Return + 3 Weeks
Hard to believe that it is over and that I've been home for three weeks already. While I should be working and doing something productive, I opted to bang on the keyboard for a few minutes and start putting some official closure on my first real blog (where real is defined as having a readership greater than or equal to one, self excluded).
Last weekend four beautiful women and I tested out my new car and went camping on Assateague Island. The weather was perfect and, apart from the Atlantic Ocean being saltier than the Baltic Sea, so was the water. I don't think I could have imagined a nicer time for myself, but something was missing. Besides the sunscreen on my legs, that is.
Saturday evening when the sun dipped behind the dunes, people clad in swimming attire started to shiver. Some stuff had to be taken back to the Troy-mobile anyway, so one of the girls and I headed back to the car. While she changed inside the tinted windows I hid behind a leafless tree and did likewise. Grabbing what people had asked for, we headed back. Almost to the beach, we spotted Anastasia, my girlfriend. I showed her the stuff she had asked for, but she needed something else so back I went (trip two). After another changing session while I took pictures....of the sunset....I headed back for the beach. Who should I run into this time but Katia coming for some forgotten foodstuffs. I suppose I could have said, "Enough is enough, here are the keys," but I didn't, and proceeded to make my way to the car for the third time.
That is a long-winded way to say that I walked to and from the car (maybe a 4-minute walk each way) with three different Russian chicks over the course of a half hour. On the return trip with Katia, she asked how I was adjusting back, how things had changed while I was away, or something like that. I started out with my standard response, but forgot that I had already told her that. I tried to answer as honestly as I could. The answer surprised me a little bit, not because I hadn't thought it before (I had), but because of what it meant.
My answer:
I expected the transition to be huge, but it really hasn't been. Why not? Maybe because I created a situation for myself where there wouldn't be enough time to think about what had changed. For example, I arrived home Tuesday evening and finished talking with the folks about 1. However, my time-table was really screwed up (took over a week to get back on track) and I didn't hit the sack until 3ish. Wednesday morning I was at work by 8:30 where I worked a full day.
I said that I had been keeping myself busy. She asked when I would take the time to think. I answered that on my business trip at the end of the month, maybe sooner.
Only afterwards as I drive about or stare at a computer screen is the realization of this conversation sinking in. I need to make time and think about myself, my loved ones, my country, my life. By itself that isn't all that daunting a task. The hold up for me is looking at the after effects of my think session. It is impossible for me to know exactly what they'll be until I think them, but like a purple-mountain majesty in the distance, I'm pretty sure I see the outline of my own hill and it scares me.
So how was the transition? For me, I'd say it has been a no go. I didn't transition, but merely plopped back into the rat race. I may want to, but I'm scared. Perhaps a morbid analogy, but one that seems to fit. When a person dies, the undisputed best way to deal with the pain is to grieve. Everybody has their own way, but there are several major steps in the grieving process. When my grandpa was dying I tried to shut off all the emotional valves in my body because hurting just didn't feel good. When he finally passed away I remember plenty of relatives crying, but I didn't. Of course it hurt, but like a closed bottle of pop, I kept it in. Even soda has an expiration date. That is to say that time has a great way of healing wounds. My analogy being that I'm dealing with the loss of my adopted city, home, culture, language, and friends as I have historically dealt with death. Experience tells me it isn't the best way, but I'm choosing not to listen.
Who knows, perhaps all this non-transitioning talk is my way of transition. On one hand it seems a pity to not finish the proverbial race. All I know is that all is not wasted on my journey of self-discovery if I refuse to take the last few steps.
Roger Shattuck in his tome Forbidden Knowledge presents, in my opinion, conclusive evidence that some things are better left unknown. Yet humans are curious. The inherent friction between these two warring factions creates a good deal of the problems faced by the modern world. Of course it has also created many of the niceties.
About 12 years ago I started my CD rampage at the Howard County Public Library. I checked them out left and right. I think my record was somewhere around 60 albums out at once. Did I listen to them all? Nope. But listen I did. One album was the soundtrack from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love. I remember that the first time through I really didn't care for much of the music. Fortunately, I subjected myself to another round after a week or so and some of the songs really clicked with me. The past couple of days I misremembered the lyrics to one of the songs. Instead of love changing everything, I remembered, "Time, time changes everything...Nothing in the world will ever be the same."
Last weekend four beautiful women and I tested out my new car and went camping on Assateague Island. The weather was perfect and, apart from the Atlantic Ocean being saltier than the Baltic Sea, so was the water. I don't think I could have imagined a nicer time for myself, but something was missing. Besides the sunscreen on my legs, that is.
Saturday evening when the sun dipped behind the dunes, people clad in swimming attire started to shiver. Some stuff had to be taken back to the Troy-mobile anyway, so one of the girls and I headed back to the car. While she changed inside the tinted windows I hid behind a leafless tree and did likewise. Grabbing what people had asked for, we headed back. Almost to the beach, we spotted Anastasia, my girlfriend. I showed her the stuff she had asked for, but she needed something else so back I went (trip two). After another changing session while I took pictures....of the sunset....I headed back for the beach. Who should I run into this time but Katia coming for some forgotten foodstuffs. I suppose I could have said, "Enough is enough, here are the keys," but I didn't, and proceeded to make my way to the car for the third time.
That is a long-winded way to say that I walked to and from the car (maybe a 4-minute walk each way) with three different Russian chicks over the course of a half hour. On the return trip with Katia, she asked how I was adjusting back, how things had changed while I was away, or something like that. I started out with my standard response, but forgot that I had already told her that. I tried to answer as honestly as I could. The answer surprised me a little bit, not because I hadn't thought it before (I had), but because of what it meant.
My answer:
I expected the transition to be huge, but it really hasn't been. Why not? Maybe because I created a situation for myself where there wouldn't be enough time to think about what had changed. For example, I arrived home Tuesday evening and finished talking with the folks about 1. However, my time-table was really screwed up (took over a week to get back on track) and I didn't hit the sack until 3ish. Wednesday morning I was at work by 8:30 where I worked a full day.
I said that I had been keeping myself busy. She asked when I would take the time to think. I answered that on my business trip at the end of the month, maybe sooner.
Only afterwards as I drive about or stare at a computer screen is the realization of this conversation sinking in. I need to make time and think about myself, my loved ones, my country, my life. By itself that isn't all that daunting a task. The hold up for me is looking at the after effects of my think session. It is impossible for me to know exactly what they'll be until I think them, but like a purple-mountain majesty in the distance, I'm pretty sure I see the outline of my own hill and it scares me.
So how was the transition? For me, I'd say it has been a no go. I didn't transition, but merely plopped back into the rat race. I may want to, but I'm scared. Perhaps a morbid analogy, but one that seems to fit. When a person dies, the undisputed best way to deal with the pain is to grieve. Everybody has their own way, but there are several major steps in the grieving process. When my grandpa was dying I tried to shut off all the emotional valves in my body because hurting just didn't feel good. When he finally passed away I remember plenty of relatives crying, but I didn't. Of course it hurt, but like a closed bottle of pop, I kept it in. Even soda has an expiration date. That is to say that time has a great way of healing wounds. My analogy being that I'm dealing with the loss of my adopted city, home, culture, language, and friends as I have historically dealt with death. Experience tells me it isn't the best way, but I'm choosing not to listen.
Who knows, perhaps all this non-transitioning talk is my way of transition. On one hand it seems a pity to not finish the proverbial race. All I know is that all is not wasted on my journey of self-discovery if I refuse to take the last few steps.
Roger Shattuck in his tome Forbidden Knowledge presents, in my opinion, conclusive evidence that some things are better left unknown. Yet humans are curious. The inherent friction between these two warring factions creates a good deal of the problems faced by the modern world. Of course it has also created many of the niceties.
About 12 years ago I started my CD rampage at the Howard County Public Library. I checked them out left and right. I think my record was somewhere around 60 albums out at once. Did I listen to them all? Nope. But listen I did. One album was the soundtrack from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love. I remember that the first time through I really didn't care for much of the music. Fortunately, I subjected myself to another round after a week or so and some of the songs really clicked with me. The past couple of days I misremembered the lyrics to one of the songs. Instead of love changing everything, I remembered, "Time, time changes everything...Nothing in the world will ever be the same."
posted by Troy on 00:00
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Don't you mean the Yort-mobile?
What happens to the glass when it's taken out of the fire? Does a glassblower shape it?
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