I ended my last entry – 2 weeks ago - on an extremely high note and I’m about to start this one on a lower one. I’ll cut straight to the point and say what’s going on… I’m leaving China.
This silence seems to have lasted forever. I’ve not been able to update because of the big change that has come out of nowhere… I hear you ask: What’s happened? Well, if I’m honest, nothing really has happened EXCEPT for the fact that I’ve realized, I’m not happy here and I’m not sure I ever was.
Over the past weeks I’ve been looking back over the long 5 months and I’ve been reflecting on how my entries here on this blog have been only focussed on my rollercoaster ride of emotions that has so far come to stand as being my China experience. By seeing this, I was forcing myself to actually question: WHY have my entries mainly been about my emotions and not about the Chinese world and my daily life? WHY has this experience been such an emotional time for me, when it was ‘meant’ to be a chapter in my life where I’d embrace a new culture in a different part of Asia?
Well, the answers came last week, when I suddenly grew so tired of the vicious circle I felt I was in; the circle being one where I’d be constantly dealing and releasing myself of the issues that would arise in the presence of others…and most times in the presence of only myself, whilst constantly forcing myself to be the best teacher I can be AND finding things to do with my life here just to keep me happy, safe, contained and distracted from China… and feel ‘on top of the world’ (the position I always too eagerly wish to uphold). What was the answer? It was a simple but painful realization: China is not for me.
Last weekend the truth of my circumstances was rising and I felt there was a change coming. I was secretly wishing for something to happen, so as I’d have a justified reason to leave. The biggest wish/dream I had was the following: the agent in Dublin, who is still reviewing my book, calls me to say he’s passing it on to the publisher and my assistance is needed! For that reason only, I felt it would be okay to leave China. But the call never came… so… something else needed to happen for me to break free. Something needed to snap… something needed to break… and it was me.
The vicious circle I was starting to witness was literally eating away at my sanity, at my body and my spirit. The prospects of staying in China until February of next year, felt to isolate and trap me. I’d become so stuck on the vision of having a ‘1 year contract’ that I was afraid to go against what the school expected of me, and what I felt everyone else expected of me too. But I’ve become increasingly lonely over the past months… with little means to express myself the way I want to and I’ve been searching for so many things to fill my time with, so as I’d have reasons to stay and I’d be distracted from what was really going on…
I also justified my behaviour with the thoughts that being a writer means to be isolated and quiet. But how wrong was I, to think that just because I’d created this gorgeous writers’ apartment that it was now up to me, to sit here for the next 7 miserable months staring out at the congested Chinese city, with the clouds hanging overhead, dreaming of being out in an open space surrounded by nature and free to move in whatever direction necessary. I’m NOT meant to be an island! And, even though I know I’ll always want and need to write, this still doesn’t mean I have to become isolated and cut off from the world and the people in it. Nor does it mean I have to become stationary forever. I need a flow of people in my life, I need a flow of experiences and I need to see the road ahead as an open one. Here I’d come to see the road ahead as one that was closed. And so, it only makes sense that I was feeling trapped.
I knew that once I started to feel lonely, whilst being around people as well as being by myself that something was wrong. Because, I’ve been alone many times before and so happy… and those were times when I was comfortable to be me and happy in the life situation I’d created… But here, I was starting to hate my moments alone, because all I’d be creating were journal entries telling of how much I wanted to be elsewhere…
So, really the thing I’ve missed the most, is communication. I miss talking with people who I can relate to. I’ve only 2 people here who I can be 100% real with. I’m so grateful for them both, as I know that there are people out there who have even less. But it doesn’t feel to be enough… This isn’t greed; it’s human nature to want to be around people who you feel total comfort and freedom with. Given these circumstances, the connections are unlikely to change – because of the language barrier and lack of foreigners. And so, any thoughts that will tell me to stick it out, as the situation could better itself, I ignore… Because I’m done trying, when this simply isn’t working…
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