I hope this blog is different, though; I hope I keep up with it, because last time I went to China blogging was required and it allowed me to process and express my feelings about being halfway around the world essentially alone and on my own. I don't leave for 59 days but the ball has begun rolling so I feel like I should document what's going on in my head now, for posterity. Or self-obsession. Maybe both.
I got my plane ticket and my hotel reservation for Shanghai today, and I did my first cultural competency training. I don't feel like it's real yet, because it just feels like a vacation to Shanghai (which it won't be. I'll be doing training every day I'm there; I hope there's a little time for sightseeing at night, though if there isn't, I'll only be two hours away by train). I know there will be ten months stretched before me, but I don't feel them yet. On the other hand, I have commented that I feel like I'm headed to the chair (which is a wildly grotesque comparison, I admit. I'm not dying as punishment for a crime I may or may not have committed; I've been given an opportunity to live abroad that lots of people would be thrilled to have). Though I know how lucky I am, I also know that I have to cram every little thing in before I go. I considered doing a going-away party, but that's so "Everyone celebrate meeeeeeeeeee!" so I have to see people "one last time" one or two at a time. It's overwhelming.
I started my summer job today and I had to ask for Independence Day off. It falls on a Saturday this year, and my family has a big barbecue. It's always held on a Saturday so the previous four years, I worked on July 4, which is the day everyone wants off. I went in armed with an affecting speech: "I've worked every 4th of July since I've been here! I have to miss Thanksgiving, Christmas, Saint Patrick's Day [my family loves holidays] and Easter while I'm gone!" But when I said, "I need July 4 off," my boss shrugged and said, "Okay. Just write it down; you know how I forget things."
Oh. Just that easy. Why was I disappointed? Was I hoping for Judy to recognize the drama of being away from home for so long? Why did I care? I see this woman two months out of the year.
So, I'm going. My expertise has been acknowledged by the Chinese government (oh, Chinese government, ell oh ell for real. Those degrees mean almost nothing) and I have a letter of invitation. Soon I'll have to send my passport off for the visa. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm worried I'll be depressed while I'm gone. I'm worried that the life I leave behind for a year is not the life that will be waiting when I return. What if I miss everyone all the time? What if they don't miss me at all? What if it's like Opposite It's a Wonderful Life, It's a Terrible Life, and everyone realizes how much better their lives are without me? What if I want to come home? What if I never want to go home?
I struggle with indecision. This quotation from The Bell Jar has always spoken to my deepest fears:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”I've always worried about making the wrong choice, but also being stuck, unable to make any choice. Once you choose a door, all other doors lock forever, but if you never choose, the doors slowly melt into the walls. I have made a decision. What other wonderful opportunities have been closed off to me forever because I made this one? What if the love of my life is here in St. Louis, waiting for me, and I'm off gallivanting in Asia, teaching lit by day and drinking baijiu by night? (I will not be drinking baijiu; it is the Devil's toilet water.) What do I lose by leaving?
That's the real question: What do I lose by leaving? I can't answer it, ever; it's like a Zen koan, but instead of provoking doubt, it is the doubt.
I have been told by many, many people in my life (most of them far wiser than I) that I spend too much time in my head, and if this isn't proof that they're right, well then, I have no idea what is.
What do I lose by leaving?
