When I stop to reflect on the past year, I feel a strange sense of loss, and a small but significant amount of gain. I’ve allowed a month to pass since I’ve posted, but honestly, it only feels like one or two weeks. I’ve quickly returned to a sense of routine, waking up like a robot, taking the bus like a robot, and listening to my students like a slightly moving robot.
I hate to look back on my previous blog posts to discover that they are so unhappy, and find that I am constantly challenged by one thing or another. I’ve learned that I must always find something with which to stress myself out. Yo says this is normal, but he doesn’t do it so I only halfway believe him.
Sometimes I start to write or form an opinion of something, and when I consider how to articulate it, I become sick of myself. With everything that goes on in the world, I wonder that I still maintain the audacity to think of my own “suffering”.
The more I think of it, the more I realize how easy my life has been, that despite whatever hardship, illness, or sadness I’ve faced, things have been pretty smooth up until now. I have never had to fight for my life, I’ve never had to escape my own country, and I’ve been fortunate enough never to face serious abuse or oppression.
I feel as if this should cheer me up, but it actually doesn’t. I left California to challenge myself. I left because I needed suffering. I was spoiled and complacent with my circumstances, and perhaps I still am. Is it silly to search it out? But isn’t this why we respect Bruce Wayne, rich, privileged, healthy Bruce Wayne, who left his home to become a pauper wandering around the East? Isn’t this why we don’t hate him like we hate all other rich people? But eventually he got ninja training so that hardship made us ignore his money. Sure.
It seems to officially respect ourselves (or maybe myself) we are all trying to bring suffering upon ourselves; how many times have you told someone you were sick, only for them to “outdo” you? How many times have you told someone you slept poorly for them to say they also had trouble sleeping? Being “busy” is admirable and pitiable at the same time; it seems we praise each other for our constant self-abuse.
Despite these possibly enlightening thoughts, I don’t feel all that differently.
I guess a lot of these thoughts are stemming from the fact that I just passed my one-year anniversary in Taiwan. I can’t believe it’s already (only) been a year. My subconscious is punishing me with dreams of home; and I now feel an urgency to return to California that didn’t exist before.
I’m sure a lot of people wonder what my plans are (I can only hope to be so popular), and I’ve figured out a basic structure.
Save enough money to come back to California and find a job. Then Yo will come and find a job. Happily ever after or something. I don’t mean that, but for half my life I’ve felt that everywhere I’ve gone has been temporary, so I’m treating myself to a delusion of permanence.
I think I will be returning more powerful than I was before; but I think parts of me are dead and won’t be coming back. I haven’t had a lot of time to mourn them; most of them weren’t worth the tears, but some of them are things I wish I could’ve never let go, but we all have to grow up someday.
These days I’ve experienced phases and trends of behavior. I’ve noticed that on the heavier part of the workweek I tend to get manic depressive. Earlier in the week, when my schedule is lighter, I feel happy, even hopeful about the days ahead. The day off I’ve given myself usually gives me an opportunity to reset, so by Sunday evening I’m wondering why I was so depressed on Saturday night and why I keep allowing it to happen.
This has a lot to do with my job, I think. It’s hard to feel as if I’m making a difference teaching English. When I get a compliment, I simply feel relieved (not the gushy feeling you usually get), but relieved that I convinced them I am a competent teacher. I suppose I’m making some kind of difference in someone’s life, but it’s hard to see, and while teaching could be rewarding for some I feel it is far too stressful for a weirdo like me.
Besides, who the hell do I think I am, teaching anybody anything? One of my Japanese students called me “sensei” and I nearly died of shame. “Sensei” essentially means a master – not a baby American who came to Taiwan to have some special adventure experience and somehow make cash teaching English.
Even now, just halfway through the week, I can feel the impending chaos of three full days of classes with no breaks. I think this is my own fault, but I really want to save money and get back to California.
But, my god, some days I don’t know how I get out of bed. Some days I don’t know how I did it. Most days I feel on automatic mode. I have to ask myself, when did it get so bad? What happened to the enthusiasm I felt when I walked off the plane? I feel like I got my ass beaten by life, but still don’t consider it true suffering.
This is one of the dead things that I lost. I was usually pretty good at staying hopeful that things would improve, and that I wouldn’t accept a mediocre life, and I would constantly strive to improve the situation around myself. This type of hope has withered, and for some reason, revitalizing it is taking much longer than I thought.
I think this is a temporary situation. I hope it’s a temporary situation. I don’t think I felt so pointless while I was working in California; at least I enjoyed the job (until the end) and I loved the people I worked with.
Temporary. There’s that word again. But it’s not so bad.
I wanted to do so many things while I was here. I wanted to work on so many different projects. Granted, those things are not impossible, but I’m so discouraged by failing to do them after a year that I wonder, “what’s the point?”
This seems like a turning point. I’ve reached stagnancy. It’s hard to get a other jobs beside teaching English. I feel a repulsion to staying here longer, and I think it’s a combination of a million things, the highest on that list being that I will never belong here, and no matter how good my Chinese gets I will always be different and people will pay extra attention (negative and positive) and maybe I just can’t deal with it anymore.
Some people do make my life better. Yo, of course, and his parents. The Bahá’ís here are so kind. The bus driver who sometimes takes me to work and smiles at me without making me uncomfortable always makes the day instantly better. The guard at my work building who walks the cleaning lady’s dogs, who gives me pineapple cake or fruit whenever he sees me. The ladies at the breakfast shop who know my order by heart, and the waiter at the pasta shop who asked for my name. These people are great, and they often put a smile on my face, no matter how grumpy I am that day.
Some days I want to go back to Mongolia, and live in my mom’s house until I manage to get lost somewhere on the Steppe. Some days I want to never leave my apartment again, and call in sick every day. Some days I want to grab Yo and drag him to the airport, taking him back home with me (simultaneously taking him away from his). A little unfair, but I miss my family and friends, and heaven forbid I leave him behind. I think I’m too selfish for that.
At the end of these thoughts, I feel grateful that I can rely on my future self to get through the day again. One year ago, I didn’t know how I was going to do that, and I couldn’t cope with reality. Even though I feel like I can hardly cope now, I’m glad that whatever is motivating me to keep going is still there.
Thank god I can get up in the morning.