Month 15.1. Cheesy’s Reawakening, Part II.

Cheesy had lived in four places in her life: Montreal, Quebec City, Istanbul, and Split. She was beginning to have a picture of the phases one goes through when one relocates:

1 – 3 weeks: The Boo-yah phase. Enchantment, thrill, anticipation. You feel awed by the locals, but connected to them in some special way because you think that now you know what they've always known. You're "in." Boo-yah!

3 – 6 weeks: The Groovin' phase. The sparkles fall away and a sense of normalcy emerges. You have a routine and a comfort zone, which makes you feel special because now you're "really" a local.

After 6 weeks: The Dark Side. You begin to the downfalls of where you live: things aren't there that you wish were, and things are there that you wish weren't. Your routine has become tedious. You realize you're pretty different from the locals. You feel nostalgic for the Boo-yah phase.

6-8 months: The Reawakening. Cheesy was pleased to discover the existence of this phase. The Dark Side builds and builds until it breaks into an explosion of tears and snot. Then the seas become calm and your vision crystallizes. The sparkles and shadows have lifted and you begin to see the place for what it really is. You revise what you thought you knew and realize what you don't know.

1-23 years: The Maze Phase. After you see a place for what it is, you lose sight of its context in the greater world, just like after living with yourself your whole life it becomes hard to grasp who you "really" are. So, you go away to another place to try to put things into context. (a) You've relocated. Go back to Phase 1. (b) Dally for a while in a new place or two. Get a fresh perspective of what the old place is "really" like, and return to it boo-yah-style!

That's the beauty of traveling: you're constantly gaining and changing perspectives. It's too bad we can't step out of our own skin sometimes to get a new perspective on ourselves. Or maybe we can.

Enough with the psychological breakdown and philosophizing. What was Split like without the sparkles and shadows? After eight months, what did Cheesy reawaken to see? (a) Go back to Blog 14.5. (b) Go forward to Blog 15.2.

(Hint: Beware of (a) – Cheesy saw more than horses with long faces walking into bars. Although that was pretty cool, too.)