6.02.2010

This is it.

Another night in the neighborhood at a little hof. I don't know why we didn't start doing this before. It's so much nicer than the total insanity that goes on out in that other place. After taking Whiskey round that way on Saturday night and running into The Korean Body Builder, who was a bit of a cock as usual, I feel like I literally can't go out there without losing somehow. Even mildly. It was quite early and I knew all the boys would be out at Haebangchon, so the risk for incident was low. And the incident itself wasn't much to report. But still. It's nicer to just sit in having a few quiet beers and being left alone, without risk of running into anyone other than my students.

So. Something's come up that's got Smalltown racking his brain, and which had us sitting there over our 2000cc's rapping hard about the expat condition and all that comes along with it. How it feels like there's this giant stopwatch hanging over your head all the time, counting down the nanoseconds, and how that's just not the reality -- it's the getting out of thinking that way that's the hard part. How it's ultimately visas and contracts that make love difficult. How the world should be simpler, and how silly these lines we've drawn all over the damn thing are.

Mostly I just cling on to Kel and her partner as evidence that somehow we can all work it out eventually. Which, of course, means that they can never break up or I'll have a life crisis. You hear me, Kel? Even that kid out in Scotland is stressing a bit at the moment, I know. I don't know why living out of your own country makes everything feel so urgent and pressurized, but it does. It's the contracts and visa expirations that make cloudy futures that much harder to cope with.

Mostly I think we're just all in our mid 20s, and this is probably just the way that things are supposed to feel. No matter where we are. We've got the pressure of having to go ahead and just put ourselves somewhere looming just over the horizon, but no real idea how or where or in what manner to do so yet. We need time. But we can feel it eeking away.

All we can do, I suppose, is just follow our guts, deal with the situations we're in as best we can manage at the time, and see where life takes us. There's no more of this waiting around for life to start business -- this is it.

And at the end of it all, I'm just left thinking, Smalltown could be gone in two months. And even if he's not, it won't be long after that he definitely will be. And that leaves me just another good man down. Yet again.

Man. I don't wanna go to work tomorrow. Life feels too heavy at the moment. But I know those little brats are finally getting to bed now, so they can get just enough sleep to sit there and say brilliant, funny things all day long, so that I can forget all this serious business and just get back to enjoying life in the simple ways that they have to show me.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"There's no more of this waiting around for life to start business -- this is it."

I hear you there. It seems every movement, every milestone, everything is a tiny, small step away from that significant moment when *real* life begins.

7 years ago: Real life begins when I graduate high school!

6.5 years ago: Real life begins when I graduate college!

5 years ago: Probably shouldn't have dropped out... but real life will begin when I re-enroll into and graduate from college!

1 year ago: Well, college was fun, but I need money. Real life will begin when I've saved enough while working in the plant to move out and teach EFL!

No matter how many times I tell myself "Not only is *this* real life, but it's about 1/4 of the way over. Stop thinking like a child!" I still think that way.

Oh well. Life goes on, real or otherwise. So cheer up! I'll bet by the time you've read this your boys have made you feel much better. Or much worse but for a better reason. Either one will do the deed.

-- .38

I'm no Picasso said...

Spesh somehow I had reckoned you were quite a bit older. You must type with a sense of wisdom, I guess.

I realized when I was nearly through with university that life doesn't ever capital S Start -- that it was already happening. Since then, it's just an uphill battle to remember that.

Making it to Korea anywhere closer on the horizon? Best of luck there. One foot in front of the other and all that jazz.

Kel said...

I dunno how we did it, but it wasn't hard, I know that. We just decided early on that we couldn't live without each other and that's that. After spending 3 weeks apart in January, that sealed the deal. Oh, and we just adopted a dog. ~.^ So, keep clingin'!

Anonymous said...

It's hard to say when or even if I will make it in the end. It's been a few years since I initially had the ambition to give up my horrible dream of writing and to teach in other countries as a means of adventure.

I have a lot of dreams and ambitions. Little action, but lots of dreams.

At the moment I'm legally bound to where I am for the foreseeable future. The fates conspire to my sedentary condition, etc. I don't understand the law, so I can't say when. Maybe 2011...

And 24 isn't that young. Young enough to be an idiot, old enough to know it. Sometimes I feel old inside, sometimes I feel young and foolish, confused and mean. Maybe that's what I type out -- ironically self-confident meanness as a result of compassionate confusion; the unintended consequence of being fascinatingly boring.

Etc etc. No need to go on in this ve/ain to no end.

-- .38

I'm no Picasso said...

Go on if you'd like to. I wouldn't mind.

But yeah. Finally getting out can take some time. I think from the time I decided I would do it till the time I actually made it to Korea was about a year. All kinds of nonsense and hangups. But just get your heels dug in with yourself, and you should be alright.

My god, you're actually younger than me. Spesh, I never would have guessed it...

Anonymous said...

You seem amazed. How old did you think I was?

I'm no Picasso said...

Like.... pretty old. Haha. I have no idea why.

Anonymous said...

I'd pursue the rhyme and reason of believing me to be ancient, but I don't think my ego could survive. I'm still recovering from the various men and women who have told me I look "35ish."

But I remain optimistic. Soap Operas tell us that gorgeous (though evil and conniving) women go for the older men.

I'll just dab a little salt and pepper into the old locks and chest hair and PRESTO, instant sex appeal. It's like sea monkeys for your libido (not to be confused with crabs).

-- .38

CeilingofStars said...

Oh god...crabs and salt-and-pepper chest hair. I think I'm gonna vomit. :P

But yeah girl, I feel you. I've done the "my life starts at THAT moment in the future". And I'm still doing it, pretty hardcore, with having a steady boyfriend, and then with getting married, and then with having a baby...and I'm sure after that I'll be doing it with when my kids go to school, when they go to college, when I retire, etc.

But I love looking back at all the discrete portions of my life - mostly defined by where I was living (my first house, my real family's house, my stepmother's house, my new family's house, my three different dorms, my room in France, my apartment in Georgia, and my apartment now...). I actually have difficulty placing memories unless I have a concrete period of time to associate them with.

So I'm enjoying the fact that it doesn't get much more concrete than my life in Korea right now. :)

LOL captcha = 'inonfork'. As in, "I'm being inonforked with work right now!"