One of the most interesting aspects of living in a foreign country is getting to know another cultural intimately. From my personal perspective, I can safely assert that Turkey is a whole different world. There are too many cultural differences to shake a stick at, in fact. Just thinking about it makes my hand tired.
On a good day, I find myself delighted. I enjoy the occasional reminder that I am not in Kansas anymore as the saying goes. (I have actually never been to Kansas) But sometimes, and maybe it’s because I’m hormonal or just having a Bitch Day in general, or maybe feeling a little too clear-sighted, I get flat out annoyed and ask myself what I am doing here still. Allow me to explain:

In this mind-bending cultural experiment, some of us go deeper than others. There is no one who goes farther than the foreign bride of a Turkish husband. The woman who stays here and tries to fit into her husband’s family gets infinite credit in my book. It is not an easy lot in life and their courage is admirable. I feel blessed that the boyfriend’s family seems so accepting of me, but I know I am still larely an enigma to them. As any expat in my situation knows, that’s as good a start as one can ask for sometimes.

There are some expats that choose to largely keep to themselves. They have cliques, not unlike high school, and they meet at bars masquerading pathetically as pubs, such as Ye Olde English Pub, which is none of those things, except possibly “ye”. They tend to teach English at language centers and most of their friends do the same. This bond fends off some of the massive feelings of alienation and displacement that one can feel living somewhere so far away.

Some of them are newly arrived and optimistic, reveling in what are novel experiences, such as having tea when it’s hot as balls outside or smoking a water pipe with cappuccino tobacco. Others are more broken in. They’ve been here for over a year and have a pretty good lay of the land. At that point, there’s usually a fracture: the group splits off into those who love living here and relish every unique experience and those who become bitter and bitch and moan and commiserate to anyone who will sit down next to them.
I have met all varieties of expat. This latter category rubs me the wrong way. When one of these types starts spouting off about this or that, I just want to say, “So go home already. Who needs you here? Do you think you are doing anyone any favors?”
I never say this, of course. I try my best to put an upbeat spin on the given situation. I myself am still a somewhat optimistic expat. I will now explain what I mean by “somewhat”.

I think one of the reasons that my blog has been so popular with expats and Turks alike is that I tend to represent a mostly positive image of living in Turkey amongst Turks. Even when my experiences here turned harsh, I never became as small as to blame Turkish society as a whole. That’s juvenile and unfair thinking. One bad apple does not spoil the bunch and all that business.
But recently, I have noticed some newer feelings creeping in and so I have begun analyzing them because, well, I have nothing but time on my hands these days.

Having been here for four years now, I am not just an expat anymore. I mean, technically, I will always be just that. Even if I live here until I die and marry the boyfriend and give birth to five Turkish American children, I will never be a Turk. I will always be an outsider. What I mean to say is that I have sort of morphed from tourist to green expat to seasoned expat to occasionally disgruntled expat to sometimes incredibly disillusioned expat. I have days when I ask myself, “What am I still doing here?” and this is very new and I have to ask myself where it is coming from. And I think this is a good start:

For the first time in my adult life, I am truly missing my family. I guess that I have done an awful lot of growing up recently and so things are starting to really sink in, such as what a great family I actually have and how I am missing the boat being so far away. It is starting to sting a lot lately. I am starting to even feel as though maybe I have been living my life selfishly for long enough. I mean, everyone in my life has always been supportive of the paths I have chosen to take in life, but one fact remains: all this time I have been looking out for one person alone, and if you guessed it was me, then you win the grand prize.
For the first time ever, I am feeling as though I might want to lay down some roots. And the realization has dawned on me, also, recently, that those roots will not be laid here.

Living in Turkey has been an invaluable experience for me in innumerable ways. But I know that I want to go home. It may take some time to put that plan into effect, possibly a year or more, but I know now that this is the goal in the end.

No doubt I will miss Turkey and all of its quirkiness. Yesterday, I took the ferry back to the Asian side as the sun was setting. It took my breath away to see the mosque minarets against a golden sky and I actually felt pain in my heart thinking, “What will I do without this?” I recently met a lovely Hungarian woman who has a degree in the Tibetan language and I thought to myself, “Man! I will miss meeting people like this!” I do not mean to imply that there are not interesting people back home, or sights of magnificent splendor. It’s just that America is the place that I called home for thirty years. I knew I needed to get out in the world a bit, not just to find myself, but to get a more intimate idea of how other people live. And I feel that I have accomplished both things and am the better for it all.

But soon, it will be time to go back to the people that I love the most and my motherland. And I can only hope that I can carry on the grand tradition of having no regrets.