Regions of Uncertainty

I dream a lot about Bosnia, about my city where I grew up, and spent first 13 years of my life without interruption. My dreams are filled with longing, with loss, with quiet yearning and most of all, with heavy grief over a loss that has been my companion ever since the war started and ever since I left Bosnia. Loss has been a shadow, which follows me around taking on a different form every time it is in my presence.

Sometimes, my dreams turn into nightmares: a painful reliving of the war I have seen with my eyes, smelled with my nose, heard with my ears. There is one dream, which keeps coming back from time to time. I am in the condominium building where I lived in Sarajevo as a child. I am in the lobby where all the mailboxes are. I realize that I haven’t visited this place in a long time. My mailbox is overflowing with mail; it has not been picked up. The letters and the packages are just quietly sitting and I am not there to claim it, to open them hurriedly (or perhaps with patience), to find out what indeed is in the package. The dream always ends abruptly with no sense or a possibility of conclusion or integration. And so, I am left hanging in some region of vagueness that descends upon me from time to time, especially when I am not distracted.

There is always something unresolved. It is as if there is another “me” living there and this “me” that is in America is different person altogether. I find myself conflicted. When you come to America, you are expected to shed much of your old life. And I personally have nothing against this. For example, when I came here, I did not expect to meet any other Bosnians (nor did I seek them out actually) and I certainly did not have that ridiculous expectation that my culture will be present in another (very different!) culture, or even worse: that Americans should learn my language and not the other way around. No, these were not (and are not) my expectations as an immigrant and now, as an American citizen.

Thanks to God, I also have this ability to adapt to most life situations, and that includes being part of another culture. I learn other languages fairly quickly and customs of the other. These are all good attributes. But here is where my conflict lies: how much old skin do you have to shed in order to be a productive, American citizen? How much is too much? And you suddenly find yourself forgetting who you are, suppressing your culture, attempting to explain it and knowing that it won’t be understood anyway and remaining silent as a result. What kind of human being does this make me or anyone who is experiencing similar existential conflicts? Fragmented? Certainly. The more you deny your past, the less meaning you find in the present and future is just an exercise in futility and despair. And the minute you deny your past, you are participating in the ontological change of yourself. Suddenly, you see another person emerging; not necessarily bad but certainly lacking in something. Where is that missing piece, you yell, and then you realize that the missing pieces must be in that mailbox, in that package waiting to be picked up. But you are never there.

I love America, yet I miss Bosnia. I always get slightly annoyed when people endlessly criticize America for things that really don’t need any criticism, like America’s enduring freedom. No, America is not the most aesthetically appealing place; I’d rather be sitting at a café in Europe, sipping espresso and watching the beautiful ruins that have stood there for thousands of years. But we (immigrants) come to America not for the aesthetic value but for her freedom. I always tell others (esp. born Americans) that there is something indefinable, elusive about the American freedom but it’s there. You can’t really fully understand it or grasp it but it’s there. I am not a blind follower, and I have no issue criticizing something, which needs to be improved, whether in my Mother country, or in the land that took me in when nobody else wanted me. But I have never felt oppressed in America. This does not mean that life in America is not difficult. My first years here, as an immigrant were some of the hardest years I have experienced (certainly on the level of my experiences during the war and my life in the refugee camp). But if you want to build a strong foundation, it will take some time, effort, sweat, anger and fear.

And so, I find myself on constant crossroads: culturally, linguistically, religiously. You ask yourself whether this interior conflict will ever end, or whether you will become a whole human being ever again. And whether you ought to confront the evil you have seen, and the loss that it has caused. There are no quick and easy answers to any of these questions, and I certainly don’t expect them to come to me easily, if ever.

But for now, one must keep moving towards the “yes” of life, no matter how difficult it may seem.