let it be

(i'm trying not to complain or be miserable, but i know i need to write down how things are so someday i can, for whatever purpose is yet unknown, remember.)

it's dark in the house, but i have lit a candle. it's me and the cat, alone again tonight.

i never thought this would be how i'd spend my evenings in my mid-20's glory days (aren't i supposed to be out partying and racking up credit card debt or something?). i never thought i'd just stare at the flame of a discount candle on a friday night, wearing an old pair of sweatpants and debating an early retirement to bed this evening. i never thought i'd be the one to break into not just tears but full on sobs over practically nothing multiple times a week. i never thought i'd be weak and lonely and so unsure of everything that i've always been sure of, yet so sure of everything that's always been unknown. i never thought i'd be able to trust someone i've only known for a year and a half enough to tell them "i love you" like i've done for so long now, believing it with every ounce of me. i've never trusted someone enough to move in with them and combine finances with them and add their name to my car's title, not to mention taking their name as my own (basically all simultaneously). i never, ever thought i'd have to go months without hearing my husband's voice.

it's Christmas and all i'm doing these days is minimally surviving, trying to make it through. i bought presents for my family and his, wrapped them, bought and signed cards, mailed them all in the timely fashion and even got tracking numbers. i sent extra money to charity. i bought my husband an ornament, but unlike most wives, the box in which it rests is in the closet, where it will remain well past the holiday season.

fact is, even though i have "not celebrated" Christmas twice already in my adult life, this will by far be the most difficult. the two previous occasions were my own choice, my own adventure. nothing would make me more excited than to get a "d & k first Christmas 2012" ornament. but, you see, this won't be our first Christmas. sure it's the first time the day will pass since we've been married, but we will not spend it together, nor even in the same timezone. i don't even know what timezone he's in.

i have a tree, and a shoebox of ornaments we bought last year on vetran's day because we were so happy to have someone for the holidays and the target ad that week had advertised that the first shipment of Christmas merchandise was for sale. we set up the tree at my house and we slowly accumulated brightly wrapped presents with crinkly bows under it, and the weekend before i went home for Christmas (he had to stay here and work, plus his brother flew out for the holidays) we opened them together while listening to the pandora Christmas station. we made Christmas cookies and while eating them admired our pretty, twinkly lights and then drove around and admired other people's pretty, twinkly lights. my friend found us the perfect angel for our tree at a craft fair, after i'd complained to her how i couldn't find one i liked anywhere. all these memories stay safely tucked inside their box this year.

i thought about going home again this year. i envisioned myself getting on the plane and red-eyeing (because that's the only flight there is between here and there) it there, driving home, going through the motions of holly jolly. and it was suffocating, the mere notion made me anxious. i thought of all the people i'd run into, friends with honest, curious, well-intentioned questions that i'd have to answer, somehow, with a smile. i thought about not having the safety of my daily routine filled with people who know exactly what i'm going through, who don't ask questions, who accept my moodiness. i just could not do it, couldn't make myself buy that ticket. i know my mom wishes i'd come home, and it is very difficult to even explain to myself why i just emotionally can't go. i wish i was that strong, but i am weak and tired and oftentimes fragile (handle with care) these days.

we won't celebrate here until he comes home, whenever that will be. we'll put up the tree together and our brightly wrapped presents will go underneath. we'll make cookies and play music and stare at the lights. i'm going to hold onto the cards people have sent us so we can enjoy them together, buy some discounted pine-scented candles and sparkly snowmen and penguins wearing scarves when they all go on sale. on Christmas i will go to work, and after work i will come home to a quiet house and a striped cat, and let it be.

hovering

i am routinely amazed by how, for better or for worse, things never turn out the way you thought they would.

i've made my share of life plans, but so few of them have come to fruition. some of these paths i've chosen have lead to amazing, happy places, new people, great experiences. others have lead to heartbreak and failure, either of my own doing or situations i unknowingly (but willingly and/or eagerly) stepped into.

in some respects, i'd expected greater things of myself by this point in my life than i've achieved. i never expected that by this point i would have burnt out on a real career and resorted back to the service industry where there are fewer career up-steps, but also fewer people telling me i'm an idiot on a daily basis. someone recently told me i should do more, but i couldn't really reply. part of me is disappointed in myself for falling short, while the other half is sympathetic, realizing how hard it was, and knowing that right now, this is what i can do. (not to mention that where i am today is no indicator of where i may go someday.)

every day i see all sorts of business people scurrying off to their desk jobs and i remember being one of them. part of me misses the routine, of getting to buy/wear nice clothes (although i was perpetually under dressed) and bring home nice paychecks. but i also realize that my happiness quotient now is a bit higher, that somehow, impossibly, i'm actually a bit more content now with less than i was then with more.

but of course, with the good, comes a black cloud.

in my case, it's the absence of the someone who i look forward to seeing at the end of each day. as a friend told me, it's not like we're broken up, we're just geographically separated for a bit of time. i suppose so, but there's also the silence and the unknown of everything. then there are the lonely dinners, the waking up in the middle of the night, not because someone bumped into you in their sleep, but because they didn't. there's the lack of a hand-in-hand-walk-down-the-beach companion, and someone to snuggle up next to and watch tv. there are some activities in which you can replace this special person with a friend: someone who will go shopping with you (perhaps said friend will even be more willing), someone to commiserate with you when you're frustrated, someone who will eat a meal or two with you, or text you a funny picture or youtube link. but it's often just not the same, and that's the way it should be. doesn't make it less painful, but again, that's the way it should be. it shows that something, someone, profound is missing.

because of this separation, my life feels on hold. i hesitate to make decisions because the wall i bounce everything off of is gone. i don't want to make any massive life changes because i just want everything i can possibly control to be sound. it's barely all that i can handle that he's away; please don't throw in other massive change or upheaval. i'm not sure if most people understand, but it's how i feel.

despite these negatives, there are a great many things in my life that have turned out so much better than i could have dreamed. i never realized how low my standards for a spouse were (and i thought they were pretty lofty...) until i met and married someone who blew all of them out of the water, and then some. i find it remarkable on a daily basis that (a) a person this awesome actually exists and (b) i not only got to meet him, but i got to marry him. we have a happy, blessed life together. we have a comfortable home, functional vehicles, food in the refrigerator, employment and even a cat. for some reason, i had never felt completely convinced that a life like this would ever exist. i always had a shadow of doubt hovering overhead that i was unlovable and would end up lonely into old age, i'd have to single-handedly provide every penny, every ounce of strength, every morsel of anything for myself. there's a clear a mental picture i had of myself as the crazy cat lady. but, somehow, that hasn't come to pass. frankly, things turned out better than i could have ever hoped to dream.

and so i dare to hope that maybe, just maybe, even through the hard times that will undoubtedly come to pass, life will be full and good.

recently

the last post spoke of my engagement, this one will speak of my marriage, and all that happened in between.

we were engaged on memorial day, may 28. we’d gone sunrise skydiving that morning, had an early lunch, and then visited a quiet beach, where he proposed. it was magical.

however, later that day, as it was the final evening of a weekend and a return to work would occur the next day, i had a full-scale panic attack. panic attacks were virtually unknown to me before the early fall of 2011. 

you see, in may, 2011 i started a new job. within weeks i was unsure if i was good enough or how long i’d last, if i really had what it took. i decided to persevere, stick with it, and do my best. sure i dreaded every monday, an increasingly powerful dread leading to the aforementioned panic attacks which occurred most sunday evenings.  my poor husband-to-be would listen and let me cry on his shoulder and tell me that he still thought i was awesome, even though there were many people who i spent 40+ hours with every week who obviously thought otherwise. (i’m not going to go into why this job didn’t work, but suffice to say i’ve never dreaded anything as much as i dreaded each morning. and i’ve done my fair share of difficult and unpleasant things, including 15 hour work days staring at 5am, which were nothing in comparison.)

in december, i was preparing to go back home for the holidays. mr. now-hubby told me i should quit before i left, then take my vacation. he would take care of my financial needs until i found something else. but i was stubborn; the allure of paid vacation, medical insurance and independence was too great, plus i’d received a promotion and pay raise in mid-december, maybe things would change. i went home, flew back and went back to work the next day. but in the back of my mind, i held his promise: i knew i could leave.

fast-forward to the day i got a ring around my finger, and my largest-to-date attack. he told me, under no uncertain terms, that i had to quit the next day, no matter what. i couldn’t keep throwing myself in front of a bus for money and health insurance. when i called my mom the next morning to relay my engagement news and his commandment, she also encouraged me to stop being miserable.

i knew the man loved me long before he proposed to me. but when someone cares so much about you that they command (in a loving way) you to stop doing something that is making you dread every day, it speaks volumes. for him to say, “i love you, i will take care of you, please be happy”, was more support than anyone had ever physically offered me. sure my parents had taken care of me through the day i moved out, and i’ve always known that if something were to happen i could return to their home, they are my parents. although not all parents care for their adult children in this way, it is, to me, unsurprising that they would make such a promise. (sidenote: i’d never expect a friend to make such an offer, and i have had a number of good friends give excellent life advice/commandments, for which I am eternally grateful.) but to have someone, even a fiance, say this was unknown. my happiness was that important to him, he’d take a financial hit, take me on, as his responsibility. he would love me for quitting, for standing up for my sanity. he would love me when i had nothing to give except the ability to make excellent chocolate chip cookies, when i wasn’t miss independent anymore.

after my last day, in mid-june, i received a cash-out of my vacation days, and i was officially gone. it’s kind of demoralizing for someone who has worked very hard since their teenage years to create a life for themselves, to suddenly not wake up every morning with a to-do list of shifts and when they start. to have time to plan a wedding and read books on the beach and sleep deeply and happily for the first time in a year. i don’t have the identity of employment anymore, the pride of bringing home a nice paycheck every 2 weeks. it still bothers me that i’m basically a barnacle, relying on him. but i’m actually happy. i don’t go to bed feeling like a failure, only to wake up dreading the new day. i tell him “thank you for making me quit” almost weekly, because the change in me has been so radical. (yes, that’s right, i said my own happiness can feel demoralizing. talk about mixed feelings!)

on august 1, we were wed in a private ceremony. it was lovely and perfect. we’re a good match, he and i. i’m happy to make him dinner when he comes home and wash his clothes, vacuum and water the houseplants, make sure the bills get paid on time. i’m trying to plan my next move, see what lies around the next corner, through the next window. i do work part-time even yet (a longtime second job that i kept just in case the “real” job didn’t work), which i like well enough. he doesn’t seem to mind that i’m not the independent woman i was when we first met, and he does take very good care of me.

i guess for now i’m just a happy barnacle… and maybe, just maybe, the makes of a better blogger.

sparkling

i got engaged on memorial day... and will be married before labor day. it's becoming a very busy summer indeed.

sunday, 4/8

oh dear.

it's been nearly a year since i updated this thing, you'd think i'd be more on top of life than that (unless you know me well, you've seen me within these last 11 months, then you're not a bit surprised). thus i will be completely amazed if anyone ever reads this...

weekends have been rough for me lately, which seems to be the opposite of the way it should be. somewhere on sunday this subtle dread fills me- monday is coming. tears have become a sunday evening tradition.

the boy had to work today (even though it was not only a national holiday and a sunday but his birthday, too. talk about injustice...) which left me a lonely, cloudy day to soul search. last night, as he was enduring my tearful tirade (even though it wasn't even sunday night yet) he told me i ought to just quit. and that might actually happen.

because i think things inside of me are shifting again.

i am becoming a real woman. like one who enjoys staying home and cooking food for her man. i recently acquired a costco membership and the few cells of domesticity i had started to breed like rabbits. at about the same time i was introduced to pintrest by a friend. rabbits in spring. let's call costco plus pintrest plus emotional unrest the perfect storm.

i still want to travel and i would really like to have a job i enjoy, but there's this peaceful settling in starting to almost happen in there, and frankly these sunday-evening panic attacks are all but destroying what settling can occur in an evening (when i'm not working overtime) or saturday.

i want to write again. i'd really like to try a few recipes for my unadventurous taste tester with the metabolism that dreams are made of. i want to read a few good books and take a few lovely photographs. i went to send you a handmade birthday card (even though those singing hoops and yoyo numbers are pretty wonderful). i want to paint on a canvas, or maybe just put some tasteful calligraphy on one (see: pintrest). i want to sip tea and feel joy anew. because the way things have been is not sustainable, and will either suck my soul straight out of me or kill me or both.

wish me luck. there are a thousand steps between here and there.

life

recently the city & county of honolulu added some new busses to their fleet. i would not know this except that they are a different style from the old ones, and they look like the busses in qingdao. something about the shape and the fact that the windows are bigger.

i learned a lot about chinese life in chinese busses.

for the first half of my time in china i had a second job tutoring a boy who lived on the other side of town. it would take me an hour to walk from my apartment to the bus stop, catch a bus, transfer in front of the enormous, intimidating, well-guarded government building by 五四广场, then ride to the western side of qingdao where we would meet.

after our lesson, i would walk back to the bus stop and try to get on the bus before all the school children, their grandparents, and those who had just finished work. because if i didn’t i would be standing all the way back to downtown in rush hour traffic.

never have i been so physically close to so many people, some of which have been either playing a sport that causes profuse sweating or not bathed in days. or eaten lots of raw garlic. these three people will be pressing themselves against you and screaming into their cellphones. there is really no way i can accurately explain the tight togetherness of the bus. it’s so bad that when it stops at the bus stop, it is virtually impossible to get on or off- there are so many people crammed into the door-well that the doors cannot open. forget about even attempting to find a seat; you’ll be lucky to find a pocket of air to breathe and get off without loosing anything. i once almost lost a flip flop in the shuffle. i ended up throwing myself out of the bus with my shoes in my hands. which is not something you do in china.

also they have these fun televisions on the buses that showcase a variety of entertaining and educational programming, including but certainly not limited to: how to make your own snuggie (which you are encouraged to wear to the post office and bank), america’s funniest home videos, recent news, olympic highlights and the chinese version of south park.

all the chinese busses are all simultaneously aiming to break a land speed record. should a pedestrian conveniently not look (and thus not see) the oncoming bus, the driver will have to slam on the breaks (although i heard of many accidents concerning pedestrians who “didn’t see” the bus, or breaks that weren't slammed fast enough) which may or may not send cell phone/ipod/shopping bag wielding passengers and their valuable possessions flying. my roommate once told me that a bus she was riding braked so hard that an elderly passanger banged his head on the window and it started to bleed. the bus is a very dangerous place indeed.

but as i would stand at the bus stop so far away from home, in this unfamiliar part of the city, freezing cold in the twilight it would hit me. i was doing this. i was in china, working two jobs, grocery shopping, going out with friends from around the world and walking home to my lack-luster apartment, making a life for myself in china. i was learning where every bus went, memorizing the stops and what they meant in chinese. i was learning how to read all the road signs and even understand the programming on the televisions in the bus.

i was slowly becoming accustomed to the plucked chickens in shopping bags with their feet sticking out, the ticket lady on the bus yelling out the next stop, the driver encouraging us to all cram in there so that he could fit a few more passengers, make a few more yuan. i had become accustomed to the walk home, past the same road-side food vendors, the strawberry lady, over those same tiled sidewalks, to our large green metal door with no knobs.

on the occasion i could grab a seat, i would sit next there and watch the city slide by and realize that this place had become familiar, had become home. it was so far from where i’d started, and it was just kind of random that i’d even ended up there, although i couldn’t really imagine being anywhere else.

i guess sometimes it’s a little crazy for me to look back and remember that was my home. i laughed there and cried there and survived winter there and met people who will forever change my life. i dived into a profession i never thought i’d be good at and made friends with many, many people from all walks of life and countries i’d never visited, who taught me more than they will ever know.

and the sight of these new busses here in hawaii brings all these thoughts back.

moment

once upon a time someone asked me what the best moment of my life had been.

he told me that his had been on the streets of some city in europe at night and the lights were shining off the rain on the cobblestones and music was playing like that in movies, or something beautiful and rich and poetic like that. the kind of place i’d never been able to afford or had the opportunity to visit.

and his question, followed by that answer, stumped me. i didn’t know what my moment was.

recently i was on the other side of the island with my friend jaime. it was almost sunset and we decided to pull over at a beach and wait for it, because we had nowhere better to be, or anything else to do. and we ended up at this beach that i used to visit when i lived there.

it’s not the kind of beach they make post cards out of. there’s a big parking lot and a wall and no sand, just some rocks that the water laps up against. there’s a little dock area where rowing teams meet and set up their canoes. the waves aren’t big or scary so many people kayak or paddle surf there.

i lived in an apartment close to this beach for about a month when i first moved to hawaii. i wasn’t working yet, so i’d spend my morning walking to the library or the bank or the grocery store. i’d come home and make banana pancakes for lunch and spend the afternoon at the pool reading books and cooling off by swimming laps. in the evening i’d often walk to the beach.

and somehow, at that beach, God told me i would be just fine. somehow the mixture of sunset and the sea and the breeze blowing through my hair convinced me that i wasn’t as alone as it sometimes seemed, that i was meant to be and to be here. and it wasn’t a singular event, but every time i went there, this peace would fill me and i’d go home and make pasta for dinner and ice cream for dessert and go to bed and sleep without all the frenetic worrying and what-if’s that will and have and do keep me awake.

so jaime and i went to this beach and as i pulled the car into a parking spot right next to the wall by the ocean, it caught me off guard. it took me back to a simpler time and place when this whole island was new and unknown and i knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Someone was taking care of me and i should not fret, everything would work out just fine.

all of a sudden i couldn’t speak, there was no way to explain to her what this place is to me. how deeply this singular spot on the globe means to me.

if you ask me tomorrow what the best moment of my life has been, where that place is that has changed me, i will tell you. it’s that beach in hawaii kai that isn’t really a beach. it’s that place where i can stand with my feet in the water and know deeply, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that i should not worry, all will be well.