Writing here still doesn't feel right.

It's like... kissing (to keep it PG) your ex-boyfriend while your
current one is away on an extended business trip. Or something. I
guess I wouldn't know how that feels so I can't draw that comparison.

But what felt like a simple grain in my shoe has now turned into a
desperate need. So much so that I am claiming that it is an issue that
is big enough to drive me from this country. All over having my blog
blocked. And now having to blog on blogger through email. ARGH!!! It's
an easy scapegoat for my general feelings of
frustration, I guess.

I've really been needing some time to think and write. Not about
anything in particular, though a few thoughts have flashed through my
mind this week that I wasn't able to write and expound on. They are
now lost in history. Right now though, I just need to sit down and
have a conversation with myself about me.

I'm in a strange state of emotions right now. As I was walking home
from work today, I felt a general satisfaction with myself. My house
is clean. I don't have a horrendous backlog of laundry (I mean, my
socks and underwear actually are organized instead of just stuffed
into a holding place) I've been working very hard on being an
organized, responsible and well balanced individual: changing the
little things that I hadn't liked about myself before. I mean, I've
barely just begun and there's a huge chance of me falling back into
old bad habits, but right now, this week, today has been a satisfying
one. I feel like I am working in a job that stretches me as an
individual in all the right ways. Heading home from after my RMB0.40
bus ride in the pleasantly cold weather that was today with those
thoughts and my headphones playing music I love walking to, I hit an
"I am happy" moment. The "I love myself, I love my life" moment. I
get those every now and then. I think in general I do love myself and
love my life, but there are moments of conscious realization that I do
and I was lucky enough to hit one today.

And then the thoughts and longings of sharing my life with someone
crept in. Trust me to ruin a happy moment.

I turned down the opportunity to see many of my friends today and have
a good Brazilian Barbecue dinner (which though was expensive, I had
budgeted for). And now I'm worried that I'm turning boring and
anti-social. Those feelings remind me of a point in time while I was
in college and felt like I didn't recognize myself. That was a dark
period and that leaves me just a little afraid that it might be
depression rearing it's ugly head back in my life. Bear in mind that
I'm writing this as it is happening so it is likely that this all will
disappear by 9.30pm tonight. But I just need to feel tonight so I'm
not discouraging this emotional exploration right now.

Ok. This is going to be a seriously disjointed post because I can't be
bothered to edit my thoughts in my head before they come out in words.

I have had a roommate for over a week. Angie, the lovely French girl,
has been staying with me since Tuesday evening last week. I'm happy to
provide her with a place to stay while she does the job hunt thing and
I seriously enjoy and need the company. But it is also an adjustment
at the same time. My emotional confusion might be somewhat related to
the fact that I don't know understand how I really feel about having
her around. I am not in tune enough with the amount of alone time and
space I need. I am confident that her presence has been a blessing
though. Here's why:

My first night back in Beijing after home, Sunday the 7th was a
really hard night. I was a little stressed during the day, running on
very little sleep (result of taking a red-eye flight and still going
to church) with only a day to prepare physically and mentally for work
which would start the next day after a 3 week break, and with my
little friend Leonard to care for that day. But when his pickup came a
little earlier than expected, and I was all of a sudden alone in my
apartment that had no internet (that adds to the feelings of
suffocation: I swear there's got to be a fancy phobia name for my
condition) I felt so completely alone.

Part of the reason was that was my first time being alone in a little
while. I had spent the last couple of weeks home in a whirlwind of
family. Before that, I had Jimmy and Triin for houseguests for about a
week and they kept things exciting. Then a whole day in Beijing with a
little boy and –BAM- feelings of isolation from family and the outside
world.

It didn't help that because I'd just gotten back, I could smell the
Beijing winter and it brought back floods of memories about the winter
before. It left me doing comparisons with the year before. Last year,
I left my family after 3 weeks or so of being home – though I could've
stayed for a bit longer – and was so happy to be back in Beijing. It
felt like home as soon as I got back. And I had a new relationship to
come back to.

This year, I came back single, with no prospects, and the thought of
returning to work – this job that I plan to work in for another 2
years – really wasn't appealing. I just felt bleak and unexcited
about what I felt 2007 had to offer me. And I missed John a ton.

But then on the following Tuesday, after I had a day back to life and
realizing that it wasn't so bad, Angie came over. And I've had company
here since. Wonderfully timed too because I came down with fever on
Wednesday evening (one that didn't go away till Saturday morning) and
didn't have to be sick alone.

If there was a point to this story I don't remember what it was. Oh.
Yes. I'm glad to have her here. Yet, I wonder if I need more "me"
space. I don't think this is going to make me decide to seek out a
roommate though it would help so much with rent and a roommate might
actually be good for me. I don't know. Faye who isn't used to being
alone seems to want solitude and privacy more than having company.
Weird.

Anyway, another point I wanted to bring up: John. I hate myself for
blogging the name AGAIN but at some point I feel like I need to admit
it in writing so as to not paint an untruthful picture of how over him
I am. It is a source of frustration for me: not being able to move on
completely. Especially since there are absolutely no signs of him
struggling with it like I am. It's weird. I feel like I'm doing so
much better with this alone thing than I have ever done before yet in
some ways I feel I'm doing worse with this breakup than I usually do.
It's been 5 months. The last relationship I remember having such DRAWN
out difficulty getting over was Matt the first. First one always is
the hardest they say. Perhaps the reason why this is harder to me in
comparison is because I haven't rebounded, which, strangely, is also a
sign that I am doing better than I had done before. I definitely
thought about it earlier on. I think if I do find myself in a
relationship soon (which is not going to happen), it will be safely
out of rebound territory. Not sure though. How "over" a guy must you
be for that to happen?

I still find myself hoping to find something as close to what John and
I were as possible and though I still feel a pull to him as a
confidant and best friend, I haven't daydreamed about meeting up with
him again and re-kindling in a long while. My conclusion to the
situation is that while John and I have become detached emotionally
and physically, I am still very much in love with our relationship –
or what I remember to be our relationship. Or maybe I am just still in
love with the idea of being in a relationship in general that somehow
John (who is recent enough to remember and not engaged or married or
seeing anyone -yet) gets muddled up in the picture and I constantly
find myself disappointed that it is really over. It's like there's
this part of me that just refuses to accept and believe that maybe it
really wasn't as great as I remember or that whatever good there was
in it has disappeared forever and I will never find a trace of it in
any conversation with John ever again.

I don't care to be coherent right now. I'm feeling much more than I
understand anyway. If I think about it before I write, you will never
get this post and I won't get to bed at a decent hour.

Conclusion: I still shed tears. I'm not sure over what exactly. My
loneliness? The fact that what I perceive to have been a good
relationship is over? The fact that he's moved on faster than I have.
I cry because I feel like I've been hurt although I know I have little
claim to that. Is it related to my need for love to be validated as a
person? There is some sort of acknowledgement of love in the past that
I keep seeking from him that I never get. In order to stop looking for
it, I convince myself that I am searching for something that never
existed. The questions never get answered. But it's so long ago. It
only comes out every now and then anyway. And in the end, I should
just stop thinking about it. Just accept that it's gone and over.
Don't worry about the reasons. Just worry about the fact that you keep
trying to look back and change it.

On days like today, I find myself feeling like I deserve to be loved.
And I guess I'm crying because I wonder if I've ever been really seen,
understood and loved - or if I will be in the near future. Silly, I
know, but lonely people always manage to convince themselves that they
will be that way forever. And as much as I know that I don't need to
worry about it and I don't actually WORRY, I am experiencing the
emotions of loneliness that include a sense of hopelessness and lack
optimism for the future.

Maybe what I have is a general case of impatience. I don't doubt that
when I am ready, when he is ready, there will be something for me that
will make all heartache worth it. But I want my reward NOW. Before I
deserve it. Because I know how long it will take for me to work up to
that point.

Blah. Anyway, here you go: the emotional post that I haven't written
in so long. I feel better now.

I write to understand myself, to release emotions, but also as a
statement to the world that I am imperfect. Somehow that statement
helps me accept myself just a little better and I learn through
writing about my stupid feelings that I can love myself even though I
am being stupid and because of that, I can see that I will be ok after
all.