Don't come back weird

Today my boyfriend revealed his fear that I would return from Malawi a changed person, as in, totally weird. He mentioned that his college roommate had gone off to London for the summer, and the next year the fridge was covered with Big Ben magnets and the guy was constantly cooking fish and chips. He wondered if I might come back with a whole new African wardrobe, wooden beads, or perhaps some kind of weapon such as poison-tipped darts and a blowgun (not a bad idea for enforcing reasonable bedtime).

I'm sure once I get back, I'll have a lot of Malawi to talk about, but I don't think I'm going to be one of these flighty folks who gets absorbed in a new place and can't let go. There's always a period of re-adjustment upon returning to a place. People in Baltimore will go on doing their thing while I'm off doing a whole different thing, and that will create a gap in our ability to understand. It happened when I went off to TASP and during the first couple of years of college when Am was still home. Everyone had this common understanding based that I'd moved away from by not being around. But it's only three months, and then I'll be back for good. At least until I find a job and probably move again.