“Uniquely Me”

It has been two months since moving back to the U.S.A. from Switzerland. Two months of raw emotions filled with both extreme highs and extreme lows. Two months of anxieties and clarity. Two months of a new kind of loneliness and reunions with friends and family.

As the dust continues to settle, words are still hard to come by to explain exactly what is happening within my thoughts, my heart, and my soul. That said, every once in awhile there might be a song that comes on that can highlight a feeling. There is a T.V. show or movie that can give words to the unrest that lies beneath. The complexity of it all gives birth to the layers and layers of shadows that have yet to be discovered. Therefore, no one single story, song, or in this case poem can highlight everything. They can only highlight one component of what seems like an infinite amount of feelings and emotions that rush through me daily.

Paying attention to my journey, as well as those around me, this poem struck me and gave me pause.

I am
a confusion of cultures
Uniquely me.
I think this is good
because I can
understand
the traveler, sojourner, foreigner,
the homesickness
that comes.
I think this is also bad
because I cannot
be understood
by the person who has sown and grown in one place

They know not
the real meaning of homesickness
that hits me
now and then.
Sometimes I despair of
understanding them.
I am
an island
and
a United Nations.
Who can recognize either in me
but God?

-“Uniquely Me” by Alex Graham James