Pity Party for One, Please...

Okay… it’s officially here. I knew it was coming eventually. I thought I was mentally prepared for it. I even had, what I thought was, a good and sound strategy which was… just ride it out. But it’s Day 5 now and this saddle’s getting sore.

I am homesick.

I don’t really know when it started cuz I’m the Queen of denial. I can thank my Irish ancestry for that double-edged sword.  But I do know this: it’s been slowly building since the day I got on that plane headed to my new home in Beijing.

You don’t notice it at first, of course, because of all the excitement and logistics of such a big move. The first few weeks are like you’re on vacation; going, doing, seeing. And I was fully prepared for the “honeymoon phase” … so it was no surprise.

Then you start to settle in. You meet your new “family"… other ex-pats from the same company that brought us over here. And let me be the first to say… man did we get lucky! We are with a good group of people, not one weak link in the bunch. We have fun, we relate to each other, we support each other, and we pick each other up when one of us is having, what we have now coined, a “China Day”.

A China Day is when you wake up with your chest so tight you can hardly breath and all you can think is… “What the fuck am I doing in China?!?” The good news is… it usually passes within a day.

But plain old homesickness is different. It’s a tougher dragon to slay. It starts in your belly and lingers there for awhile. You can push it down fairly easily.  Do something, text or FaceTime someone (assuming they’re up which is rarely the case), or drink! It’ll go away.

But it comes back around quickly and next time it’s up in your chest.  There are few less terrifying feelings than not being able to breath. And once the anxiety reaches your chest it’s no longer possible, for me at least, to push it back down to the more manageable space in my gut.

So last Thursday and Friday were spent, for the most part, crying. That would be followed by a period of numbness, then crying again, then numbness, then crying… you get the idea; it wasn’t pretty.

By Friday evening I willed myself, and Mikey gently coaxed me, to participate in a going away party for one of the ex-pats heading home to the states. That really is the best medicine for times like this. You have to force yourself out and be social, which I did, and ended up having a great time. I laughed a lot.

So whew… glad that’s over, right? Not so fast. I woke up the next morning and there was that helpless feeling again. It wasn’t just in my belly nor contained to my chest; it had moved into my head!

Now I’ve been to a lot of therapy in my life. For broken relationships, broken family, broken job… I know how the head works. It will win… if you let it.  I can’t let it.

So yesterday I did yoga for the first time in forever. It felt great. Then I had lunch with friends. We laughed. Then a few of us went and discovered a new (to me) flower market. I bought tulips. Then I came home and fired up Hulu. I caught up on General Hospital. 

This morning I woke up and guess who was still in my head? Yep… homesickness. It didn’t help that when I checked my phone it had not one but two messages from Jordie that simply said, “Are you up?” That means one thing… she misses me too and is herself struggling.

Jordan is in class now so our chat will have to wait a couple of hours. But in the meantime I decided I will try and slay the dragon by doing what, typically, works best for me when I need something off my chest… blog about it.

Living in China is hard. It is mentally exhausting. Everything is a challenge, every move I make has to be calculated, every word I try to say invokes giggles or blank stares. The language is just not coming to me like it is Mike… I’m frustrated.

I want to drive my car. I want to have a random conversation with the cashier at Target. I want people to look me in the eye, on the street, and make some sort of connection with me. I want to see someone, I don’t already know, who looks like me. I want to have cocktails with my girlfriends and laugh about things that need no backstory… cuz they know the story; they are the story. I want to take Jordie and Nick to dinner on a whim. I want to sleep in my bed with both my puppies hogging the sweet spots of the bed. I want to sit in my backyard on a warm, sunny day.

Writing tends to relieve my anxiety so what the hell… I’m giving it a shot.  After this I’m going to get in the shower and prepare for yet another day. The Ayi will be here in about an hour… I will try harder to to talk with her today; she’s a friendly face and the only real constant Chinese person in my life… I like her.

I can’t wait for my FaceTime with Jordie in a little while… I’m going to dig real deep and try not cry. That’s what showers are for anyway.  But before I do that I’m going over to my calendar to mark off another day; I’ve been keeping track of how many days til I see her and Nicky’s faces. Thirteen!

Afterwards I’m going to bundle up… it’s still too cold here for my bones… and head out. I’m not going to plan my day; it’s not going to be so calculated. I’m just gonna go. I’m going to say “hi” to people on the street. I’m going to hold doors open for people. I’m going to have lunch somewhere, by myself, on a whim. I may even have a beer or a glass of wine and laugh about some crazy old memory made with my friends. 

It’s sunny here in Beijing today; the forecast says it might hit 50 degrees.  So maybe I'll find a bench and sit outside in my new backyard.

So get out of my head, homesickness. You will not win!

Thirteen Days.

Write-On

My sister Toby rekindled my love for fountain pens, a few years back, when she bought me a black beauty for my birthday. When we lived in Switzerland, as kids, fountain pens were all we used in school. Oh what fun we kids had, flicking them at each other, when the teacher left the room! 

I failed to pack that gem of a pen so I don't have it with my here in Beijing; that really bummed me out. I love to write handwritten notes and using a fountain pen to do so just ups my writing game. I honestly think I write better content when using that pen.

I've always been a bit of a pen snob though. Maybe it's because I did use fountain pens in my youth! You'll never see me chuck anything faster than a bad pen. Hell I'd hang on to a bad boyfriend longer than I'd hang on to a crappy pen! 

Our junk drawer at home is filled with pens. I will grab one to scribble down a phone number or an appointment but the second that tip hits the paper and it doesn't feel right... it is g-o-n-e... GONE!

But today I'm back in fountain pen bliss!  We went to the Tianyi Market in the Xicheng District; it's an almost indescribable place. Seriously... I don't even know that I can put into words what this place is like. When you pull up... and we were fortunate enough to have a driver again today... you don't know whether you're going to a circus or an amusement park! But I think that might be a blog post for another day.

The great thing about these various markets is you have no idea what you're going to find there. Today, at Tianyi, I found fountain pens and bottles of ink! The pen Toby bought me uses ink cartridges. I think that's the type we used all those years ago in school but I could be mistaken.  In any case, the ones I saw... and OK lets get this elephant out of the room... bought... OK, two... get off my ass... use vacuum filler technology. I've only filled one so far and I can already tell it's going to take some practice, and finesse, to get a 100% fill. 

I bought a royal blue Hero, which is an, almost 100 year old, Chinese manufacturer and gets pretty good reviews. The other one, which I have not yet filled, is a pearl white M&G which I know nothing about.

The nib on the Hero is a little fine for my taste. But it's been my experience these tend to loosen up a bit; sort of like a fine pair of leather shoes. I hope that's the case with this one.

Paper matters greatly, as well, with fountain pens. If you want to know what writing-perfection feels like then try scribing on linen paper with a smooth-flowing fountain pen... Oh. Yeah. Baby.

So if you're into writing handwritten notes and letters, or if you think you want to but just never get around to it... get yourself a fountain pen. 

And write something nice. To me!

Yi Jia

That's what the Chinese call IKEA.

I'd never been to an IKEA before.  I tried once when we lived in Houston. 

Mike would rather have had his balls waxed than go,  but I hounded and hounded him because it was, after all, the Grand Opening weekend! We drove around for what seemed like an hour but, in reality, was probably only fifteen minutes looking for a parking spot. Frustrated... Mike started to drive away, which as you can imagine put me in a mood, a huge fight ensued, we drove home in silence, and pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the weekend.

When the news came, a few years back, that they were building the first IKEA in Kansas City... everyone in town seemed to be in a flutter over it. Not me and Mikey. Nope... not a word was spoken.

I thought I knew what an IKEA represents. Furniture for young people who don't know any better than to buy small boxes filled with heavy boards and not enough screws in the box to put the crap together properly. I know there's a market for that stuff but I ain't it. I have a "no putting it together" rule... it's probably, at least partly, responsible for Mikey and I turning the bend on 25 years of wedded bliss.

But here in China, the very things IKEA sells... household goods... are very expensive. And not always easy to find. So I gave in and hit the Subway, this morning, for the 50 minute journey. Sans Mikey.

Shelby came with me instead and as soon as we stepped into the monstrosity of a store we realized we'd both not eaten anything yet today. Having heard horror stories on getting stuck in the "IKEA Que", we both thought we'd better grab a bite before one of us got cranky.

This was the line for the cafe; they were an orderly bunch.

And yes... I know it's cliche... but I got the Swedish meatballs! I hope they don't taste this way everywhere because I was highly disappointed. They weren't inedible... but I wouldn't be hanging my brand on these puppies. Pun intended.

But they did serve French wine... which I indulged in. And the total for both Shelby's and my meal was 72 RMB, which is under 11 bucks. So there's that.

But then shit got weird. Real weird.

At first we were annoyed because Shelby really wanted to see that chair he was snoozing in. But he had his earbuds in and we could not raise the dead.

I wanted a better look at this couch but there was an entire family lounging on it.

Was something in the fucking meatballs? Get UP people... you don't live here!!!

And this gal on the left... she WORKS there!!!

And then there was this. A rumpled mess of a showroom in the bedding department.  Or was it?  I needed to go around to the other side for a closer look.

Holy shitballs... are you KIDDING me?!?  This chick is fast asleep IN an IKEA showroom bed! At least she had the common decency to take her friggin slippers off!!!

I. Was. Done.

I wouldn't sit on anything, I didn't want anything... I. Was. Done.

Ironically, there was a young woman beggar on our subway ride home. She went from person to person to person... no one gave her a Chinese cent.

She didn't actually make it as far as Shelby and me. I probably would have given her a few RMB but  someone had chased her off at the next stop.

Too bad. If she'd been at the IKEA subway stop she could have at least gotten a good day's rest!

I have some solid advice for the rest of us too. Never, ever, ever... buy the floor model of anything at an IKEA. 

I thought I knew what IKEA represented but I was mistaken. Here in Beijing, at least, it's a place for rest and relaxation. 

Damn squatters!