[Sparkle]

I was in Blighty for 6 years. And now I've been back in the States for nearly 8.

The re-entry was REALLY hard. And there wasn't much to be done about it. The missing was (and sometimes still is) painful. I felt "off" for a couple of years. Everything had changed, especially me. I felt restless and sad and kind of empty the first year. But most of the culture shock itself dissipated within a year.

I still feel overwhelmed by the size of things, sometimes... portions at restaurants, ginormous grocery stores and parking lots and SUVs

Things that helped:

*reconnecting with old friends, renewing and deepening those relationships, helped a lot.

*keeping busy - especially in the first year. I made dinner plans with friends a couple of nights a week and tried to always make plans for the weekends.

*learning to appreciate the quiet and the alone time, this took me a few years, now I wonder how I survived with so little of it before.

*making plans for mini-trips to new places, and to see other "old" friends-- one of the things I've missed the most (aside from my people) was how relatively inexpensive, easy and common traveling is in Europe. Travel/airfare is really expensive here, so I was grateful that I traveled a lot for business because I was able to maintain that feeling of excitement and curiosity about discovering somewhere new.

*I had to tune out politically for awhile (I came back a week before "W" was re-elected in late 2004.) And I can't really stomach the media/news here. I still get most of my news online from the guardian, the independent or bbc.

*Reading books, listening to music, watching shows/films that are British (or that reminded me of my time abroad) was helpful too. Especially when I had a day that I felt really foreign.