Things I Almost Remember

So yesterday I was making my normal commute back home from Smolny.  I was riding down Nevsky, smashed into the corner of a crowded trolleybus.  My mind numbly wandered as I fell into the “transit trance.”  I pulled out my hand-me-down, pay-as-you-go Nokia that I use in Russia to check a text message.  As I looked at its beat up keys and struggled yet again to type a message in Russian without the help of predictive text, I laughed silently at how ridiculous my Russian phone is.  But then I had the strangest realization: I couldn’t remember what my phone (in America) looks like.  I began to rack my brain to remember, but I simply couldn’t do it.  This is a object that I have looked at a countless number of times every day over the last three years, yet two months without it and I have forgotten it completely.  I spent the rest of the way home trying to remember, but it was not until I made it to my room where I dug it out of my suitcase and saw it with my own eyes that I remembered.  To be honest this was a really stupid occurrence, but it made me realize just how engrained I am in my life here, and how much I am forgetting about life in America.  It’s not like I am forgetting important things, like my friends and family, but the little things, like what my cell phone looks like, are becoming hazy.  It’s crazy to think how much my life has changed over the last two months.  And it works the other way around.  The little things that happen on a daily basis here that I used to think were strange don’t seem so strange anymore.  Honestly I don’t know what is really normal for me anymore.  Living abroad has made that a fact.  And I really love it.  I love not knowing what to expect or what is coming next.  It is a fast and free way of life that is never boring.  Right now I feel like I don’t remember the little things of American life very well, but I know that when I return, I’ll feel the same way about Russia.  The little things will become a blur.  My biggest fear is waking up in America and thinking, “Were the last six months a dream?”  I want to hold onto every memory and every feeling, both good and bad.  But I can’t.  They come and go so quickly.  So for now I’ll live every moment in its own time savoring its wonder and beauty, and I’ll hope desperately that when I am home, I can somehow remember.