After much pushing and pulling, we are still hopelessly overweight, more like over freight, but damn it, I really don't want to give up the elliptical. We have convinced ourselves that we can just go back to the States and start new. New town, new home, new furniture, new job, new car, new all kinds of stuff, the kind of stuff that gets me to the verge of total freak out. I say the verge, but some, OK Didier, may argue that I have gone past it. Maybe. I am tired, frustrated, and hopelessly organized and obsessive, so I think about the move and the packing and the move and the unpacking and the job search and search for Lily's school and the move and where the fuck are we going to live and how are we going to do it all in a couple of months and how much of our savings will we go through before something catches and we feel back to normal and Lily needs to go to school in America after a year abroad learning how to read and being incredibly polite and proper and correct and now will go to kindergarten for just 1/2 a day? Half a day, even Virginie who is just two years old goes longer than that AND she is learning Spanish. Perhaps just a tiny bit past the verge.
Thank you, United States, for the lack of health coverage for all. I am looking forward to spending out of pocket for coverage for a family of four until we are covered by one of our jobs. That we do not have yet. Actually, in my heart, I am optimistic. Generally speaking, I think this is true of me. I can see the big picture, know that the move out of Barbados is one of the greatest gifts handed us by God, the Universe, and corporate intrigue, but on the day to day, I am scared and a little bit lost.
"All I do is win, win, win no matter what." --DJ Khaled
Even Charlie Sheen, falling apart at the seams, calls himself winning because nobody, nobody wants to be a loser, a failure. But to lose or to fail is not to have it define you. One is not a loser because he has lost or a failure because he has failed. In fact, I think if one has not lived a life in which one fails, even greatly, it means that he has not moved outside of his comfort zone, has not risked, has not thought outside that proverbial box. Judgment, by a jury of one's peers, which now appears to be anyone looking at you seems to be handed down on a daily basis. It is a wonder anyone can breathe. The shallowest, cruelest, most condescending individual can be called a winner because he's got all the accoutrements of modern life, even if he is a fucking jerk. And a poet, an artist, a revolutionary, risk taker is a loser because he does not. I struggle with how to share the need to create, have new experiences, try new things with my children, and prevent them from falling so far on the outside of "normal" that they are wounded or hurt or even worse, feel ashamed of themselves. Or us.
There is nothing like the creeping stickiness of shame that causes one's eyes to glaze over, avoiding eye contact, leaves a sour taste to the tongue, preventing words from coming out clearly if at all, makes a buzzing in the head simmering with anger, sorrow, frustration, sadness, loneliness. It fills your legs with glue and makes moving through a crowd of staring eyes like wading through quicksand. Who knows if anyone is really looking anyway. Shame leaves one with the feeling that everyone knows, everyone cares, and everyone is talking about it. You are the butt of all of life's jokes and better you than the next guy so everyone gloms on to avoid finding their place in that particular spotlight. I wish it weren't so, but I feel like creeping back in to the States and trying to start again quietly without the prying eyes and nervous glances of friends and family, and worse yet, the haters who are wondering, Well what are they going to do now?
My Grandma Schooler once told me that she would not want to live forever because after a certain point, you really have seen the same themes, characters, situations come and go and then repeat. While there are new lessons to learn each time, when you feel like you got it, you are done, you can be at peace and move on. When I look at where we are right now, I can see the point on the path and how it can/will/must get us to the next place of learning, growth, development in a very broad sense. I see it as grand, epic maybe, and necessary. But on the day to day, the questioning, the doubt, the judgment makes me feel like the only loser in the world. I know I am not a loser and if I were, I certainly wouldn't be the only one, but in a culture where we define ourselves by winning and winning by a certain kind of success, clout, attention, I am not feeling like the star of my own video so to speak, more like the guy endless auditioning on American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing/Skating/Fencing with the Stars and not getting his break, not making it past round one.
But Round One, Two, Three they've come and gone and I am still standing facing my opponent. It's me, it's life, it's possibilities, it's change. It's goodbyes, farewells, I love yous. It's let's go. We're packing up and we're packing in Barbados. But we aren't giving up on us. And writing that, when I have not been able to write for days, feels like a good start.
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| First arrived in Barbados |
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| A few months in |
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| Family moment, almost 1 year in |
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| Weeks before departure |
