Solitude as a Companion/Solidão como um companheiro

Part of the reason my posts became less and less frequent while we were living in Gwangju was because falling into a routine meant that there was less to write about on a weekly, or even a monthly basis. Everything was very exciting as we packed, got ready to go, started our jobs, and settled in, but once normalcy kicked in there was little to hold a potential audience's attention. That changed, of course, with our whirlwind world travels, and the various ups and downs of readjusting to coming back home. Six weeks and zero jobs later, I have fallen into a different kind of routine: going to daily Mass, applying for jobs on the internet, and watching whatever my mom has playing on TV.

It's not so bad, honestly. I can sleep in if I want to, I have plenty of time to read the news, and I can chat with friends on the phone or online any time I want. I have gotten back into an exercise routine, partially motivated by my desire to train for the PHS Commissioned Corps - though I'm not complaining about having extra incentive to drop my vacation weight. I blog and catch up on international development news. I've explored my eligibility for public assistance (unfortunately, I can't get unemployment or Medicaid, but I do apparently qualify for food stamps - more on that in another entry). It's nice to spend time with my family, too - I chat with my brother and his girlfriend, go out to lunch with my father, swap yoga pants with my mom - and I even got a pat on the shoulder the other day from her normally stoic husband. And now, thanks to Netflix, I've watched all three seasons of Scandal and seen just about every episode of seasons eight through twelve of Law and Order: SVU.

I will admit that things have been pretty lonely without my other half. After spending a week with a couple we know in Dallas, Joel headed north to spend some time with his own family, which has been good for him, too. He reconnected with his brother, who is currently in his last year of med school with the Air Force, and has been working as a garden slave helping out in the yard for his parents. This week, he went with his folks out to Wyoming to see his grandfather and Dr. K's side of the family. He'll be back in Texas for his birthday, which I am obviously excited for - the next ten days can't pass fast enough. We talk and text every day, but after spending five years of marriage together, you kind of forget how to keep those marathon phone conversations from your dating days going...and seeing as how I am too careful/prudish/paranoid to send racy pics or messages that seem to be so popular among today's teens and politicians, I suppose I'll have to wait until he gets back to feel young again.

Ah, well.

On the flip side, my idleness has allowed me to make up for lost time with my mom's menagerie. In addition to begging forgiveness from my own cat and slowly working my way back into his good graces, I spend a good deal of time talking and playing with the other four cats and two dogs with whom I share the space. (The two mice aren't terribly cuddly, and I never really warmed up to guinea pigs.) Naturally, this comes with photographing and occasionally videotaping them.

Throw in daily Masses and rosaries, neighborhood runs, push ups, sit ups, and some occasional yoga, and you've got my daily life in a nutshell.

I don't really mind being back here so much. I wouldn't say I am proud of having to stay with my parents at this age, but neither am I ashamed of it. For one thing, it's completely normal in my mother's Brazilian culture for people our age to live with and/or be at least partially financially dependent on their parents, even sometimes after getting married and having kids (which thankfully means my mother doesn't resent it at all). It's also an uncomfortable but necessary rite of passage for a lot of my peers that have come home after living abroad. Even the brilliant Maya Angelou, who passed on today, went back to her mother when she faced difficulties - and considered herself stronger for it. Sure, we could have taken all of our severance pay, come straight home, and been able to be financially independent for a little while, but I firmly believe that our travels made us better people and brought us closer to each other (despite my tendency to take out my anxiety at being in this very situation on my poor husband). Debts can be repaid, but missed opportunities rarely come back around.

Interestingly, the solitude has been a strange comforter through all of this. Many people I know are uncomfortable with loneliness and silence and empty houses, but I find in them a familiarity that puts me at ease. Those who know me will undoubtedly understand this, as I have been known to seek out quiet corners at parties and social gatherings - being alone is a welcome antidote to the social anxiety that I inherited from my father and work so hard to hide. I do miss being around friends while Joel grills by the pool (and it's quickly getting into that season), but there's also something nice about sitting on the back patio for a few hours and watching a good old-fashioned Texas thunderstorm - and using my phone camera's macro function to take pictures of droplets on my mother's wind chimes.

Jobless Malaise/Mal-estar de desemprego

Nobody ever tells you that coming back home is harder than going abroad.

I've already covered re-entry shock. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about picking your old life back up, or starting a new one - coming back with no plans and having to depend on the generosity of family and friends to feed and house you while you look for work and watch your savings, so carefully squirreled away, dwindle.

I was in a great place when I first came back. Right off the bat, I got to fluff her dress and straighten her veil as my best friend got married, while answering polite questions about my travels and our plans now that we are back. I had five job interviews lined up in the next two weeks, I explained, and smiled modestly at the congratulations that were offered at having so many opportunities in my field when the job market is so hard. It seemed like employment, housing, and a new life were just a few short weeks away.


It's now Friday, post interviews. The phone interview for the PHS Commissioned Corps was a success, and I am now professionally boarded, but I still need to secure a federal position, which would take several more months - so it's not an option in the short term. On top of that, I still need to submit a mile-high stack of paperwork to get medical clearance, which is going to cost a fortune to obtain, particularly now that we don't have insurance. I've been notified of my rejection from the job with the city of Austin and one two of the three state health department jobs I interviewed for. I'm expecting answers from the other two last one either today or early next week, but (as usual) my tendency to expect the worst has already begun to set in. I have another interview in San Antonio next Monday, but working in San Antonio while Joel goes to school in Austin is already less than ideal, and I know that the competition for these government positions is really stiff. I have been doing my best to fend off the despair, but sitting around in my mother's house doesn't give me much else to do.

It hasn't been so bad in the meantime. Obviously, I am still applying for positions. I've spent time with my parents (and my aunt, while she was here visiting my mother from Brazil) and seen a few friends around Austin and Houston. My brother and his girlfriend took me to a local soccer game. Joel has been spending time with some different friends in Dallas (and reconnecting with their dog, who absolutely worships him). While we don't have as much mobility as I had originally hoped, since we don't have our own car, I can move around the city freely since my mom lets me use hers.

But it doesn't feel like a life. I have always prided myself on my ability to be independent, to figure things out on my own and make my own way. Learning to depend on Koreans was hard but, in hindsight, understandable. This is different. There is something deeply unsettling to both Joel and me about depending on the generosity of others that we have no way of paying back in the foreseeable future. Obviously my mother would feed me until the day she died, and my father rented a car for me to go to Austin for my interviews last week to help me get back on my own two feet. I know they're my parents, and that they give freely, but all I have are visions of the two of us living a Fantine-esque nightmare wherein we are reduced to destitution or desperation or perpetual dependence on the grudging generosity of our loved ones. Or something.


In truth, I've never been a "the Lord will provide" kind of person. One of my missionary friends likes to tell stories of how the exact amount of money that she needs at specific moments seem to kind of materialize right when she needs it, but I've never had such luck. Money has always come from overtime, cashed-out vacation days, and shrewdly-filed tax returns. I am trying to have faith, but this is quite literally the first time in my life since I was a college freshman that I've been looking for work while unemployed, and I am losing patience. I know people are trying to be supportive, but if I hear "Well if you didn't get the job, it wasn't meant to be" one more time, I may just set myself on fire.