I am returned. Every time I go to the US I have this strange disaffection when I come back. I spend some time in my old shoes and they are just simply bigger and flashier than my shoes here. There I have history and some importance in the few fields in which I was active. Here I feel like nobody.
Instantly I arrive I start to experience the kindness so many Italians offer to strangers even if they are nobody, and that pleases me a lot.
But it is still difficult to come down from my perch as the one to contact for this or that, or to meet someone who Googled me and tells me what he found,(I frankly didn't think one could find anything since I mostly kept my real name offline!) or to have more invitations than days. Who you were is not transferable. I knew that. It mostly doesn't bother me. Or let's say it doesn't bother me until I've spent time feeling important and like the queen of the city as I click clack down Columbus Avenue and struggle off the damned airport bus in the rain and have to drag my bags through the puddles to a bar I don't know well and beg for a ride home. Thank God my friends love me, because without that I'd dread coming back.
Honestly, life back there again doesn't seem in the least possible to me. My life is here. It's still hard to re-enter and be just another foreigner!
PS/ I did have a delightful encounter in which a lady on the bus asked me where I'd been and when I said I'd been to America for three weeks, she said, "You must know the language very well." I said, "Sono nata parlando l'inglese." "Ahh! Non mi sembrava americana." Kewl. Nobody compliments me on my English in the US.

Welcome home, Judith! Lots of what you say rings true to me, too...I go back to NY every now and then for work, and sometimes feel like the "queen of the universe" there and plain ol' "la signora americana" here. I think there's a bit more kindness to strangers down there where you live, as well....although people in my neighborhood are starting to welcome me home warmly... (Not to mention my husband!!!) What you say about life back there not seeming at all possible to you means you must have attained that nice stage after 4-7 years of culture shock that Cristina has described in a post I can't find any more (but wish I had printed out!) Anyway, I was wondering how it was for you after all these years away, and hoping you were having a good time!

Welcome back Judith...and thank you for those thought provoking words about your stay over 'there' and your return 'here'. I've never thought about it that way before. But you're quite right it is difficult/strange to 'come down from ones perch'! From being someone that people automatically asked for advice. But it sounds as if once back 'home' here it all fell back into place.

But once again, it IS nice to see you back on the board!
carole B.

I guess it was easier for me; I was a nobody when I got here, and what reputation I have has been built up since, internationally and mostly online. I have started to be recognized locally as "that American lady with the website"!