the reality of memories

The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Sometimes I really miss being home. I miss the fields of bluebonnets outside of my house, I miss the coffee my parents brew every morning, I miss swinging on the back porch with my sisters.
I miss the smell off the heat dying off during a summer nights, I miss the sound of crickets in the countryside.
I am discovering more and more that this is not my home. But then the reality that when I go home it will not be the same is almost more frightening than living in a foreign country.
In Victor Frankl's “Search for Meaning,” he writes about the deep depression that many holocaust survivors faced after finding that the homes the returned to after years of suffering were not the same.
Frankl laments over this sense of idealism we build in our minds when we hold our memories to be a current reality. How could someone's memories be so strong that they sustain a person through such a hell? How could something hold someone together, give them strength to fight day to day, provide meaning through suffering, when that memory no longer exists?
And this is the struggle of living overseas. The people who are related to my memories our real; the love I feel towards them still “is”, but this ideal life I look back on, the accumulation of all the good moments, never was. And what is even more sobering is to realize that those moments have led me to where I am now.
I am at this point where I realize, in some ways, I am still that. But now, I am this also.
Its the analogy I have used before: my native country is yellow, this foreign country I live in is blue, and now I will just be green for the rest of my life. I can learn this country's history, I can learn the language, I can analyze and study the culture, but I will always be an outsider. Also, I can go home, but I will never be the girl I was before. I will compare and have part of an outside world always living with me. And most discussions will be tuned out in my mind by this repetitive saying when people begin discussions with me that, while this is the reality of their world, this is not the reality of the world.
Sometimes I wonder if this kind of introspection is harmful. I get so frustrated with people because they never want to have these kinds of conversations; but I question if in the end there is any kind of intrinsic value to these observations. Perhaps sometimes it is better just not to think about it. Besides, what kind of memories are made out of contemplating memories?