thoughts on returning

just writing down these meandering thoughts to record/remember:
the last 3 hours was spent laying on my bed, the fan going about 2 feet from my head, my feet against the wall. i was finishing another great book while melting in the heat and humidity. i don't remember being so hot and sweaty last year--it doesn't make sense that i should be wilting this badly right now...

i'm about nine days out from boarding a plane to head Stateside for the first time in almost two years. i have had a growing anxiety about this visit and have been working out why this is. at first, i wondered if it was fear of the culture shock... i know that the States have changed since i was last there, and i'm afraid that if it has *indeed* changed in subtle, indelible ways, that might further grow my sense of displacement in the world?

and then i wondered if it might be the prospect of seeing old friends or possibly running into my ex-husband? a few days ago, i sent him an email--kind of on a whim--asking if he might want to meet for a cup of coffee or something. i knew what his response would be: none.
sigh. i expected that, but it doesn't make me feel any less forlorn about his anger and bitterness. however, i still don't clearly understand why he's *so* resentful towards me. my Korean girlfriend shook her head and uttered this Korean idiom (loosely translated): the one who farted is now throwing a tantrum.
sure, i left Chris w/ the heavy mortgage of our married home--a home that he has still been unable to sell over the past two years. but, it was part of our divorce settlement. he jumped at the opportunity to get my signature on those papers. moreover, HE cheated on me. he was the one that inevitably set alight the gasoline-soaked rags of our torn and fucked up marriage. i was willing work on it, even after i found out about his emotional affair, even after he had yelled curses and kicked walls, even after he nearly struck me with his fists in our bedroom.

this mystery still sometimes haunts me, but i don't know if i'll ever find any answers. i'll probably just have to ask Jesus after plodding out a few more decades.

today, i went rock-climbing with one of my longer held friends in Seoul--Madeline, whom i've known for just over a year. she's a quieter person than i usually befriend, and it is only in the past three months or so that i feel like i've been able to peel back some of those layers. her love for outdoor activities and her sensibility/maturity has kept me consistently meeting w/ her for the past twelve months, and now that we've been opening up and connecting more deeply, we're both sad to know that our friendship will soon become limited to emails and Facebook.

back to the topic at hand: i have been expressing my bewildering anxieties about heading Stateside to my closer friends--trying to get a bead on what the hell i'm actually worried about, and it was today, with Madeline--as we contemplated the cloudy skies behind the rock-climbing wall, that i think i might've come closer to understanding what i'm freaking out about:
i didn't like the person i was when i left the States. i've had to come face to face with the ugliness of the person i had become in my marriage to Chris. i was passionless, inactive, and lifeless. i stopped reading books, stopped writing, was watching too much tv, was never meeting friends (didn't feel like i could b/c Chris was so anti-social), and was feeling slightly suicidal a lot of the time. i had no energy, no joy, no interests.
i really can't blame Chris for this, but we really didn't bring out the good in each other, especially towards the end.

i am afraid to face this person. i have the irrational fear that returning to America--back into the venues of this broken, lifeless person--that i will realize that that *is* the person that i really am.
maybe i am NOT this person who loves to read books and travel and have sex and go running/hiking/rock-climbing and make people laugh. maybe this crazy, active, social monster is just a facade--a mask of overcompensation against the pain of a lost life.
i mean, why did i email him? why the hell would i do that if i have really moved on... if i'm really this reborn, new person?

well, i did use the word "irrational". there are two things that help me to realize that i am not just a facade of two years ago... four years ago... six... et cetera.
first, i find myself truly loving life to the point of bursting sometimes. primarily, happiness effervesces over when i'm having a good talk w/ God or accomplish something good or when i really connect with a good person.
and second, i know i'm not just wearing a mask because i'm still a fuck up. i know that sounds like a piss-poor reason, but it's probably the more real and confirmable one. i do feel like i am engaging more fully with the world in a way that is more authentically me--but this is not without flaw.
i am chagrined to admit having some bad/stupid habits that i revel in--throwbacks of my past. even though i know that some of these aspects of myself were probably injurious to my former marriage, they are still very much a part of my life. pessimism and depression: my favorite demons still like to hang out.
so, on this score, my argument is: though i still am who i am, i believe that the positive (and negative) changes are authentic, and that lifeless, passionless person isn't what i'm made of (for now).

figuring this out makes me slightly less nervous about going Stateside. i'm grateful for this chance to walk around a bit on American soil. i'll have a chance to see if my roar on this side of the planet has the same kind of strength on that side.