China, Part 7

I am still in China.

My return date has been changed twice already, and there's a chance it might be changed again. I'll find out at the earliest in the next few hours, at the latest in the next day.

And, I'm homesick. I really love to travel and experience new worlds, new people, new customs. But I'm starting to get depressed, possibly because my return date keeps getting changed. It feels as though there's no end in sight, and I miss my family.

On a positive note, I have a fun project that has been taking up a good amount of my free time and has provided a productive outlet for my time here. Unfortunately, due to it's nature I can't talk about it here. What's really a funny and kind of ironic coincidence is the way I'll be presenting this project is with an espionage graphic design angle. On go the sunglasses.

The rest of my free time has been taken up with self care. I've been doing yoga in my hotel room (setting goals of a certain number of sun salutations and adding on after that whatever I have the strength for), swimming in the hotel pool, sweating out the dirt in my pores in the sauna, massaging my muscles in the hot tub, and various other grooming rituals (eyebrow shaping, self-facials, manicures, pedicures, etc) at the vanity in my room.

My teeth have never been so clean. When I floss I can feel the cleanly "squeak" when all the food particles are removed.

I wonder if others find this sort of thing gross or too personal. I don't. I wish I had more time to do all of this at home. I have this obsessive-compulsive nature that basically amounts to feeling immense calmness from detailed, precise and repetitive tasks. It's kind of like getting a hug. Does that sound weird? It doesn't to me. I think we all have little behaviors or actions that calm our anxious minds, and these might seem weird to others who experience the world differently.

Sometimes I feel really alone that I don't experience the world the way others do. I don't think the way others do, I don't construct sentences the way others do, and I don't often understand why others think and do the things they do. I've been told that this is due to my having dyslexia; Dyslexics don't express themselves or even experience the world the way others do. The problem is, I'm not exactly sure how others perceive the world. I mean, I've been told how they do but I don't always really understand. Sometimes I say I do or change the subject just to be polite, because it takes too long to explain to them that I just don't get it, or I don't think they'll understand what I'm saying. It's hard to put into words what I'm thinking in my head. The words in my head aren't in any particular order, they're just sort of there. I guess the closest thing I can think of that resembles my thoughts is free association. Does everyone think that way? My husband says he has solid sentences in his thoughts, and he's pretty normal in his thinking and perception so I don't think that how I think is how everyone else thinks.

Where am I going with this?

I was letting my thoughts just flow today while running through my new grooming routine and remembered how a year ago, my sister-in-law told me a story of how her husband saw a string tied up along a street. (I'm not certain I have the story exactly correct, so forgive me if you know it and I'm not recalling it perfectly.) It was put there by a religious group for some reason I can't remember, but he didn't know that at the time, he just saw it every day on his walk into work. So one day he cut the string to see what would happen.

I got really upset when I heard this. I insisted that he was being disrespectful to their right to put up string. I thought it was rude because clearly whoever put it up there wanted it to be up there, and cutting it down was blatantly destructive to others' feelings.

He felt he was just curious; he wanted to see what would happen.

I thought I understood him then, but didn't agree with his reasoning and got frustrated with him. We ended up letting the discussion go because I was clearly upset and he was trying to explain, futilely, his point.

Thing is, today while free-thinking I realized that it's okay to be curious. I realized that his curious mind just wanting to know "why" or "what would happen if..." was a perfect example of his incredible intelligence. Which is one reason he's so good at his job; it requires one to intelligently and creatively ask the question "Why is this happening" or "What would happen if something changed", for example. How can one expect to solve complicated problems in fields like GPS Systems and Technology if they don't ask questions?

I really respect his ability to question the world around him. I wish I had seen that a year ago instead of judging him as unfeeling (which he definitely is not). But more than this, I wish I asked that question more often instead of just rolling with the world the way it is.

In any case, I emailed him out of the blue and apologized for my misunderstanding, and happily he didn't think it was totally weird that I did so (or at least, didn't tell me if he did). So now I feel as though I've learned something new about my brother-in-law-in-law, and something new about myself - that I am actually questioning my world. Instead of just accepting his action blindly I questioned why he would do this action and what his motivation could possibly be, and when I didn't get the answer that made sense, I continued to question (in my head) until I got it.

Unfortunately, I'm still terribly homesick, maybe even more now. I really hope my current return date isn't extended again, or I might have to subject you all to more long, rambling, free-association posts about how I think and the obsessive thoughts that never stop running.

China, Part 6

Yesterday I went to a supermarket and bought laundry detergent.

This sounds quite ordinary, but I assure you, here it's not.

Wait, maybe it is. I went to the laundry detergent aisle, found a brand I recognized (Tide), took note of the price (16.8 RMB), took it to the cash register, paid for it with a 20 RMB note, and walked out with my Tide and change. Simple.

I think what did it was the confidence I had in my need for detergent.

A week ago, I had thought to hit up the same supermarket to get toothpaste. I went down and up the escalators, hemming and hawing about whether I should "give it a go" and just attempt to buy something in a language I couldn't speak. I chickened out, and denied myself the toothpaste, relying on the hotel-provided stuff.

Well, when I realized the hotel charged 22 Yuan ($3 USD) for each pair of undies washed, it occurred to me that spending 17 yuan on a huge bottle of detergent basically meant I could wash all of my undies for less than the hotel charged for one pair.

Little did I know, it would take 3 days for said washed undies to dry.

There's a laundry line in my shower, which is helpful, but no ventilation unit. So with all the humidity of late, it's taking FOREVER for my undies to dry. But, they're clean. So I guess that's all that matters.

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In other news it looks like I might be coming home sooner than I had expected. Like, 10 days sooner. I really hope this is true, because I really, REALLY miss my husband. And my dogs. But mostly my husband. I miss the feel of his stubbly beard on my lips and how his body feels when I hold him close. A pillow, despite my attempts at faux cuddles, just does not suffice.

That, and Chinese TV has totally lost it's charm. I mean, how many times can one watch another episode of "The Voice"?

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In other other news I had a moment last night where I really started to think about who I am right now as a person and who I want to be as a person. I thought at first "Silly Kate" because I was worried about how I might seem to others, and then I realized that my intention (at that time) was really based more upon making others feel comfortable and less about my own needs. So I thought, "Not so Silly Kate". Maybe I need to not classify myself so much as "silly". Maybe I should embrace who I am, or rather, who I want to be. Someone who is thinking a bit more of others and less of herself. This is a very hard one for me, as I naturally am very selfish and egotistical. But, I recognize this as Something I'm Always Working On and am trying desperately to correct. So, I thought, just for tonight I can try to embrace who I am right now for the positive merits instead of trying always to force myself to be someone I am not (currently).

For last night, it felt great. I meditated, did some yoga, and felt much better about my place in the world.

Today, I felt kind of the same as I usually do. I wish change happened faster.

Abrupt ending, starting...NOW.