Interim Stage 4 of 4
There is a certain horrible joy in not knowing what the hell is happening. For me, anyway. For my entire life I have been consumed with fear of “doing the wrong thing.” Not morally wrong, although the time I mistakenly stole a Lindor truffle at Borders in like 1999 and thought I’d be arrested would make one think otherwise. I am always afraid of not knowing where to go, where to stand, what to say. I don’t like not knowing what the procedure is. In choir, I hated being at the end of a row because the thought of having to figure out when to walk in and out gave me anxiety. I feel panicked about this most often in bureaucratic situations, like the post office. I have never once entered a post office with any idea how to act in there or any idea what kind of package I need to buy or how. These kinds of tasks used to seem daunting to me. Thanks to nearly a decade of antidepressants, I can now function with at least a reasonable level of procedural uncertainty.
One benefit to being in China and being dreadfully linguistically ill-equipped is that I never know anything about what is happening and generally people do not expect me to. It has taken some of the anxiety out of existing in a society. I am accustomed to monitoring myself and my behavior, careful never to let it seem like I don’t understand where to go or what to do. Now I have no choice but to look, act, and be confused. It is the default ailment of an international move, particularly one taking place in the midst of a pandemic that has created severe restrictions for travelers. It is just a little bit freeing.
I am not advocating for learned helplessness here. Mine is not a situation without its problems: I feel extremely guilty for needing help and asking for it. It is a burden to people around me, I am certain. Additionally, I think I have an ethical obligation to try to understand what is going on around me and to be a respectful traveler. The main obstacle is the language barrier, which is not something I can change in any haste, but which I am working on. Yet, for the first time in my life, I am too preoccupied with actually doing something to worry about looking like an idiot during. I absolutely do look like an idiot. And that is fine.
I’m reminded of all of this because today I transitioned from the first quarantine hotel to the second. We have more leeway here: we order our own food and can leave for essential items. Today I set up my Chinese phone plan, officially trading out my Verizon SIM card for a China Mobile one. I assigned a little too much meaning to it, feeling like it was the first real step to living here. There are four interim periods between leaving my house in Philly and moving into my apartment in Shanghai. I left on July 3rd and went to Pittsburgh, then Dallas, then Hotel Gulag, and now I am here. There are six days between me and settling into this program, but I long ago deserted my familiar setup in Philadelphia. As my new friend put it, I have “already pressed the new life button.” Despite the liminality, I am here.
I have opined about it already in sentimental and self-indulgent ways, but I didn’t think that I would get to do this in my lifetime. Somehow I had already written it out of my future when I didn’t immediately go live abroad after college. But I made it. I guess I live in this city now.
