Semi-voluntary commitment

When you change countries - languages, culture, time zones - you also change small daily things, like food and routines. Those changes seem small, even novel, when you travel but when you start counting that time by months, and double-digit months at that, it changes you. I'm not sure I could name one person I know who came back to the States without some new ailment or undefined issue. It's, on a purely biological level, about new bacteria and soil and food supply. However, on a larger level, it's a daily reminder that your body no longer recognizes any place as home, any day as routine.

I've begun my journey, after nearly two years of seeking work/health insurance, into solving my medical issues. Rapid and unwelcome body changes certainly signify something is amiss, though not clearcut. So amiss and mysterious, in fact, that I'll be seeing the head of a med school department about them. Oh, the things they never include in a recruitment pamphlet!

Starting next month, $250/month will be taken out of my monthly check and placed into my medical flexible spending account. It might seem like a lot, given the fact that I have full insurance, but I was actually being conservative. Acupuncturists, nutritionists, therapists... these things add up. Quickly. I did it for the tax break, sure, but mainly as a commitment to actually go through with what I know I need to do. Otherwise, let's face it, this is America - where you spend as much as you earn, and then some, unless someone stops you. I'm earning more than I have in a very long time and still I don't know quite where it all goes.

Of all the things I need to do next year to be better/well, the thing that weighs on me the most is the therapy. It's started to keep me up and night and creep into my dreams. It's not about some inner fear that I'll be forced into introspection - I'm already guilty of that. It's more that someone will hear that introspection and hold me to it. When I tell people, generally, that I think dating is full of shit or that I'm not cut out for the middle-class lifestyle of chatting about remodeling projects and gas prices over lattes, they think I'm being punchy or a rabble rouser. Instead, I'm being completely honest - I really do live the life of a hypercritical person in perpetual existential angst. And, no, it doesn't make me unhappy - it only makes you unhappy.

In today's Elmo-loving, don't-worry-be-happy world, I'm often dismissed as a Negative Nancy, wet blanket, parade-rainer-oner. I'm OK with my critical side, in fact I quite like it a lot. I think this world could stand to use a few more truly critical people not afraid to look at things from all angles and know where the cracks are. The problem is that as much as I show it to people, I hide most of it because I know it just won't take me anywhere good. Much of American life - any life, really - is about readily handing out your stamp of approval and pockets full of warm fuzzies. Tough love has died in (false) exchange for unconditional love.

I don't want the life that most people lead - in fact, I can't think of a single life model I'd like to duplicate. Not a single relationship, life path, social scene. You just don't go around talking about that on a regular basis - no one wants to hear how you'd never want to live their life. Frankly, I don't go around having great conversations that often. Period. It's amazing how isolated your life can become. I talk to friends via phone, IM, email, but rarely do I actually just sit down and hangout with someone in person. Just sitting, talking, crying, laughing, sharing. No one really has the time to do that any more, or at least no one is willing to make the time for it. Segmentation and compartmentalizing are much safer. Much easier. Much more convenient.

So, on my list of things to do this week is "find a therapist". There are too many open issues and unanswered questions. I've taken them all as far as I can on my own. I need some career and life direction, some (unbiased, realistic) advice on what to do if I can't talk about real estate and interest rates for the rest of my life.

In some ways, I'd just prefer not to. Learning to be desensitized to settling down, being safe... there's something to that. I'm just not sure I'm capable of it. I'd almost like to be.