The Imagined Life

I'm finally getting the chance to take the time to sit and write a more well-formed detailed blog entry. As life would have it, we no longer have internet in our house because we were being cheap and using a hot spot that cut out on us. So, I'm sitting outside at a "fancy" DC cafe with some newly made friends, finally having the chance to breathe after the whirlwind of the past few months. And a whirlwind it has been: new location, new job, new apartment, new acquaintances, new routines, new cultural reintroduction, new socially awkward moments, new adult life problems. But at last, I can say that my comfort level is rising slowly but surely, and I'm forming routines. I find myself making cheesy work jokes with coworkers and being able to join in on the work goss. I love the feeling of my OWN house key in my hand as I head home at the end of the day. I actually had a housewarming party last night with my roommate, and even though 95% of the people were her frien...

Good Morning--two seemingly harmless words that when put together appear to be a kind and socially normal morning-time greeting. But, for some reason...I CAN'T say them. If I ever do say them, it's as if I must drag them from my mouth and spit them out. I don't know what it is. This has been an issue since my younger days, and I've tried to analyze this problem, but I've come up with nothing. What I've created instead is a strange, perhaps off-putting singsong type of "Hiiiiiii" for the morning hours. As morning greetings go, I'm not sure it's appropriate because I get the sense that people don't know what to say back. It's the same feeling you get when you discover that in America, we don't have a physical greeting between a handshake and a hug. A handshake is for people you've just met, and a hug is for people you know well. What did we do with the people we haven't just met and kind of know? An awkward handshake-hug da...

A friend of mine a few days ago hit me upside the head (figuratively), and I couldn't deny what she told me. I was busy bemoaning my state of feeling discombobulated in a new place, starting over again, and blah blah boring blah. And she was like, "I thought that's what you wanted. You like the newness, the starting over, the trying new things, etc. That was your choice. That' s why you moved." I was struck dumb! Yes, she's right, she's absolutely right. I've wanted to move to DC for so long, and I did it! I wanted to get an office job, and I did! Not everything is ideal ideal, but it never is. There will always be something. My mom asked me a few months ago what would make me happy and feel less stressed. I was able to name a few things, but then I said, "You know, with me, it's always something. If it's not one thing, it's another that's stressing me out. It's ridiculous. I'm waiting for some never coming state of perfe...

I thought I would continue this "tradition" of the past 2 years in blogging about sweet nothings. I just enjoy describing my life situations in a dry, sarcastic manner too much as well as pretending to be jaded and that I've "had a hard life" as my mother would say. So...I have come down in the world, sadly. Or so it feels like I have. My contract has ended in my super-cool-exciting Middle East job, and now I have returned to plain old 'Merica. Now, don't get me wrong, I was happy to return because I missed my home country and being able to use the tap water to brush my teeth. But, unfortunately, I have a traveling issue. It needs to happen, and it needs to be done, and if my traveling needs are not meant, I suffer from the most incredible yearning. It's really quite troublesome, and it interferes with regular life and being a regular person. Therefore, I arrived home in July, and then headed out to South Africa in August. Even a month was too lo...