in the spotlight

How do you know you’ve become a lazy blogger? When you miss your own blogoversary. It was on Valentine’s Day, and I had thought a lot about it before it came and then last Saturday I just completely blanked on it. The last year of blogging has been amazing, and I’m so grateful for all of you. I promise I’ll have a real kumbaya session on this sometime soon, really. But for the moment, it seems I’ve prefered to keep a low profile rather than face my glum mood over the state of my life at the moment. Nothing earth shattering by any stretch, but just the profound weariness of keeping body and soul together. And marriage and family and dog and work and support group and yoga and dancing and friendships.  Despite my best intentions, I’ve become sort of busy lately, and when I’m not busy, I’m exhausted from the emotional work of waiting and of life in general. 

I’ve said it before, and no doubt I’ll say it again. Being an adult kind of blows. 

I’ve sort of tipped over into the state of doing too much and not wanting to just be with myself and my true feelings. The quietness and the fuzzy brain I talked about in the last post seem to be precursors to depression and despair for me, and hopefully next time I’ll pay more attention to that. It’s just that it’s so nice to get a break from anxiety or worry or obsession that it’s hard to catch myself as I start slipping into the funk that inevitably follows those times where my brain is turned off.  And I’ve been so aware lately of how much my life has been taken over by my single mindedness – being unable to plan anything more than a month in advance, our finances, my ability to have a conversation.

In many ways, I’ve been feeling a lot like I did when I returned from Japan. Having lived overseas for three years, coming back was really hard. Much, much harder than leaving. Because when I first went to Japan, I expected to feel out of place – I knew who I was, more or less, but naturally it takes time to figure out how to fit in to a new workplace, new culture, new language. But I was bringing myself into that situation, offering myself to the experience, and extending myself compassion when I didn’t know what to do.  Returning was, in so many ways, the exact opposite. Here I was, in my hometown, surrounded by people I’d known for years, in familiar territory. The problem was that I didn’t know who I was anymore. I felt like who I thought I was had been eclipsed by my experience, by my story, by my circumstances.  I felt like I didn’t exist anymore. 

Lately, I feel like I don’t exist anymore. Like all I am is my desire to have a baby and the path I’ve chosen to try to make that happen. Like all I am is this cycle, and then the next one, and the next one. I feel like I’m in a spotlight, unable to see beyond the little puddle of light around me, consisting of acupuncture appointments and cycle days and morning temperatures and the creased foreheads of worried people around me, checking in to see that I’m ok. But beyond that it’s just darkness. Impenetrable and perplexing darkness. 

I don’t mean to say that I’m in the depths of despair. In some ways, that might be easier. Emotions come and go, I know that. But what about my life? What about me? Will I feel whole again?

show and tell

I was working on this post yesterday and then got busy with company and a phone call from my best friend who needed to talk and just never got it up. So, a day late, here it is.

This is a picture of a farewell letter from a grade 11 boy who was one of my students from my time teaching in Japan. I lived in Niigata Prefecture between 2000 and 2003, and taught at a number of high schools. Those three years were some of the best years of my life, and sometimes I miss Japan so much.

The letter reads:

Dear Anna,

I’m very sad now. Because I lost you. But, You have happy place. It, hasband. I can’t win him. So I want to very happy to you.

If I were a sun I would look to you every time. But I can’t it. I was very happy with you. So I’ll never forget you.

See you again. From Yuki. [a boy]

I have a pretty good collection of letters like this from the various classes I taught – before I left, the teachers had the kids write these notes for me, and I can’t bear to throw them out. I keep them around to cheer myself up when I’m feeling bad – nothing like reading that dozens of people love your smile to make you feel better. I was always amazed by the earnestness of these kids – not that they necessarily mean these things, but that they were willing to say them, and to figure out a way to say them in a language that was relatively new to them and generally caused them a lot of difficulty and frustration. I could go on and on about the lack of irony in Japanese culture and how there is an amazing tenderness under the reserve. But that would probably get boring. I’ll just say that I loved my students so much, and I really miss them sometimes. Reading these letters reminds me of that connection I had with them, and how grateful I am to have gotten to experience it.