Homesick

During the 10 years D and I spent separated by an international border, the times I missed him most was the days immediately following one of his visits home. Having recently returned to California from a 10-day visit back "home" to Canada, I am now finding myself very homesick.

It's a weird feeling to miss a country.

Don't get me wrong, I miss my family and friends, too. But I have been missing them all along. What I haven't missed--and now find myself pining for--is my "home and native land", actual Canada with Canadians and shit. Not the snow, though. I don't miss that at all.

The US is a strange, uncanny-valley-type place: it looks like Canada (a land of immigrants, many of them white), it sounds like Canada (in that English is the predominant language), so you kind of expect it to act like Canada. But here's where things diverge.

Culturally this country is very different from Canada. So much so that I'm astonished that decades of consuming American mass media hasn't had more of a cultural impact on Canadians.  I wasn't entirely prepared for how different we are from "them" until I found myself in a conversation (many years ago, early Obama) with a random American stranger and was shocked by how very different that same interaction would have gone between Canadians. To the point where I was actually speechless and got myself away from the conversation (and person) as quickly as I could without being (too) rude. Me. Speechless. Think about that.

Having said all that, I'm very fortunate to have a wonderful group of like-minded American friends who have been incredibly welcoming. The friendships I've made here will last long after D and I decide to move on to our next home/adventure.  I can't thank them enough for opening their hearts and homes to me and making California feel like home--I am truly lucky to have them in my life.  I worried that I wouldn't find a tribe as awesome as the one I was leaving behind in Canada, but I clearly needn't have worried at all.

P.S. I clearly still suck at blogging, but my excuse is an 11 day trip to Canada followed 6 days later by an 11 day trip to Hawaii.

I'm not getting any sympathy, am I...