(no subject)
Hello,
So decisions have been made. I'm leaving Saigon and heading to Cat Ba island for a few months.
I will write more about this, but this morning I'm kind of drunk/high and I don't feel like writing about everything that has made me come to that conclusion. Granted because I'm drunk/high, it might happen anyways in an incredibly unintelligible way. Here are the highlights:
I quit ILA last Sunday and I have to say that it was a good decision for me. I've written about why and how I feel about it so many times and in so many ways that I don't know if I have the energy to explain it all again. This depression has definitely been sparked by teaching and yes, I have a lot to work out. I will go home, but not yet. There's too much here that I would miss right now.
You meet a lot of people here, every day, all the time... you form connections quickly here. I was talking to Pierre about this last night, how westerners so far from home quickly form relationships and move in together here. It's a bit like college I think, you're thrown into this world of complete and utter freedom where there are absolutely no rules and nothing holding you back from doing whatever the fuck you want here. People don't really know how to deal with that freedom, but most people embrace it and find someone to share this with, to fuck, to talk to, to experience with, to escape from it all with.... Obviously we've grown up a bit from college, but its the same 'new freedom,' with the contrasting need to have a community and to not be alone.
I've met people here and I'm so grateful for all the connections that I've made. It's helped me realize a lot about myself and how I interact with people and what types of connections I want and need in my life. One thing that really weighs on me is the fact that I meet lonely boys who 'fall in love' with me. Vietnam is filled with lonely boys... I hear the same story over and over again, they date jaded western women who leave after a year, they date vietnamese women who's end goal is marriage... its the business of romance, where they are with them because they are western and they find them attractive, but they dont really "Know" them. The unyielding adoration of beautiful women is hard to resist, but as westerners, we get bored with that and want the complex emotional elements that encapsulate these drama filled or just generally complex western dynamics. So these lonely boys are searching for something else and they fill their days with drugs and quick sex and quick fixes. I've met too many here. I don't think I could live here for longer than 3 years if I end up staying. I have little interest in having this western life in an Asian culture for an extended period of time.
Joe and Jon and Emma are who I would have hung out with at home. Joe is Garrett's brother in every sense of who he is... intelligent, well read, funny, hippie. Jon is the self deprecating and hilarious sensitive guy with great conversation and a lot of love for his friends, he speaks openly and clearly about everything. Emma is like me if I could just chill the fuck out.... Sandy is the vietnamese fiance of Denis, the quirky and quiet Slovenian who did the Celta with me. Sandy is wonderful and kind and a very independent vietnamese woman. I would spend all my time with her if I could. Nadine is the talkative and funny Virginian who I've spent a lot of time with. I have a lot of admiration for her. She's used to having a strong community around her and I hope she finds it here. Dale is the Aussie whose relationship is probably the closest to me and the one I most regret starting. We talked too late and let too much go and now theres an attachment I never wanted or expected. He's intelligent and broken and more together than I was when I began to fall. He was there when I needed someone to lesson plan and listen to me. Crying cute girls with fading pink hair... I guess that's something attractive about that... He genuinely wants to help me, but I can see how this hurts him. It'll be good to say goodbye to that. Pierre is the hiring manager at ILA, a british rugby player film geek with bright blue eyes. He plays to the wilder side as well as the geeky side of me. There's something missing there... Less so than most, but it's still there. He readily admits it, but he's someone who's worked hard to overcome all the freedom and found a balance of drugs, women and general debauchery. Rick is a software engineer with the need to control everything in his life. I've had the best conversations with him. I lie about how I've met him every time people ask... He's a pennsylvanian boy who has lived here for 7 years. He's followed his ambitions here and I admire him for that. He said once that he wouldn't have done it this way if he could go back again. He wouldn't let his children do what he did in terms of starting business to early and losing a bit of his 20s.... He's an interesting person, but he assumes too much about my needs and desires. I don't like to be told what I want. I don't like being told that I don't know what I want either. Elyse, the first person I 'met' before I came to Vietnam, and the one person who has helped me the most here. We meet in Chi's, eat breakfast and then lunch and then part ways. She's probably seen the biggest progression within me at Vietnam, more than anyone else. I envy her the most, I think. She's the most like me in a lot of ways, and the most put together of everyone I've met here. I want her life, enjoying teaching, living and associating with no one but native vietnamese, reading and living and writing every day.
I went out with Pierre last night. We went to this amazing bar with loud live music. These long haired Philippine boys and girls singing classic rock and other 80s music, even Phantom of the opera. I easily fall in love with anyone on stage, no matter who they are. The girls were wearing these impossibly short shorts, showing of beautifully muscular long legs. The boys were wearing goth leather clothing with huge new rock boots. I would have loved them all. I would have stayed all night.
We drank too much and talked too much... Cheap dinner, expensive drinks, bar hopping until 4am. He kissed me and I let him. It means nothing, but like everything else and every other person I meet who likes me, I'm curious. I don't know if its healthy to never really want them back, but I'm curious and intrigued by the feeling of being wanted and sometimes it makes me want them back. It's not healthy, its probably why I have men like Dale and Beau and Dan following me down the path of 'unrequited affection.' I'd like to say its different because a lot of the time it feels like it is... i don't flirt, but I don't stop it when I should. Again, something I'll work out in therapy I think.
Garrett long distance texted me last night... He wouldn't do that unless he was drunk or needed me. I feel his pull more than before some days.... I can't tell if he sees what I see here. He's self aware enough to see it happening to himself, but maybe not enough to do anything about it for a while. It's nice to feel the fact that he misses me. Part of me just wants to let it go, to have it all dissipate over this year, but there's the other part that knows that I still connect with him more than anyone, despite how much I want to murder him for wasting himself sometimes, and I don't want to let it go. There's too much love there. He still makes me smile and every time I'm with him, I'm in love again.... with life, with him, with myself. He is still in my heart.
Pierre wants me to come to the ILA halloween thing with his sister and cousin. Dale does too. I feel like such a minx.... can i use that word? No, maybe not... but i do. I doubt I'll go. I like them both too much to do this thing to them.
In 3 days I'll leave this world behind. I've booked my ticket to Hai Phong and I'll be heading to Cat Ba on the 2nd of November. If all goes well, I'll be there until January. Garrett and I will go to Thailand and then I'll drag myself home if I don't have a job. Poorer, wiser, more broken and very tired.
The consequences of leaving here and the consequences of going home are things that I won't think about today.
I'm going to get out of bed and contemplate making pancakes in the kitchen upstairs.... if not I'll get that delicious tofu egg thing from the men downstairs and sit in my room listening to 'this american life' and drawing from my balcony. How fucking spoiled am I?
And end...
So decisions have been made. I'm leaving Saigon and heading to Cat Ba island for a few months.
I will write more about this, but this morning I'm kind of drunk/high and I don't feel like writing about everything that has made me come to that conclusion. Granted because I'm drunk/high, it might happen anyways in an incredibly unintelligible way. Here are the highlights:
I quit ILA last Sunday and I have to say that it was a good decision for me. I've written about why and how I feel about it so many times and in so many ways that I don't know if I have the energy to explain it all again. This depression has definitely been sparked by teaching and yes, I have a lot to work out. I will go home, but not yet. There's too much here that I would miss right now.
You meet a lot of people here, every day, all the time... you form connections quickly here. I was talking to Pierre about this last night, how westerners so far from home quickly form relationships and move in together here. It's a bit like college I think, you're thrown into this world of complete and utter freedom where there are absolutely no rules and nothing holding you back from doing whatever the fuck you want here. People don't really know how to deal with that freedom, but most people embrace it and find someone to share this with, to fuck, to talk to, to experience with, to escape from it all with.... Obviously we've grown up a bit from college, but its the same 'new freedom,' with the contrasting need to have a community and to not be alone.
I've met people here and I'm so grateful for all the connections that I've made. It's helped me realize a lot about myself and how I interact with people and what types of connections I want and need in my life. One thing that really weighs on me is the fact that I meet lonely boys who 'fall in love' with me. Vietnam is filled with lonely boys... I hear the same story over and over again, they date jaded western women who leave after a year, they date vietnamese women who's end goal is marriage... its the business of romance, where they are with them because they are western and they find them attractive, but they dont really "Know" them. The unyielding adoration of beautiful women is hard to resist, but as westerners, we get bored with that and want the complex emotional elements that encapsulate these drama filled or just generally complex western dynamics. So these lonely boys are searching for something else and they fill their days with drugs and quick sex and quick fixes. I've met too many here. I don't think I could live here for longer than 3 years if I end up staying. I have little interest in having this western life in an Asian culture for an extended period of time.
Joe and Jon and Emma are who I would have hung out with at home. Joe is Garrett's brother in every sense of who he is... intelligent, well read, funny, hippie. Jon is the self deprecating and hilarious sensitive guy with great conversation and a lot of love for his friends, he speaks openly and clearly about everything. Emma is like me if I could just chill the fuck out.... Sandy is the vietnamese fiance of Denis, the quirky and quiet Slovenian who did the Celta with me. Sandy is wonderful and kind and a very independent vietnamese woman. I would spend all my time with her if I could. Nadine is the talkative and funny Virginian who I've spent a lot of time with. I have a lot of admiration for her. She's used to having a strong community around her and I hope she finds it here. Dale is the Aussie whose relationship is probably the closest to me and the one I most regret starting. We talked too late and let too much go and now theres an attachment I never wanted or expected. He's intelligent and broken and more together than I was when I began to fall. He was there when I needed someone to lesson plan and listen to me. Crying cute girls with fading pink hair... I guess that's something attractive about that... He genuinely wants to help me, but I can see how this hurts him. It'll be good to say goodbye to that. Pierre is the hiring manager at ILA, a british rugby player film geek with bright blue eyes. He plays to the wilder side as well as the geeky side of me. There's something missing there... Less so than most, but it's still there. He readily admits it, but he's someone who's worked hard to overcome all the freedom and found a balance of drugs, women and general debauchery. Rick is a software engineer with the need to control everything in his life. I've had the best conversations with him. I lie about how I've met him every time people ask... He's a pennsylvanian boy who has lived here for 7 years. He's followed his ambitions here and I admire him for that. He said once that he wouldn't have done it this way if he could go back again. He wouldn't let his children do what he did in terms of starting business to early and losing a bit of his 20s.... He's an interesting person, but he assumes too much about my needs and desires. I don't like to be told what I want. I don't like being told that I don't know what I want either. Elyse, the first person I 'met' before I came to Vietnam, and the one person who has helped me the most here. We meet in Chi's, eat breakfast and then lunch and then part ways. She's probably seen the biggest progression within me at Vietnam, more than anyone else. I envy her the most, I think. She's the most like me in a lot of ways, and the most put together of everyone I've met here. I want her life, enjoying teaching, living and associating with no one but native vietnamese, reading and living and writing every day.
I went out with Pierre last night. We went to this amazing bar with loud live music. These long haired Philippine boys and girls singing classic rock and other 80s music, even Phantom of the opera. I easily fall in love with anyone on stage, no matter who they are. The girls were wearing these impossibly short shorts, showing of beautifully muscular long legs. The boys were wearing goth leather clothing with huge new rock boots. I would have loved them all. I would have stayed all night.
We drank too much and talked too much... Cheap dinner, expensive drinks, bar hopping until 4am. He kissed me and I let him. It means nothing, but like everything else and every other person I meet who likes me, I'm curious. I don't know if its healthy to never really want them back, but I'm curious and intrigued by the feeling of being wanted and sometimes it makes me want them back. It's not healthy, its probably why I have men like Dale and Beau and Dan following me down the path of 'unrequited affection.' I'd like to say its different because a lot of the time it feels like it is... i don't flirt, but I don't stop it when I should. Again, something I'll work out in therapy I think.
Garrett long distance texted me last night... He wouldn't do that unless he was drunk or needed me. I feel his pull more than before some days.... I can't tell if he sees what I see here. He's self aware enough to see it happening to himself, but maybe not enough to do anything about it for a while. It's nice to feel the fact that he misses me. Part of me just wants to let it go, to have it all dissipate over this year, but there's the other part that knows that I still connect with him more than anyone, despite how much I want to murder him for wasting himself sometimes, and I don't want to let it go. There's too much love there. He still makes me smile and every time I'm with him, I'm in love again.... with life, with him, with myself. He is still in my heart.
Pierre wants me to come to the ILA halloween thing with his sister and cousin. Dale does too. I feel like such a minx.... can i use that word? No, maybe not... but i do. I doubt I'll go. I like them both too much to do this thing to them.
In 3 days I'll leave this world behind. I've booked my ticket to Hai Phong and I'll be heading to Cat Ba on the 2nd of November. If all goes well, I'll be there until January. Garrett and I will go to Thailand and then I'll drag myself home if I don't have a job. Poorer, wiser, more broken and very tired.
The consequences of leaving here and the consequences of going home are things that I won't think about today.
I'm going to get out of bed and contemplate making pancakes in the kitchen upstairs.... if not I'll get that delicious tofu egg thing from the men downstairs and sit in my room listening to 'this american life' and drawing from my balcony. How fucking spoiled am I?
And end...