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.

A new home

Home is a funny word to a nomad or wanderer. It isn't a place necessarily and doesn't always come with a monthly bill. It's both broader and more specific than that - it's the place you feel like you belong, or at least you feel completely comfortable. It's a reality that can elude a person entirely, the carrot on the string you keep chasing but can never bite into.

My definition of home is similarly hard to pin down. When I was in college my mom used to mail me packages with the return address labeled, quite clearly, "Home" - as if it was a statement of fact that she needed or wanted to remind me of. Five apartments in ten years when I was in NYC meant that the space wasn't really my home either - it was more likely to be the place where I got coffee or routinely met friends than it was an overpriced box. Following, there was Bulgaria and now Chicago - Chicago being about 350 sq feet of tightly-packed, space-maximizing-demanding smallness.

My Chicago Box is in a "good" neighborhood, but it's a neighborhood I don't really relate to much. I don't care about $500 purses and miniature dogs and diamond rings. What I care about is the ability to walk wherever I go and, presently, I walk everywhere - to work, to the store, to friends, to restaurants, to boutique shops, to the movies, to the farmer's market. All of it is on foot, and that I value. What that means is that I spend my day passing people that I don't care about - women with freshly-applied makeup and pressed hair chatting on the cell about, like, you know, how embarrassing it was to totally just puke at the bar in front of Him. O. Mi. Gawd.

The apartment itself has its own problems and limitations on homeyness - doors that open the wrong way, ridiculously heavy windows, a tiny kitchen... so many things. I stay for what it has though - location, great natural light, semi-affordability and the fact that it's a self-imposed limit on my ability to accumulate crap. Americans accumulate a lot of crap. I've been acquiring furniture to fit the space - something that maximizes it while also fitting my life. It's exhausting. I did, however, manage to find a desk of the right size for a corner of the room. So much mind-numbing online shopping. As Americans we are accustomed to being so particular and precise - I never did more introspection than I did when I was in a country where I couldn't express my 'personality' and whim in ever single fucking purchase. Oy.

Post-$150 and a good deal of futzing with Allen wrenches and wooden pellets, I have a place to call my own - a 36"x19" home. Ah.

Breaking Up Really IS Hard to Do

[I'm cheating. I posted this originally on Life, in Bold Italics, but it's a good transition entry, so here it is again.]

December 20, 2005. That's when I left Bulgaria. Not a day goes by that I'm not reminded of my experiences there. This is partially due to the fact that I speak to at least one person I 'served' with everyday. I walked away with some truly great friends, no doubt there. But, it's really more than that. I left early. I 'quit,' as they like to say. I remember it being a very clear decision. One that seemed so logical. It was... and it wasn't.

Professionally, for the first time ever, I really felt like a failure. Sure I transferred some skills and did some good in my town, but the markers of success seemed to keep moving and I felt like I consistently missed them. I felt like I'd done a week's worth of work in about a year and a half. Even if it wasn't true, it's what it felt like. I didn't have the resources (support, interest... you name it) to do what so clearly needed to be done. It was so fucking exhausting.

Adding to that, I had spent a lot of my time dealing with some demons. Maybe even too much time. I had developed a huge, and obvious, crush on a guy - a crush following my tendency to find comfort in unrequited... er, infatuation. In concert with other life events, it ended this pattern, but that didn't make it feel any better in the moment. There was a lot of self-doubt and confusion and discomfort - not great additions to living abroad. I had good friends who were kind and understanding enough to know when to push and when to let things go, but I'm sure the thrashing of the demons made me look - and act - like a giant ass to a fair amount of people. Sorry.

The demons weren't just about men (dear god, I'm not that fucking lame). They were really connected with everything. Limiting myself. Not pursuing what I really wanted. Anger. Bitterness. Sadness. Loss. Emptiness. Not knowing whether I was over- or underwhelmed in my life. ...Shit, basically. I'd just start crying for no reason at all. You know what? It was so fucking liberating. I wish I cried more now.

All the weight aside, I didn't leave Peace Corps for it. It was as factor, sure, but I clearly remember leaving for quite the opposite reason. I felt like I was getting better - stronger, more focused, less... weighted, but that I felt like I couldn't really BE those things where I was. Too much stagnation in my town. Too many friends with substance and reality issues. Too many people flaking out on me when I felt better just distancing myself from them all together. I needed space and time - room to grow. I'd used up all I had there.

Then I came back. The American Hamster Wheel. Three months of loneliness and feeling more lost then ever. Months of walking into other people's crutches and self-inflicted burdens. I'd left because I felt like I was finally ready to leave the abyss and I thought I had a good idea where the surface was, but then I arrived back in the grand ole US of A only to realize it was the same, only with rent and bills. Adding to all of this, it was only last week that I finally found a job - nearly 2 yrs later. All of those things I'd worked so hard to shed came back twofold. I was no longer strong and focused - I was sad and aimless. Exhausted once more.

Now, employed, I get to finally try to reclaim the gains I made abroad. Not all those gains were lost, but I feel I still have some repairing to do. I drifted from certain people - some of the drifting was very intentional, but other drifting was not. The loss of two friendships in particular has kept me up many more nights than I wish to admit. Two people who I once communicated with sometimes several times a day and considered very good friends. Two friendships lost, at least in part, due to my waywardness. Two faces that randomly appear in my dreams, as if to remind me of the sorrow, in case I had forgotten.

So here I am, 21 months later, still thinking about the Peace Corps. What I did and did not do. Wish I had done, and wish I had not. Things I am glad to never do again, and things my heart aches for. Both mistakes and advances made. A heart mended and broken several times over.

I don't miss the girl I was in Bulgaria, or even the girl I've been since I returned. The girl I miss is the one in those 2 weeks or so between deciding to leave and leaving. I miss the girl on the plane with nothing but potential ahead of her. She's been broken and reassembled many times in this lifetime, only to be better each time. Here's hoping this time is no different.

Everything old is new again

Sunday night nearing midnight. I sit listening to a "This American Life" podcast. Occasionally, I get up to do dishes, which seem never ending.

It's been more than a year. A full year of unemployment. March 19, 2006, I came to Chicago full of hope and expectations for a new beginning. Instead, I received a lot of condescending interviews, conflicting advice and a return to poverty. Unemployment is a sobering experience - one that makes you doubt who you are and what you do... what you should be doing, what you do well. It is, perhaps, something everyone should experience. The irony of it all is that it comes at a time when you're supposed to be a one-man marketing department, explaining via cover letter, email, resume, interview how you can rock everyone's world - only in a non-threatening, traditional way. The whole process is exhausting, degrading and depressing.

I've been temping for roughly nine months now. Luckily, I've only had two assignments in those nine months, so I've not bounced around from office to office everyday. If being unemployed is hellish, temping is simply hell. Everyone assumes, until you prove otherwise, that because you are a temp that you have no skills or brain. For the first week or so, many even just call you "The Temp" as if you've been robbed of your identity for being so damn stupid. Crap pay and non-existent benefits add to the rewarding experience. The capstone, however, is the ex-sorority sisters who work at the temp agencies judging you to see if you are appropriate for a position. Ten years of experience on a resume and one asked me "well, this is all great, but have you made travel arrangements for people or handled someone's calendar?" Um, no, but I was a corporate consultant at 20, so I'm sure I could handle it.

Entering into a tough phase of your life can bring out friends who want to lend a hand or an ear. Get stuck in that phase too long however, and suddenly people fade - not having the time or energy to remain involved. The best are people who just gloss over it with things like "It'll change soon, I can feel it" or "Look on the bright side..." - these two dominate the radiant insights. In a world of security and excessive planning, the word "unemployed" is the new "cancer" - fearfully said in a hushed tone as if it's a disease that's easily transferable. After college, there's a number of tracks one can choose, but there's an expectation that once on that track the person will chug comfortably along it. Jumping tracks is a sure fire way to confuse and overwhelm the people in your life who will most often sit you down to discuss the assumed-to-be-forgotten benefits of the misbegotten track. Unemployment isn't about a new track - it's about a train suspended in midair. Understandably, no one wants to stick around to see how that goes. When the dust is settled, people will return to hypothesize how it went right or wrong. At that point, all the former insiders cement themselves as mere spectators.

Extended unemployment creates this cavern that can't quite ever be filled. A teenage identity crisis, only with rent and bills due.

Sunday night and I'm up late putzing around the house in my pajamas, allowing my thoughts to drift. There's no Monday schedule to keep - simply a few calls and emails to send filled with fake enthusiasm and confidence. So very Glengarry Glen Ross.