Flux 2

Recently someone I work with and have befriended asked me, "Do you celebrate Thanksgiving?"

I was hurt. "Yes," I began. "I have lived in the U.S. since age 16..." and continued to explain.

The point is I shouldn't need to explain. An immigrant is constantly having to prove him/herself. If you're not "from here", just how American are you? Are you American enough? Somehow, you learn that you are never American enough.

My friend was probably just not assuming one way or the other. But she could've prefaced her question with "I am not assuming one way or the other", or, better yet, asked instead, "What did you do on Thanksgiving?"

She didn't mean anything by it, I believe. I thought she was a cool person. When you have never been an outsider in your own country, it must be hard to imagine what it is like.

This is the only country I have known and loved. This is the only place I have lived all my adult life. I grew up in a colony with a serious case of identity crisis. I never had a strong sense of where I belonged or who I was. Nationalism is something I have never experienced. This frees me from feeling particularly superior to another race or ethnic background, allowing me to fit right in in America.

And now I don't know America anymore.

I blogged recently that my mother was expressing regret about having sent my brother and me away at a young tender age. It turned my world upside down. If she's questioning her decision, I'm questioning my life. Was it a mistake to have come to America? Was my whole life a mistake?

I don't know how to adult elsewhere. My coworker and I recently pondered this aspect of existentialism: in adulthood, you need to have basic functions. Home is where you know how to pay your utility bill, we concluded.

It is true. A business associate who lived in Oregon for decades moved to Mexico a couple of years ago, to the surprise of a lot of people. It was close to Christmas. Apparently in that town the only option to set up your power is to physically visit a certain government branch in person. But the government was on sabbatical because, hello, Christmas! Them Catholic. Big time. So no power for two weeks. Couldn't cook, had to light candles, no internet. And by the way even if you had internet you couldn't pay your power bill online.

When one is younger one's sense of adventure tends to be stronger (at least true for most people). As one ages, fear sets in. Starting over is fucking scary.

When I was in therapy I was congratulated for having had the courage to leave my ex, move upstate, and go back to school. In hindsight, damn! Being in your early 30's - that is still young.

And yes I am glad I left the guy when I did.

I don't like to dwell on the past. But who is without regret? Even when I advocate against regret because it is a giant waste of time, it is hard not to feel a tinge of bitterness about lost youth. It is true youth is wasted on the young. I thought I had time for mistakes. I thought I'd be beautiful forever.

The more I know, the more I realize I don't know. I just can't deal. A country I used to be so proud to call home. Now I am ever more aware that you don't know who your friends are. Heck, you can't even trust your government to be doing their job to serve the basic rights of its people.

These days it is near impossible to know how to feel about the future. I feel utterly helpless and confused both on a personal level and a cosmic level. I feel like the America we live in today is a nightmare and we can practically hear a time bomb ticking. And it may be an atomic one. Planning seems pointless. Everything seems pointless. Life itself.

Of course, once again, I've been told that needing life to have meaning is an INFJ thing.

Just... one day at a time, I guess. Cuz what else you got?