return

Um.

Well I’m back.

I’m pretty stinkin’ late on updating the blog.  Every day I told myself I was ready to do it, something came up, I fell asleep, or just was too lazy.

I’m only halfway lying.  I’ve been writing a lot, just not up here.  It’s been, I guess, a bit of a challenge since I’ve been back, but it’s been hard to articulate it.

Leaving Taiwan was very difficult.  It encompassed several factors:

1. The end of my life in Taiwan as I knew it.  Even if I return, things will never be the same.  This includes a lot of habits, routines, and things I did.  There is a certain familiarity that builds up during any period of time in your life.  The songs you listen to, the food you eat, the streets you walk, and the landmarks of your routine.  Once this changed, I immediately felt the impending doom of the future.  Thing as small as the grocery you go to on your way home can change how you feel about your reality.
2. Leaving Yo for the third time at the airport.  I insisted we leave together, but he’s been so busy and has so much work, it wouldn’t have been good for his career to leave while he was in the middle of it all.  He’ll be along in December, but our parting was so full of tender agony, I’m still not sure how we did it.
3. The reboot.  Even though both of my parents living in Orange County now, I still feel a sense of drifting.  It’s hard to feel a kind of permanence when you are still living out of a suitcase, and popping down to the other suitcases in the garage for extra clothes.  I reset to zero, and building from the bottom has never been easy, even if it is exciting.

The days are not good or bad.  Of course, seeing my friends and family again is really wonderful.  But explaining things is not easy.  It’s difficult to describe what I’ve been through in two years within a passing conversation, so I’m pretty brief when people ask me how it was.  It feels like I’m kinda being a bitch, but I don’t want to activate the “you wouldn’t understand” card so early in the conversation, and also because it sounds pretty awful.  I don’t think I would say that to anyone, but I like that people think I went on a fantastic adventure and everything went super well.  I think I’ll accept it for now, and I know those closer to me usually know there’s more to the story anyway.  To be honest, it doesn’t really matter.  Just being with friends is a comfort.

I often feel I’m in an in-between place.  It might be the features of Orange County, the cool weather and beaches, the relaxed atmosphere among the people around me.  I’m not in Taiwan, and I’m not home either.  It’s a state of mind, of course, but I’m sure once I fetch my car and finish moving in properly, everything will start to stabilize.

A few days after I came back, I went to Texas with my mom, stepdad, and sister.  It was nice to be there, but it was odd timing.  Apparently a side-effect of the return home was spontaneous weeping, which will really strike out of nowhere.  Attending a wedding might have been a mistake, as those are already pretty emotional.  Most of the people around me chalk it up to missing Yo, which is partially true, but it’s usually just the state of my psyche.  Things are weird.  Life is surreal.  All is temporary.  I cry very easily.

The spontaneous cryfests still happen, and it doesn’t really matter where I am or what I’m doing when it happens.  Of course I miss Taiwan and Yo, and of course it’s a big change.  Dealing with it is a foreign familiarity.  I guess I mean the feeling is.  Things are so familiar here, but also new.  Most things have not actually changed, and sometimes it’s good, but it also serves as a warning.  I know I grew a bit while I was away, but now there is the threat of stagnancy 6-7 months down the line, which I’m concerned about.  Of course I’ll deal with it when it happens, but looking ahead is so odd now after looking forward to coming back.

It’s almost like, “Now what?”

Wait for Yo to get here, I think.

What else is there to look forward to?  Many things.  Concerts, career growth, weekends, vacations?

It’s all so temporary, it almost feels irrelevant.

That being said, I am able to appreciate my friends and family more.  One can never reimagine alone what it’s like to be in the presence of loved ones, and this fleeting reality makes it all the more sweet and tragic.

It’s hard to describe how much I miss Yo.  I didn’t think it would be so hard to leave him behind, and I didn’t think about how long the hours and days and weeks would be without him.  It’s more like I didn’t know.  Again, I was naive, thinking things would be alright when it was really about to blow up in my face.  I’ve resigned myself to this habit.  Now I’m just learning how to deal with the aftershock.

There is a block in my mind when I go back to that day when I left.  Every time I try to write about it, I can’t go on.  So I’ve decided to let it be.

When I was flying home, I took a ticket with many stops because I’m a cheapskate.  I landed in Osaka from Taipei, transferred airports via bus, and then flew to Tokyo.  Being in Japan for so many hours was not only fun, but cleansing in a way.  Every time I’ve come home since I left for Taiwan, I’ve passed through Japan first, and there’s something about it that is so appropriate.  It’s really difficult to explain, but it’s similar to this feeling I got when I was on the bus in Osaka.

I was pretty numb, I think, after saying goodbye to Yo, and about 1 hour of sleep.  After arriving in Osaka (at the first airport), I managed to get my pile of luggage outside the airport, where these men helped load it onto the bus.  They bowed as we drove off, and sitting in silence in that bus was easily the most soothing thing I could have done, and I didn’t really want to be doing anything else.  The sun was setting over the city, reflecting in the water.  I could see some flying fish, and everyone else in the bus had fallen asleep.  The silence afforded a sweet, private solitude.  I listened to every Japanese song I had with me, and-

I feel like this is really nerdy, so I feel embarrassed about continuing.

-and I cried, and I felt sad, and a little excited to go home, but more wondering what Yo was doing, and Guo Chen the bus driver, and my friend at the hot pot shop, and why was I leaving again?  Oh yeah.

I was tired and sad in Japan, but my perception was so trapped in this vision of clouded reality and passing time, it all felt like no time at all.  The flights were short, and gifts of beauty appeared – fireworks were going off in Osaka while we were departing, the ground controllers bowed to the planes as we left, and everyone I interacted with was so kind.  I am grateful my bags weren’t lost, and grateful that everything went so smoothly.

Fortunately, in the two weeks leading up my departure, I had some vacation time with Yo.  Almost immediately after quitting my job, I felt a burden slip from my shoulders, one I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.  My last two weeks in Taiwan were full of happiness, friends, food, and love.  I could chat about this in extensive detail.  The only thing that seemed to taint these precious days was the idea of leaving, which became a heavier one with every passing day.  Sometimes I would just look at Yo, and he’d look back at me, and we knew we were both thinking about that last day at the airport.

Now, back in California, the weather’s nice.  Some days I feel like I travel in time when I think about Taiwan, and sometimes I wake up and forget where I am.  Everything is so much bigger and more expensive here.  I feel like a stranger still, like I’ve forgotten all I know about this place, and the rules that we’re supposed to follow.  I drive really slow now.

The most difficult part of my life is not finding a job or moving, but the quiet moments, where undistracted I am able to ruminate and think about the nature of my life, the changes that have happened, the distance between Yo and I, and the immense loneliness that seems to be collapsing inside of me.  It’s not clear where it’s coming from, but I feel mostly certain that it’s temporary.  It’s really hard to explain to others, and I think I feel pretty lazy about doing so.  Maybe not lazy, but sometimes it’s too much trouble if I think it’ll make me talk too much.  Or to hear them conclude everything down to one solution, which is frustrating.  It’s made me very antisocial.

I’ve been fortunate enough to find some work on a few projects in the past week or so.  It’s nice to be working again, and it’s a great distraction from all this transitional flotsam and jetsam floating about.  Free time can be the worst enemy, allowing your thoughts to run as wild as your primal identity desires, indulging in thoughts of sadness and crisis that you’ve put on hold for so long.  Busy is better right now.  Also, the pay is not too bad.

Proofreading this entry has shown me how depressing it sounds.  It sounds much worse than it really is.  I’m okay.  Everything is fine.  I am healthy and transitioning well (or at least normally?).  It’s inevitable to face difficulties during a time like this.  The solutions are there, they only require the passage of time.  If anything, I feel a lot better now than I have when everything was hunky dory.  The greater sensitivity affords more awareness, I feel.  I hope it doesn’t fade, but I also hope it does?

Who knows?  Now I’m wondering if I should even post this.  But I probably will.  This story needs an ending, or at least a good transition into a sequel.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.