I know none of you are reading this blog anymore. I was never writing it for you, anyway! Hehe. But if I had quit after I got back to the States, this perfectly good blog would have been left hanging, incomplete. What a pity! (as they say in Chinglish!) I tend to have trouble with endings, you know, especially with things that were good. But this blog was about my life in China, and since returning to the homeland (still "home"?) my life has had no resemblance to my China-life, and anyway I think it is a cozy, balanced little blog. So it needs an ending.
Something special is happening, though, which will make it easier to stamp a see-through ending on this experience. It is easier because now it's not totally over. My relationship with China is not finished, how it probably would have been if this had not happened. I am going to keep doing my Rosetta Stone, and keep eating with chopsticks, and keep questioning my fashion choices (is this skirt too long? shoes too flat?). I'm going to hear Chinese spoken over the phone nearly every day, and fantasize about a summertime trip to Dalian, and use my Chinese cookbook. China will continue to exist in my world and influence my thoughts and decisions in a way it wouldn't have without him. This feels so comforting. The part I dislike about endings, I guess, is the knowledge that the thing will never be back in your life. Things will never be how they were in Zhuhai, this year, but China is not going to disappear and become just this memory. I will eat egg tarts again. I will see his parents again. I will sit on stools in dirty restaurants and throw sunflower seed shells on the ground. I will smell vegetable markets and buy cutesy cheap electronics from underground malls. Oh really? you say. Well, yeah. And especially since I'm writing it here - yeah. It's like this year was a beginning to a longer experience, rather than the entire experience. Thinking that way makes it easier for me to leave it and move on to what I have to do right now, and for the next three years. Seems like there is less mourning necessary, this way. And mourning is so darn draining.
When I left, Luke and I said that we would keep in touch, talk on skype, and see how we felt. Actually, Luke would have wholeheartedly committed to me with no looking back, and I kept emphasizing the "see how we feel" thing. I knew that my life there was so different than it would be here, and that I would soon be moving to a new city, starting a totally new program, and he would be moving to a country he's never been to, living a life he can't even imagine. I thought we needed to leave room for our feelings to change drastically. He's still got a few weeks before he begins his adventure, but I feel like I now know him well enough to know that he is not going to freak out and bail. When I left, I was feeling love for him but also uncertainty. As soon as I got to the States, we started talking on skype twice a day, every day. I felt shitty to be in Binghamton, and his webcam wasn't working, and we were figuring out how to interact via internet, and I was getting frustrated. One night, about a week in, I got emotional and stayed up all night writing this email to him, because I couldn't say it all over the phone and needed him to understand that I didn't feel just peachy about everything. Here is the email, so we're all on the same page here:
Sweetie,
I don't want to be crying on the phone with you and making you all concerned unnecessarily, but I just keep thinking about all these things and for some reason don't feel completely comfortable talking to you about them. I feel like I'm trying so hard but having trouble connecting with you over the phone and I don't want to spend six months feeling disconnected from you. If we are meant to be in this relationship we should be able to connect through any means. I shouldn't have to be staring at your face to understand what you're feeling. And I need to be asked how I'm feeling sometimes, maybe. I need to feel like you care about how I feel and how I feel about you. It's not enough to tell me that you love me, which I know. I need you to be concerned that I love you, too. I do love you. But I don't think we should be satisfied just getting through the next six months. We haven't been together very long and we need to use these months to feel like we're a couple rather than just people who had this crazy passionate thing at the end of a year. This time can't be wasted time in terms of this relationship if you want it to be a special relationship.
Sorry about all this English. You're practicing for IELTS reading, right?
I haven't been able to stop analyzing our situation in my head. I just want to relax and see where this goes and let things happen but I have doubts and I feel like instead of letting me talk about them or think about them you are just encouraging me to squash them and forget about them. That is what I did with this African guy - squashed doubts I had about the relationship - and it ended in a lot of confusion and hurt. I'm not just gonna shove my feelings inside and forget about them until I become bitter, or something. And I am not going to spend years with someone who is not great for me. We have to be great for each other, Luke. You have to be a positive influence on my life. What I mean is, when I thought this was just a short affair, I didn't care what doubts or reservations I squashed. But if this is going to be a long-term thing, we can't just pretend that problems don't exist. If there are issues we have to deal with them differently than we would if this was month-long affair. yes? It's easy to fantasize about seeing each other at Christmas time and forget about the reality, which is that we need to be partners if we are going to be lovers. We can't proceed like ...I don't know what. Just, I want to feel emotionally connected to you and right now I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread. I understand that there is a slight language barrier and that you don't say much in general, and we are still sort of foreign to each other, but we are not gonna be able to touch each other physically for a long time, and wouldn't it be nice to feel like we are touching each other, somehow, in the mean time? I'm not saying it's your job to fix it. I don't know what to tell you to do. Maybe I just want you to be open to listening to what I'm thinking. Just because you don't have thoughts you are aware of enough to share with me, doesn't mean I don't have any either. (Sorry, that was a complicated sentence, but...mei ban fa.) We can't just have phone sex and fool around for six months. You have to want to understand me. I want to understand you so badly. I want so badly to hear what is in your head. Maybe you don't know and that's why you can't tell me. Or maybe you know but you can't find the words to express it. But I know how to express my thoughts and I want you to want to know me better than you do now. I am complicated and have complicated thoughts and I feel things deeply and think about things hard, and if you can't participate with me in that, then you at least need to appreciate it. When we are having sex and when you are drunk and talking to me, I feel like I can see into you a little bit. Sometimes when we are showering together. Sometimes when you say sweet things to me and I know you mean them. Sometimes when we played the piano together. Can't we learn how to recreate that in other situations, too?
Gosh! So sorry for this. I've just not been able to stop thinking about these things. And I've had a lot of time in the past week and a half to think. I don't want to be analyzing this, like this, so early. I know we have so much time and so much opportunity to learn about each other and grow into each other. And we had so little time as a couple, in real life - (as opposed to virtual life). I know I just need to chill but it's hard to do that when there is a serious situation about to occur, if we let it. You realize that if we stay together for the next six months, you will come see me and we'll have a great time together, right? And then we'll stay together for the following six months. And then if we do that, you might as well move to the States and live with me. And then if we do that, we'll probably stay together for the following two years, while I'm getting my Master's. Then if we do that, you're 28 years old and fuck, let's just get married - it's time. Right? And then if we do that, why not wait two years and have a baby? It'll be smart and cute and bilingual. And then we have a life and future and family together. And I hate to be worrying about marriage and shit. There is a lot of time before either of us actually needs to be worrying about grown-up things like that. But if we let our lives build up momentum together, it will be hard to stop the momentum, especially since we are at marrying age. And I don't mean this necessarily has to happen! I just mean, staying together for the next six months is a serious decision, and we shouldn't treat it like just something we don't have to think about.
I hope I'm not freaking you out. It's still me. Just me, talking a lot. Cuddle monster. Cuddle for a sec.
I was talking to my friend Kevin, today, about this new love interest he has. He was talking about the guy (gay) like they both felt this instant connection, and had all these random similarities, and felt like they'd known each other their whole lives. And it was making me feel bad, like, jeez, shouldn't it just be easy? Shouldn't a relationship with someone be effortless? Shouldn't everyone be tear-free in the first month? And shouldn't you only consider having a long-distance relationship with someone who you felt immediately bonded with? Someone who felt like your soul mate immediately? Well, yeah, maybe. But...maybe not. I want to try this with you because we have had such a special relationship already and because we love each other. But maybe I just want you to hear and try to understand my doubts.
Also something that consistently disappoints me is that I feel like you treat me like I'm a totally average person. I understand that you are not one to throw compliments around, which is fine, but I feel sometimes like you honestly don't see my positive characteristics. I'm not average. I happen to be smart and organized and motivated and talented at a lot of things. I'm caring and I get along with many different kinds of people and I'm flexible and positive. I am brave and hardworking and good at dealing with stressful situations and I generally succeed at things I do. I think creatively and I do things thoroughly and I'm calm and I make people happy. I am a good host and a good lover and a good present wrapper and I'll be a good wife. I am not simply cute and kind. I could list a hundred positive qualities you have, and a hundred reasons I like you, and a hundred reasons it's a good idea for me to be with you. So when you don't seem to acknowledge or even notice these same things about me, it makes me feel unappreciated. It doesn't matter if you tell me all the time. I don't need to be told all the time. It just matters if you know, and so far I haven't really seen evidence that you know.
Well, damnit. 3:45. I can't stay up late like this cuz I get hungry! Beef noodles. I swear I thought about you every time I saw a stick of butter this week. But...fail. Just read this thoroughly before you respond, OK? Google suggests I include Amy, Oswald, and Ralph in this email. Think I should? lol.
I love you and I miss you - honestly, like, I feel it in my heart that I miss you. I miss China, too, but it's not me getting confused between you and China. I miss you separately from missing China - and I'm yours. Your baby.
Love,
Little chubby duck
I feel a little bad putting this letter up on the internet. But it's my blog. And you're not reading it anyway, are you? I think this is important.
Anyway I was half expecting him to react badly to this. I mean I was hoping he wouldn't but I thought he might. Actually he responded by saying and doing everything that a perfect boy in a perfect world would say and do in this situation. Like, I couldn't have even imagined a more productive and healthy response. It made me feel so much better. So we talked about the issues I brought up in the email. Like actually had discussions about them. And then, in the past three weeks, the issues have slowly disappeared. It's not just that I've forgotten about them or accepted them. It's like, the uncertainty I was feeling in the first week actually started going away. I think about him constantly, and I get butterflies when I look at pictures of us together, and our skype conversations are never long enough, and I feel more and more sure every day.
I know this is so crazy! And I know I fooled you all, and myself, with the African guy. But this is totally different and I feel totally different about it. So it sucks to be without him here, in this scary new city. But not really, because I know we need to do it. I feel like if we can make it for the next five months until Christmas break, and then another five months after that, we'll feel like the relationship is worth it. We'll feel like we're worth it, to each other. I guess a lot of people don't make it through ten months of long-distance separation. But I think we can. And if we do, he'll have a masters degree and I'll have done a ton of dirty work on harp that I needed to do. We both need this year of separation to get our lives in a condition for them to fit together, maybe. You can laugh in my face if I'm wrong.
And so, it's time. I'm sure I'll have to do all these P.S. posts with things I forgot to say. Maybe some pictures. I guess I didn't write much about what I feel like I've learned from this whole thing. Like what I've gained from living in China for a year. I don't know if I'd be able to articulate those things. I feel like I've gained everything. I feel like I can do anything, after doing that. When I was 16, my dad sat down on my bed with me and told me to think about how much I had learned from the age of 11 to 16. This seemed like an enormous amount. Then he said, I know you won't believe me, but from the now until you're 21, you're going to learn as much, and maybe even more, than that. Have I already talked about this on my blog, actually? I think about it a lot. Anyway at the time that seemed just ridiculous. And then when I was 21, I realized he was totally right. I learned so much when I went away to college, and lived in Vienna. He didn't warn me about post-21 learning, but I feel like in just this one year of being in China, I learned that same amount again. Five years-worth of understanding. I don't know what, exactly. And it's probably OK if I don't have any more growth spurts like that for a while. It's exhausting, you know. I'm proud of this blog. And I'm proud that I ended up having a great year. The decision to go was tentative. I was very unsure, all along. I thought, maybe I'll hate it, and come back feeling unfulfilled. I did hate it, at times. But I feel proud that I went into it being unsure and hesitant, and made it great anyway. I feel proud that I can say that I don't regret it.
Actually I haven't thought about it as much as I am right now. (Sorry, extended ending...) When I got back, my life just fell into familiar rhythms, and I haven't even wanted to sit down and analyze my feelings about the whole thing. A week ago, I thought about one of my students, and realized I hadn't thought about my freshman students at all since I'd been back. Things are just so completely different here that it's been easy to forget that I've been gone for a year. Or denial, maybe. Coping mechanism.
OK! So. Thanks, if you are someone who encouraged me to keep a blog, before I went. And thanks, if you are someone who read along and commented, or thought about me. During the tough times it was important for me to think about all the people at home thinking about me. It feels so good for things to be documented like this, and not just in some homemade-looking scrapbook that will get dusty and thrown out eventually. I took this opportunity because I wanted to do something crazy, and challenging, and have adventures. Then I called the blog "Zoe's Adventures in China." And then I went, and had adventures. I think if I'd called it, "Zoe's pleasant happenings in the PRC" or even "Zoe's interesting life in China," things would not have been nearly so fun.
So...this is gonna hurt. But if I could do that, I can do this, right?
Byebye, blog.
Love,
Zoe
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