How do you know if youāve made the right choice? Do you look for external cuesāsigns, signals, messages from Godāor do you depend on internals, on how you feel? Can you tell the difference? How do you know when a choice has been made, made finally and all the way through so that itās not a choice anymore, itās just a fact, itās just your life, itās just what you do and who you are.
Iām pretty sure it didnāt actually happen this way, but now I remember, when I was first our here in 2006, constantly taking my symbolic temperature, casting auguries and reading everything into everything wherever I went. Anything good that happenedāthe fortuitous discovery of the Octopus Resort, finding that first job, meeting A. and moving into that first flat, making friends, whateverāseemed to be a confirmation of some sort that I had made the right choice to come and spend a year on an antipodean adventureāsee! Everything was going so well! This PROVES I did the right thing! Interestingly, I donāt exactly recall feeling the oppositeāas if Iād done something bad or wrong by being here–when things went not-so-well. Did I just accept a bad day or week as such and just get on with my life, secure in the knowledge that everything was working out fine in the bigger picture? That seems strangelyā¦well-adjusted, for me.
Thatās certainly not how Iām doing things these days, I tell you what. Nothing is less appropriate than being publicly emo on oneās outdated early-2000s-era blog (should I just be Twittering all this nonsense instead?), but here I am, telling the world: I am a big mess lately, maybe youāve noticed (my friends here certainly have, I think, and have been wondering what happened to Fun Chiara), and everything Iām doing and feeling and saying seems point to the possibility that I maybe did not exactly make the completely and totally best choice for me in coming back to Wellington this past February.
Yeah, I hate writing that. I hate thinking that. How can I think that? After working so long, after trying so hard, after residency, after everything. After Iām ashamed to let such a thought even enter my head, but there it is, with all its little allegories and examples. Every disappointment, every minor setback just reverberates around and around like that thing at the science museum where you drop a marble or a penny into a type of funnel thing and it just goes onnnnnn and onnnnnnn and onnnnnnāand when it finally drops down into the hollowed center, I think it again: maybe I shouldnāt have done this.
It just goes on from there, too, because if youāre going to have that thought you have to have all the ones that logically follow it, like for example: OH YEAH WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO DO INSTEAD? Staying in the States seemed impossible when I was there: nothing fit, nothing was right. Thatās where all the signs were pointing. While I was there, putting all my energy into being where I am right now as I write this, I knew I was in danger of romanticizing New Zealand and I tried hard not to but I guess I did anyway: New Zealand, where I am fun and cute; New Zealand, where interesting things just sort of happen to me; New Zealand, where everyone else is fun and cute too. (Conveniently forgetting all the heartbreak and disappointment and sadness that I went through too, just, you know, like every human being everywhere else regardless of upon which side of the International Dateline they find themselves.)
Itās obvious, isnāt it: Iām settling down again, Iām back to having a pretty ordinary life after what feels like a long time of change and transition and new experience and excitement. I am not talking, anymore, about āwhen I go backā unless itās for a holiday with my family and friends in the States. Itās not an adventure anymore: itās a life. I know that. Everyone knows that. So why is this so…difficult, you know? Why am I falling apart? Everything I touch, lately, staggers and stumbles and cracks at the seams- nothing is simple, nothing is clear.
Living somewhere is so different to going somewhere, and going back to a place is so different to staying there. Iāve done all those things, recently and incompletely, attempting to read the right signs and make the right choices all the while.
Comments
6 responses to “Signs”
There’s this thing in theatre called “Second Night Slump.” You finally open a show and the first night goes great and then you come in for night 2 and you can’t be bothered with all the hype and it’s…less than ideal.
When I moved to NYC many thousands of years ago I LOVED it with capital letters in every word ever uttered. I also had huge panic attacks and wandered around like the world’s most hair gelled whirling dervish but I did it with LOVE in my heart. Went home for the summer, came back and my second year was a slog. I knew where things were and what I had to to do and how to do them but the zing wasn’t totally there. With a couple of brief respites I have continued to live here for over 20 years because I love it. Some days it’s LOVE and sometimes just love and other days I want to punch the place in the crotch but with love because I really belong here and that feeling never goes away.
So maybe second night slump is a thing, even off the stage, and maybe that’s part of what’s going on with you and you’ll feel differently soon.
Or maybe not and that’s OK too.
Don’t worry about presenting Fun Chiara – I like Real Chiara, whether you’re in a fun headspace or not.
Planning and looking forward to things is much less emotionally difficult than is really living those things. I don’t think that indicates mistakes, it’s just the way brains work.
Stupid brains, always trying to kill us. Grr.
Just because we know it doesn’t make it easy.
Chiara, it’s your favorite Fangirl here to tell you that, even in the midst of re-adjustment doldrums, your life is pretty fantastic. I mean, you got to go to a fabulous Newtown party filled with beautiful, strong women; you left with new clothes and makeup and eyebrows; and you got invited to a housewarming party by someone who’s read your blog — and loved it — the past couple of years. Pretty glamorous for a random Saturday.
Maybe what the problem is is that you’re trying to go back to the Wellington That Was, and it’s not there anymore. The people have changed, the city has changed, you have changed. Perhaps the malaise is because you need to try something new.
So, come to my party on Friday. It’ll be fun. I promise.
Very interesting, Chiara. I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. I wonder if you’ve felt like this before when you lived in other places? I wonder if I would feel the same way if/when we move back to MN. It can’t be the same, you know? You know. It’s a different place in time than it was and you are a different person in time than you were. And what about all the planning and longing? Are you going through withdrawal of that kind of dedication, romanticism and energy? Maybe you need a new big thing to focus on? Or maybe not. Maybe you need a break and to just BE? Anyway, hugs and I love you!
Ah, yes. Loser-with-tenure syndrome. I believe I’ve told you about this before, but just in case: I once had a friend who was a college professor (not Alex), and he was very stressed out about his tenure application. For months and months, he didn’t really feel good about anything, but he thought, “Okay, well, I’m under duress, it’ll get better, it’s just this horrible tenure process.”
And then he got tenure. And he went home, and he got up the next day, and he said, “Well. Huh. I’m still here. Still me. Still a loser. Huh. Now I’m just a loser with tenure.”
So the Loser-with-Tenure Syndrome is the tendency for really intelligent, self-aware people to go through something huge, something massive and deadline-full, and to find themselves a bit deflated at the other end, because no matter how hard they try (or, in the case of my friend the professor, how hard they don’t try) to avoid romanticizing the outcome, there’s a real human tendency to assume that one great thing will bring all great things.
Maybe look at it this way: so Wellington isn’t as good as before, and your life isn’t as fun. You are living a warty, imperfect life, where you question your decisions and suspect you’ve made a mistake. Ultimately, though, you are just experiencing the warts and bumps of life in a place you really like. You are living life in Wellington. You are no longer a stranger in a strange land, but you are Chiara at home. That’s different, and probably disappointing, but not bad. If your friends don’t dig Real Chiara, well, it might be time to see what friends come next.
I am coming perilously close to writing the introduction to The Real World (“to find out what happens when a girl and her new country stop being polite and start getting real”), so maybe not.