"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple of years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
---From Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club
This seems particularly relevant as I pack to move out of the country again. I told myself when I first moved from Ohio that I would never be so tied to a place again with material objects and now I have an apartment full of furniture to try to get rid of....things really do start to own you if you're not careful. I need to remind myself that the only truly essential things are not what you buy, but what you cultivate within yourself.
who knows if the moon's
a balloon, coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it, if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited, where
always
it's
Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves
---e.e. cummings
Sometimes I really cry about this, as if my ultimate purpose in life is not being fulilled. As if I am a loser. As if every other woman on my facebook is better than me... Is one-upping me.
I am single. Motherhood is not yet on my radar. But do I not flinch when a baby is near me? Do I not swoon when an opportunity to hold one (a baby) is given to me?
I am still a woman. Motherhood still beckons my name. But right now, it is not right. I would make a terrible mother right now, even if I am almost 30. Sometimes I wonder if this trend is unique to me, but I know it is not.
There are many other women, out there right now, feeling the same way as I do. Our gender constructs can not be defined in this moment and it kills us. We are not real women, we are not feminine. We have some kind of plague because we choose another path. We are strong, masculine, have larger goals but we still yearn for this ultimate feminine gift of motherhood. Don't misunderstand us...or else we will misunderstand you..
I am leaving Korea, that is definite. What will happen from there is a bit murky, but I have an email agreement with my former landlord that I will move into my old building in LA come September. This leaves me with anxiety and excitement, sadness and elation. Now that I really think about leaving I feel like crying a bit, but I know that the future is always bright, for everyone who still has a pulse so it won't be bad. Change is always scary, I just have to learn to deal with it better. I am a chronic worrier so that doesn't help.
I just don't really know what's next, I try to make plans but they often fall short or behind me. I know that if I have the money I plan to save when I go home, I should be fine without a job for at least 2 months, if not 3 and I know I can get a tutoring or subbing gig fairly easily. It's just really hard to wrap my head around paying rent, expensive rent and not having the (often) excessive lifestyle I enjoy now. It is stupid and selfish, but life here is so easy and free. It is not reality, it is really enjoying your youth and I like that. I'm still a crotchety old lady, but I think I'm a bit better at playing the young game since I've been here.
So my immediate plans are to get through these next few painful weeks at school (endless lesson plans, an open house, ridiculous big test, and even more ridiculous progress reports), enjoy what I can of Seoul and Korea by being a tourist, and get the hell out of dodge. And not just in any way, but by doing the thing I love the most, traveling and exploring. This time back to Indonesia and 2 new places: Thailand and Cambodia. This is when I will really want time to move slow, I want to enjoy it and not rush it. I want to really feel that salty ocean water, even if I'm swallowing it down. I want to relish the sun, the food, the hot boys. I know it will be amazing, but then I have to get back to that reality I'm so worried about. This next year has to be about me finishing school, achieving my M.A. Ed. and maybe even getting a bit of experience in.
Then I want to let go and leave again...I don't want to live in the United States really for too long and that's all there is to it. Reading the news this last year just leaves me depressed. Between the oil spills, tea-baggers, gay marriage still not being legal...I don't want to be a part of it right now and I'm not sure when I really will be ready for it. I know other countries have their problems, but I'm always more on the outside of it then really in it. I don't feel liable if I'm not there. So one year and out, I think I can do it. I can make it happen...
...not that I have been thinking about this too much, but when it does come up it can be quite bothersome. When did privacy become stigmatized as something bad or shameful? (and in posting about this, I know how hypocritical I'm being seeing as how I post some of my private thoughts onto an internet blog for all the world to see) ....and I'm not just talking about internet privacy, though the shenanigans at facebook are ugly reminders of how little we control the privacy of our social networking profiles.
...there is also the privacy issue of sharing information with perfect strangers when our credit cards are stolen or we want to know the balance of our bank accounts which is also a pet peeve of mine. How can we really trust those people on the other end of the line, what safeguards have the businesses who employ them put in place? Background checks? Big deal, I have passed many of those but can sometimes (often) be morally ambiguous in my deeds and activities.
I have also dealt with another privacy issue that I have to admit, bothers me much more than the once previously mentioned. I think once I move back home to the States, this should be a non-issue. It's privacy of home and self. Back home I was very content in the fact that after a hard day or week of work; I could go home, close the door, peel off my clothes, lay in bed, drink wine, watch bad television, read a book, and think little of the encounters or people I had to deal with that day or week.
Not so in Korea or perhaps in the daily life of an ESL teacher in a foreign country. I'm sure those who work in public or university schools have a different experience, but for the most part, socializing with those you work with is ideal. Mostly because we work long hard days and we don't want to venture too far from home. I have made wonderful friendships with past and present coworkers in every job I have worked so I have no complaints there. It just is hard to be around the same people all day, every day.
There is also the conundrum that often, you live in very close proximity to your fellow teachers. My situation may be a bit more unique in that the entire floor of my building is just coworkers. And while I like them all for the most part, it can be quite exhausting when you are expected to answer your phone, answer your door, appease the masses when you just want to shut yourself away from everyone when the work is done.
I adore my alone time and hermit ways and mean no offense to anybody in my life now or previously, but come on...privacy should be a right, not a privilege. So, I greatly look forward to the day when I will be back in an overpriced LA studio, my anonymity rightly restored and I'll only have to shyly smile or nod at the fellow neighbors I know nothing about. This is coming from a generally private city girl who doesn't necessarily want to know your business, either.
So, I just signed up for a Latino dating site because I am utterly ridiculous and I have to admit I have been craving some sort of male attention. Does that mean I will accept ogling of carefully cropped photos of myself by old 40-something Mexicanos on the intrawebs as male attention? You betcha!
I mean, jeez, no man has really paid any kind of real attention to me since I have arrived in Korea last July. So, I got one Korean's number one time and he said he liked my hair, big deal. So I held hands with a male co-worker one drunken night, who cares? So what if at a writer's group night some stand up comedians said I had Bambi eyes, like that matters.
This is not real admiration or devotion, I need someone to evaluate my online profile and deem it worthy enough to send me a grammatically incorrect message equipped with smiley faces and lols. I need someone to send me a "wink" and maybe eventually add me on facebook and comment that I am beautiful. I need someone who will say that when I get back to the States, they want to meet the real-live me...not the uber-enhanced or uber-undisclosed version of me.
I want someone to want me in an online sort of way, intensely and in large quantities. I want more than one admirer, future lover, guesser of my real weight. I want it all and I don't ever want it to enter into reality. I want the fantasy and I want it now.
