existential crisis: 2011

i'm exhausted and angsty.
it's only Monday night and i feel like i've been run over by a freight train.

i had an emotionally cathartic conversation with one of the few people in Korea that i dearly Dearly Love, and HELL. this was about as close as i've gotten to finally breaking through.
i don't know what got into me, but all of the pain and anguish i've been feeling about the recent months came spilling out. she could see how roiled i felt and as i shared, i was able to share more.

i have a lot of metaphysical questions that i haven't examined closely in a while, but as i am due for my quarterly existential crisis, the pressure blew up into near tears.

i wonder about God sometimes. His existence and Love and Reality are all irrefutable to me. but it is too macroscopic and unbelievable and completely insane to fathom at times. i feel this way when God becomes secondary in my daily wanderings and then, He becomes impersonal. undoubtedly, this is my fault. i choose the temporary over the eternal with the majority of my choices in life--and it is only His  profound, severe, unrelenting Grace that keeps me hanging on. or rather, i'm dangling, on the unbreakable thread.

despite the fact that God met me so powerfully nearly 12 years to date, i've been a shadow of what i should be. despite violence and blood and broken bones and terror, i kept pieces of myself back. i wanted to keep those pieces for myself. my refusal to just give it ALL has resulted in the tragedy of a dozen wasted years.
for most of the year, i'm a miserable slave to the pieces i refused to surrender. however, for several weeks, maybe a month--of every given year, i get so sick of being sick of myself and just walk with God. and it's amazing. and i feel alive. and the universe makes complete fucking sense to me.
my time in Indonesia was the most recent of these episodes, and i KNEW who i was. and had absolutely no fears or insecurities or questions about... anything.
but then, whenever i'm presented with the same life, the same temptations, the same habits, i stumble again. and again. and eventually, i find myself in that familiar  filthy puddle of my own shit. wishing i could just eschew mortality. wishing i could just curl up against His ankles next to His throne. and just cry. and sleep.

here's the scarier thing. as the years have passed, not only have those lusts become deeper, but worse and worse lusts have accompanied the original. i'm crossing lines that i would've thought completely unimaginable, three years ago. five years ago. ten years ago.
i've cried myself awake with the ridiculously cliched question: who am i?

as i poured out this anguish to my friend, i read her wide eyes to communicate concern. but actually she said, "i'm experiencing exactly the same thing." there was encouragement in these words. she asked, "but do you think we would have to share everything?"

here's the thing about secrets. they're dirty. if we keep things hidden, they will grow and fester because there is no one to stop it. to call you on it. humans are greedy as hell. this manifests differently for every person, but in the end, we are slaves to our indulgences.
we have voracious, insatiable appetites for *whatever*--whether it is for seemingly innocuous things like relationships or our standards or adulation from others; or the more apparently destructive things like drugs or alcohol or random sex.

where does this leave me?

tonight, i was about one breath away from sharing my dirty little secrets with my dear friend. this is the closest i've come to doing that with anyone in Korea. this is monumental for me.
we both got teary and she gave me the hug that i'd been needing for the past few months. we have decided to retreat away, specifically to pray, for hours this weekend. hell. i MUST be desperate. but i feel hungry and dessicated and at the end of myself. in reality, i know that i don't need to eschew my mortality in order to curl up at His ankles at His throne.
i need to weep. and find some rest.

dancing. walking.

it's 3am on Friday night/Saturday morn, and i just got home.
i'm WIDE awake.

i just bought my first pair of high heels in five years.
i hated high heels. i thought of them as somewhat degrading and ridiculous. why the hell should women have to titter tip-toe around on those tiny little spikes? plus, i've got notoriously bad balance, so i found them downright dangerous. but women abound attest that 'you just get used to them'.  PSHAW. i shouldn't have to "get used to" pain and hazardous missteps for the sake of sex appeal.

however, i can admit the problematic nature of my unwillingness to see outside of my perspective at times.
my friend R__n has got the sweetest face and disposition, and it's hard not to get pulled into every earnest word that passes her lips. she had a pair of dancing heels custom made for her and asked me to go pick them up with her. i shrugged, giggled at her exuberant enthusiasm, and agreed to meet her on the cusp of this monsoon season.

and then: sigh. what can i say? i'm a bit of a sucker for shoes. i generally go for comfort with a little flare, but when i was surrounded by hundreds of pretty, strappy heels and everyone was buying a pair, i couldn't help but examine the electric blue ones. and the red ones.
i tried them on. and fingered the suede base. and oohed and aah-ed over my friend's custom made ones.

"they'll totally help me on the dance floor!" she exclaimed.
i examined my feet in those sexy heels in the mirror, "i don't know, R__n. i can hardly walk a straight line."
"they're half the price of the all the other ones we've been looking at!"
i gingerly tested my weight against those spikes. i was shocked to hear very little complaint from my toes. i did a quick inside turn and realized how balanced i felt.
"i'm sold."

so, tonight was my first test run of them. i actually danced with more balance than i do in my flats. and i suppose i looked sexier--which was strange.
i'm feeling pretty bad about myself these days, so i find it mysterious that guy'll still hit on me in this sea of skinny frilly beautiful easy women. albeit, the men hitting on me are generally pretty gross, but hey--sometimes superficial affirmation can get you to the next gas station.

plus, there was this British guy who insisted on buying me a drink... we like the same music/books/movies and have the same philosophies about traveling. which is important. and he was pretty cute. and i'm a sucker for European accents. (shame on me!!--it's so fucking cliche.)
and then there was this Korean guy, who got really cute with sharing his sweet ideas about... everything. we danced and talked and shared a smoke. and talked some more. and he was quite liberal about being friendly about being inside my personal space.
we talked about culture. and language.
he shared about his grandparents.
and Love. of course.
these Koreans!!

here's the problem. they both played it exactly right. though i was clearly a tad standoffish, they led the conversations to reveal where they might likely find me this weekend and beyond. i was definitely sending the "no-go" signals about giving out my number--and they abided by my unspoken request.
(thank goodness. i would've been creeped out.)
but damnit, this made me curious about both of them. why couldn't they both have been overbearing and creepy? now i'm inclined to flirt.

while we were in the middle of some talk about *something*, Seong-ju randomly grabbed me and twirled
me into a bachata number. i laughed in delight.
this is fun. i have no responsibilities to anyone. i can just enjoy the music. and moving my body. and our sweat.

here's the reality: i don't want a relationship. i don't even think sex is a good idea for me at this point...
but i did like his hands pulling and turning me into the beat of the bongo drum.

workingworking

Sunday night.
i just finished my Spring semester on Thursday, but i had to prep for summer school which starts... tomorrow.
phew. i'm exhausted. it feels surreal to have completed such an enormous task, only to be thrown into another. i'm also kinda stressed, but still looking forward to teaching a new set of students. it'll be another interesting challenge.

"do you think your job is too stressful for you?" one of my friends asked me this today. i'm not exactly sure what drove her inquiry, but it gave me a moment of pause.
"no. not really."
"but you're always so busy and stressed out all the time," she protested.
"but i really enjoy what i do... and actually, it's not so much the job that creates the stress--i create my own extra busyness when i'm at work."

i'm a psycho perfectionist when it comes down to things that matter to me. thus, when i get invested in something, i will absolutely lose sleep over it. in fact, that's probably a good gauge for assessing how much anything matters to my person. if i'm not losing any sleep over it, it probably doesn't have much intrinsic value to me.

that's probably pretty bad for my health. i am in constant need of stimulation. i can see the effects of this on my body. i know i'm aging--probably more quickly than before. i've got handfuls of grays sprouting, and this makes me wonder if i should try to "relax" more. but, relaxing seems boring to me.

well, tomorrow's a new thing. a month of crazy lesson planning and meeting people and trying to get my life/head together. following that, i'll have a week off, then i'll work a summer camp, have another week off and then, the Fall semester begins. 16 weeks later, i'll have 10 weeks to "relax". i think i'll be going back to Indonesia. or... Vietnam and Malaysia. or all three... i've gotta start thinking on that.

transition

on hands and knees. dragging. crawling.
exhausted. sleeping. still exhausted.
days running into days that become weeksmonthsyears
it's Thursday again. right? or is it Saturday?
is it morning? again?
habitually tired.
one foot always follows the other.
stumbling forward again.
and again and again.

today, in the darkness behind my closed eyelids, i wondered: could those words have been for me?
my stomach is in knots and my heart is still twisting. i don't know if i'm depressed, because i'm not sure how i feel. the best adjective that comes to mind is: blurry. i feel blurry.

if those words were for me. i'm terrified. and exhausted. and veryvery unsure.

earlier today, my friend got really serious and asked me if i had yet been back to the doctor. it was an odd moment because my health has not been on the forefront of my mind. the concern in her voice flipped me back to the gravity of the situation. my situation. i suppose her reality and mine congeal over this issue. (i have been back, and have had some minor freak-out moments, but there's no news. and it's too soon to know anything anyway.)
should i be more concerned? maybe. but, i am the ultimate bi-polar pessimistic/optimistic pragmatist. death has no hold on me. maybe i can say this so flippantly while i daily run 6k and go dancing until the morning and try to travel all over, but i'm really not afraid to die.
the idea of death actually feels relieving in a morbid way. no more responsibilities and pain or guilt. well, maybe there are responsibilities in heaven, but i'll be with God, all the time, in the most limitless way. i won't be a slave to all of these complications i choose and don't choose while i reside on this planet.

don't get me wrong. i don't actually want to die. i've just accepted that i will someday and i don't have much control/influence over that. although, i really should quit smoking. i'm fucking up my chances for flushing the dirty out of my blood because i keep on smoking. i don't know. i'm taking my health for granted right now because i don't necessarily feel anything. i imagine many people in my situation feel the same. worrying does nothing but create an additional burden. i can't carry any more right now.

anyway, my knees feel a little shaky. today, while my eyes were closed, i heard a voice, and it said... something... and i was terrified that those words were for me. i hope they were and i hope they weren't. i know i'm being circumspect, but this isn't new. i haven't even fully processed the significance of what those words could mean.

hello insomnia. or troubled dreams. or change.

good morning

hit snooze twice,
rolled outta bed,
thought begrudgingly about the 120 speaking tests to administer while brushing teeth,
drinking coffee, and brushing cobwebs outta my brain.


then, opened the door and
*breeze*
that perfectly cool morning breeze that smells exactly like Spring.
there is always something good. my finals begin today. i really hope they don't kill me, because life is good.
even when it sucks it is so good.

feel that yummy burn

i've felt a little forlorn for the past few days--and i have the dumbest thing that triggered it: i was at the no-rae-bang and my friend sang a song about losing innocence. it wasn't a sad song/anything--in fact, it was upbeat and playful, but the song spun me out a little bit.

i wonder how different my life would be if i had just NOT...

sure, the sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll have shaped a big part of who i am. and my lifelong immersion into those  experiences have granted me perspectives outside of the (UGH) church. but, i have long-since admitted that *maybe* it would have been better if i just didn't have certain bits of information. i have the tendency to become an utter slave to my lusts/wants/desires--and hell--this is not a good thing. obviously.
i lose sight of all else and just WANT. i'm so greedy. and i'm fairly resourceful. i can usually satiate those starved beasts that i've made my best friends.

i hate burning. you know--that consuming burn for those special, delicious vices that just aren't good for you. i hate having to consciously make the choice not to engage. ugh. it's there right in front of me. inviting me with those bedroom eyes.
and then comes the typical rationalization: i'll i say 'yes' this time and 'no' next time.
damnit. i'm just a fucking human. animal.

a better mood

it's 4:30am, but i'm in a good mood and wanted to record it.

although, i am finding it slightly disconcerting that there is a direct correlation between the elevation of my mood and the number of hours i spend salsa dancing.

at the beginning of the night, i was exhausted. i just wasn't having it. i was tired, cranky, and felt extremely reticent. i think accidentally kinda went on a 'date' with a random guy and i felt annoyed by that. and i think he just friended me on FB. SIGH. i know how bitchy that sounds, but, i just don't want unnecessary people getting into my social/emotional space these days.
anyway, when i got to the club, the friends i salsa with gave me a big shake and bowled me over with questions about where i've been for the past 3 weeks. i threw out some vague answers about busyness and expected to go home early. however, come midnight, i remembered that Friday is Ladies Night at Caliente--it only made sense to drop by. and i'm super glad i did. i danced. and danced and danced and danced. one of the friends i've salsa-ed with since the beginning kept commenting his surprise that i was being so vigorous on the dance floor.
"i'm surprised you're dancing to this regatone."
"why?"
"well, it's kinda like hip hop--and you said you don't like hip hop."
"well, the misogyny bugs me--you know that. but, i've just gotta be in the right mood. when i'm just feeling the music and not listening to lyrics, i don't stop dancing for any reason."
he gave me a hug, "and you shouldn't ever stop dancing."
"aw. and neither should you.... let's stop this--feels a little too emo."
"hey, i'm a sensitive guy."
this made me smile.

i've been feeling kinda bad about myself these days, but, tonight reminded me that my feelings about myself is a state of mind i choose. i'm certainly aware that i'm not the prettiest. or the sexiest. and i realize that i come off like a snob sometimes.
i know i've said this before: but i guess, when i'm dancing, i look like i'm super fun and approachable--and random people are attracted to me--(both men and women). it's pleasant that people notice this, and it's a great, low commitment way to meet people.

i met this fun Finnish girl who's traveling the world right now. she's super sweet and i figure i'll hang with her a few more times during her sojourn in Seoul.
there was this African American guy who was a great dancer, but he was coming on really strong. he asked those typical things like if i had a boyfriend and blah blah, but he totally respected that i didn't want to take his number.
these two Korean ladies i met in my salsa class were also at the club and they were really excited to see me for some reason. they seem like they might be a little older, and all-out-dancing until dawn doesn't seem like par for the course for them. anyway, we had a ton of fun shaking our bodies to the music and i figure they'll be people i end up calling up to hit the dance floor in the future.
and finally, there was this Korean guy i danced a bunch of the merengue, bachata, and salsa numbers with. we closed out the club together, ate some noodles in a tent on the street, and then he drove me home. in his really nice BMW. and then tried to kiss me. ugh.
the attention was gratifying and hell, i miss having someone touching my skin, but i can't handle those kind of complications right now.
all of these male encounters today were a little much--but, at least all of them were sober when they hit on me. it seems like it's been a while since a sober guy hit on me.

all in all, seeing my friends and the hours of dancing elevated my mood. the night feels like a success.

Journal: 5.31.11

God. i'm pretty bi-polar. i just spent the past 10 minutes glancing at my entries since the beginning of the year of 2011, and wow--i sound completely psycho. i suppose i only blog when i'm super full of those boring feelings--happySADguiltyOVERLYoverly... but maybe i should balance this space with some of the more normal things that fall outside of my impending emotional apocalypse.


there isn't a whole lot to say, except that i feel down these days. i have come to realize how much i need my alone time.
my brother was here for almost 3 weeks--and though i love my baby brother, he drove me up every goddamn wall in my apartment. it's a terrible thing--the regressive patterns we fall into while we're with our family. you think you've moved past all of that reactionary childishness, but then you realize that noooo--that button is still, very much in existence and it will always be pressable by those close people you love to/hate to/have to love.


but, then the time for them to go draws near, and there are all kind of emotions and regrets you might have about time not spent as well as it should've or 'maybe we should've taken that road trip' or 'damnit. i wish we hadn't fought about' et cetera. i've been thinking about how we're not getting any younger--in fact, every time i now see any of my dear friends and family, there are more wrinkles and grays and less innocence.
[this is how it appears it will go, from here forward, huh? even my parents have said/admitted things to me that have blown my hair back. hearing certain revelations have made me gasp, but then resignedly shake my head. nothing is *really* very surprising anymore. we are all frail and imperfect and falling apart, no?]


anyway, my brother's departure caused me both relief and melancholia. his presence was a warm, comfortable old blanket fort--awesome, but eventually hard to breathe in because there isn't adequate ventilation. not having personal time for nearly a month really threw me off-kilter, and then the social obligations i had back-burnered suddenly started caught fire.
everyone around me has been demanding and demanding something. i've been feeling like a bad person because either: i just won't. or when i do, my half-hearted enthusiasm gets noticed and i get strange advice about how sun-lamps can help with moodiness. i've begun to wonder if my only value is being the life of the party or the road trip or the fucking cafe we're sipping our chai lattes in.
my reticence apparently concerns people. on one hand: it's nice to be thought of.
but on the other hand: do i always have to be interesting? or provocative? or have a funny anecdote to share?


i feel like i've i've had PMS for the past 2 months. today, i had a late lunch with a close friend i haven't seen in a while. (as i reflect on that conversation now, it's occurring to me that i've gotta toss a monkey wrench into this.) though we both had things to vent about, i am ashamed to say that i complained a LOT about some of the friends i spend a lot of time with. though i know that some of my plaints are justified, i have to stop and shake my head. what the hell is my problem?


last year, when i was feeling like this, i packed my backpack, went to the bus station, and took the first bus out of Seoul. i think taking another retreat'll do me some good. i need some distance and space and sun. i need to sit for hours on a bus and read a book. maybe this weekend.