersweet, but in a way I won’t have all that hanging over my head. Accepting that is something else, as evidenced by how I’m still feeling a bit shaken by it. I do want to visit the country again, but it feels like it’s the belated reminder that three hundred and sixty-five days later, my visa is no more and I moved out from my beloved apartment in Moscow. If that’s the only bitter pill, for a lack of a better word here, that I need to metaphorically swallow, then the transition home went far better than expected.

While this summary is a lot shorter than what I had intended, I think that’s actually a perfect encapsulation of my transition back to America. Life moves on, and while I’m incredibly grateful to have experienced the Russian Federation for nearly a decade, that’s all in the past. At this point in my life, I don’t think I’ll be looking to move abroad again barring a major job offer or something similar, but it was a good run and I’m all for the better for it.