Epilogue: The Citizen
Part 2: How British Am I?

[Blogger’s Note: I was born and raised in the United States, moved to Canada for love in my early 40s and then relocated again, well into my 50s, to the southern coast of England with my British-born spouse. This has been a series about my sometimes amusing and frequently embarrassing exploits as an expat.]

How British am I? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself now that I’ve reached the end of this blog series on life in the UK from a newcomer’s perspective. After residing in beautiful, occasionally baffling Britain for eight years, I’m clearly no longer a newbie, but every day and in countless different ways I’m reminded of how much more there is to learn about my adopted home. So I’m not quite sure how far along I am on the path to reaching peak Britishness. Getting my citizenship in the summer of 2023 certainly helped, but I worry that obstacles like my flat American accent and near total ignorance of the Two Ronnies’ comedic oeuvre keep holding me back. 

Which leaves me in a kind of national identity limbo because my connection to my birthplace grows weaker the longer I’m away. This really hit home during a return trip to the States for Thanksgiving last autumn.  [Blogger’s Note Deux: I know, I know, I really should be more timely with these posts. I mean, I published part one of this epilogue nearly a year ago! What can I say? The muse, she is fleeting. Plus, it’s been a bumpy 2024 so far.] After a five year absence, due to the pandemic and the travel hassles it left in its wake, I felt strangely out of place in the US, or at least in the sprawling swath of suburban Georgia where I spent the holiday with family. Everyone I spoke to sounded odd, that is to say, just like me. Not one person trilled “lovely-jubbly” or “toodle pip” in a charmingly sing-song lilt like they do in my little village beside the English Channel. And everything was miles apart. I shelled out $30 for a cab ride from the Atlanta airport to the “convenient” Airport Radisson, where I stayed the first night after my plane got in late. Walking to any destination was out of the question, and even when I accompanied family members in the car to their nearest shopping centre, the drive seemed to take forever. And once we got there, I was reminded of how absurdly huge American parking lots are. In fact, the only substantial walking I did during the entire trip was from far-flung parking spaces to the doors of whatever big box store we were visiting. (I think I see the Target entrance somewhere in the distance…) I’ve become so accustomed to the compactness of our English environs, where we can stroll to dozens of shops and restaurants in less than 10 minutes, that the vast distances between places and the excessive expanse of commercial spaces in the States kind of shocked me.