The rock star resort
It is one of the unspeakable addictions of expatriates, to feel like a rock star in the few days a year they visit the town. It does not matter if in the country where you live you are the king of the mambo or clean glasses in a seedy pub, when you return for Christmas you feel Bon Jovi in person. You have days left to hang out with all of them, get fed up with octopus to feira and hang the photos in feisbuk. "Well, you will soon be in Spain for the world, right?" You are the center of attention at family gatherings and your friends ask you with interest and fascination. And is not for less. You bring exotic gifts with history behind, you go out on the radio and you have a thousand stories to tell, from your professional successes to the misadventures with the locals and their authorities. The time passes faster when you live outside. "You have to come and visit me, spring is the best time." You are the pure image of success, and the smaller the town, the greater the admiration. "Come on, give a few words in Russian to listen to you".
Well, get ready to hang up the leather pants, as a repatriate you are no longer a rock star. Now you mole half. Some of them, even when they hear about your return, they give you their condolences: 'Courage, uncle.' Friends no longer move agenda to stay with you, because you do not come for a few days but from now on you will be simply at hand. You are one more. When I stay with them, as a therapy, I avoid talking about Russia, not comparing everything with my old country, even if the body still asks me, at least not to verbalize it, not to anchor me in the past or to be pedantic. But I do not always get it, after all I come from living five years there and earning a living as a journalist precisely counting Russia.
Seen in perspective, the rock star resort is a sham, the majority was in your head, the adrenaline of the holidays and visiting your people after months without seeing it. And as artificial as it was, I will not deny that it is a little less, a placebo for the miseries of the expatriate, who has the same as the rock star. But this, like any addiction, also has palliative therapy. When all fail us there are the mothers and grandmothers, our most faithful groupies, they listen to our sleeplessness with the genuine interest of always, we have triumphed or failed beyond the sea, because for them we will always be Bon Jovi.