the lonely journey
a very peculiar thing happens when you transition into an environment where you're not on your own after being alone is pretty much your default mode of being. i swing from wanting the company to so desperately wanting time on my own that i volunteer for solo forty-five minute walks in the sweltering heat, or staying up till 6am every morning despite being so tired i can barely keep my eyes open. i forgot what it was like not to have any alone time. but at the same time, i don't try to do anything alone anymore. it's like having the option of company suddenly precludes being without it from being the alternative. if i want to try a restaurant, or see a movie, or go shopping, i pick up my phone to see if anyone else is available to do it with me. when did i become that person? have i always been that person, and i just forgot while i was away?
being home is -- stranger than i thought it would be. there are (frequent) moments that i am so thrilled to be back, surrounded by everyone i love, in a house where everything is taken care of and things like food and rent and laundry are a given. it's the best feeling to know i can pick up the phone and in twenty minutes be seeing someone i want to be seeing, having a no holds barred conversation, without any conscious thought about how my 'a's or 't's sound or if a story needs cultural context. it's stupidly good to eat fresh asian food again (dim sum and prata and chicken rice all day err day, tyvm). and it's really nice to spend time with the family, infuriating as they can be.
but the reverse culture shock is tougher to handle than i anticipated. there are things that i can't even articulate that frustrate me more than i thought they would. i guess i overestimated my capacity to back down from a fight, or at least to manage it so that a difference in opinion doesn't escalate into one. nothing aggravates me more than someone saying i don't want to talk about it anymore or let's just forget this and move on. i'd rather be upset and having a discourse than pretending not to be upset and ignoring it. and things that i've learnt to take for granted, like the importance of vernacular (especially in the medical/therapeutic community) or respect for someone else's opinion even when it doesn't match your own, validating that other people might feel a certain way even if that seems foreign or ridiculous to you, or even not pulling out your phones when you're with people -- getting used to being around people who don't (or refuse to) think that way makes me feel like i've regressed ten steps.
and i have to keep reminding myself that throwing in the towel isn't an option. you don't stop talking about victim blaming and why it's wrong just because people say "yes but the victim should have known better / protected themselves / spoken up". even if it's hard for them to understand that it's thinking like that that perpetuates the crime, and helps with getting the offenders off the hook, even if it makes you want to beat your head against the wall. even if the thinking is "worry about yourself, because you can't change the world". we live in the world and it's not going to leave us alone even if we want it to. as much as we like to talk about karma, being a not shitty human being doesn't mean shitty things won't happen to you. it's the people around you who need to be better for that to happen. you can choose to surround yourself with people who believe what you believe, who share the same values and agree with your moral code; you can choose to ignore everyone else who doesn't and write them off as terrible people, stupid people, ignorant people who can't be taught or aren't worth the time, but then--you get america in 2017.
but fighting is tiring, and change is hard. that's been difficult for me to reconcile. people say there are more similarities than differences between different cultures, but the fundamental beliefs feel so contrasting that i don't see how that can be true. you're water, or you're a stone. you learn to respect nature and flow around it, or you make your own rules and stick to them, no matter how hard the world around you pushes. how do you find a middle ground between the two? what use is a semi-permeable stone? or semi-solid water?
this is what happens when you're unemployed. which i hope is at least part of the reason i've been in such a weird, unpleasant headspace. the red tape here is ridiculous, which in most circumstances i would maybe say isn't such a bad thing, but it's making it nearly impossible for me to be employed, and that's been endlessly frustrating. i've spoken to enough people that i know i'm not the only one who thinks the council here has no idea what they're doing, and the regulations they have in place aren't doing anything in the way of quality control. i've gotten to observe some therapy sessions, and i just know i'm capable of better therapy than that. and these are people supposedly qualified to supervise me. when your supervision requirements jump from 2 hours a month to 8 hours a week, when you hear stories like "i had to be supervised by someone with less than half my experience when i first came to singapore", you know something in the system is broken. part of me is considering giving up the therapy route completely, but then i see a kid with a language delay or a phonological process, and i just want to help. i know i can help. i don't even have words to express how i feel about not being able to because of ridiculous, unnecessary, ineffective policy.
i go back and forth on whether i should have left chicago early. knowing what i know now, things would be much less complicated if i hadn't. (although--looking at the situation in the us right now, maybe not.) but maybe the fact that i let myself make the decision to come back at all was indicative that it was the right time. for my sanity, if nothing else. i've been making uncharacteristically impulsive decisions for the last six months; it's been upheaval after upheaval without space to breathe in between. it hasn't been terrible, but every time after there are unexpected consequences that i'm not always on board with. just thinking about it now makes me think i was searching for a change without knowing i was doing it.
like owning a pet. or a cross country move--maybe several. trying to live healthier because my parents need to be, and aren't always very good with self-motivation. or making sure that time spent with loved ones is meaningful. remembering to stay the course and fight the good fight. learning to acknowledge that you're maybe not the person you always thought you were and finding ways to cope with it. a laundry list of could be new year resolutions that i never made but will hopefully stick to, wherever i end up.
being home is -- stranger than i thought it would be. there are (frequent) moments that i am so thrilled to be back, surrounded by everyone i love, in a house where everything is taken care of and things like food and rent and laundry are a given. it's the best feeling to know i can pick up the phone and in twenty minutes be seeing someone i want to be seeing, having a no holds barred conversation, without any conscious thought about how my 'a's or 't's sound or if a story needs cultural context. it's stupidly good to eat fresh asian food again (dim sum and prata and chicken rice all day err day, tyvm). and it's really nice to spend time with the family, infuriating as they can be.
but the reverse culture shock is tougher to handle than i anticipated. there are things that i can't even articulate that frustrate me more than i thought they would. i guess i overestimated my capacity to back down from a fight, or at least to manage it so that a difference in opinion doesn't escalate into one. nothing aggravates me more than someone saying i don't want to talk about it anymore or let's just forget this and move on. i'd rather be upset and having a discourse than pretending not to be upset and ignoring it. and things that i've learnt to take for granted, like the importance of vernacular (especially in the medical/therapeutic community) or respect for someone else's opinion even when it doesn't match your own, validating that other people might feel a certain way even if that seems foreign or ridiculous to you, or even not pulling out your phones when you're with people -- getting used to being around people who don't (or refuse to) think that way makes me feel like i've regressed ten steps.
and i have to keep reminding myself that throwing in the towel isn't an option. you don't stop talking about victim blaming and why it's wrong just because people say "yes but the victim should have known better / protected themselves / spoken up". even if it's hard for them to understand that it's thinking like that that perpetuates the crime, and helps with getting the offenders off the hook, even if it makes you want to beat your head against the wall. even if the thinking is "worry about yourself, because you can't change the world". we live in the world and it's not going to leave us alone even if we want it to. as much as we like to talk about karma, being a not shitty human being doesn't mean shitty things won't happen to you. it's the people around you who need to be better for that to happen. you can choose to surround yourself with people who believe what you believe, who share the same values and agree with your moral code; you can choose to ignore everyone else who doesn't and write them off as terrible people, stupid people, ignorant people who can't be taught or aren't worth the time, but then--you get america in 2017.
but fighting is tiring, and change is hard. that's been difficult for me to reconcile. people say there are more similarities than differences between different cultures, but the fundamental beliefs feel so contrasting that i don't see how that can be true. you're water, or you're a stone. you learn to respect nature and flow around it, or you make your own rules and stick to them, no matter how hard the world around you pushes. how do you find a middle ground between the two? what use is a semi-permeable stone? or semi-solid water?
this is what happens when you're unemployed. which i hope is at least part of the reason i've been in such a weird, unpleasant headspace. the red tape here is ridiculous, which in most circumstances i would maybe say isn't such a bad thing, but it's making it nearly impossible for me to be employed, and that's been endlessly frustrating. i've spoken to enough people that i know i'm not the only one who thinks the council here has no idea what they're doing, and the regulations they have in place aren't doing anything in the way of quality control. i've gotten to observe some therapy sessions, and i just know i'm capable of better therapy than that. and these are people supposedly qualified to supervise me. when your supervision requirements jump from 2 hours a month to 8 hours a week, when you hear stories like "i had to be supervised by someone with less than half my experience when i first came to singapore", you know something in the system is broken. part of me is considering giving up the therapy route completely, but then i see a kid with a language delay or a phonological process, and i just want to help. i know i can help. i don't even have words to express how i feel about not being able to because of ridiculous, unnecessary, ineffective policy.
i go back and forth on whether i should have left chicago early. knowing what i know now, things would be much less complicated if i hadn't. (although--looking at the situation in the us right now, maybe not.) but maybe the fact that i let myself make the decision to come back at all was indicative that it was the right time. for my sanity, if nothing else. i've been making uncharacteristically impulsive decisions for the last six months; it's been upheaval after upheaval without space to breathe in between. it hasn't been terrible, but every time after there are unexpected consequences that i'm not always on board with. just thinking about it now makes me think i was searching for a change without knowing i was doing it.
like owning a pet. or a cross country move--maybe several. trying to live healthier because my parents need to be, and aren't always very good with self-motivation. or making sure that time spent with loved ones is meaningful. remembering to stay the course and fight the good fight. learning to acknowledge that you're maybe not the person you always thought you were and finding ways to cope with it. a laundry list of could be new year resolutions that i never made but will hopefully stick to, wherever i end up.