Are we there yet?

Taipei and Halle; Taiwan and Germany - Iris and Tuesday in transition (click on the pics to enlarge them)

Thursday, August 10, 2006

ultimatum

H has set me an ultimatum for moving out. 31 December, so he can enjoy New Year's Eve in peace. After all that's been going on in the past year since I came here, with me being depressed all the time due to the everlasting cold in Germany, feeling worthless after giving up my job and becoming a stupid knitting and baking and cleaning and washing housewife volunteering at a run-down movie theater with no perspective, desperately trying to find translation jobs (and feeling pretty stupid babysitting instead) and suddenly having no money anymore after 4 years of having more money than I could spend, feeling so fucking alien in Germany, missing about everything about Taipei, not succeeding in setting up social life and most of all not being able to give him the closeness he obviously expects and instead giving it to Tuesday, it's his perfect right to do this.

The thing is, I don't know where to go. Apart from the loss of face here in Germany for both of us, there's no place that I feel I'd want to live here. Of course, Taipei would seem like the place to go. But - I've got no job, no qualifications and no money (and I hate begging him for money, that he doesn't have either, anyway), I gave up my job, my apartment and my furniture and the rest of my life a year ago, I've badly neglected all my friends, the ones in Taipei as well as the few ones I used to have in Germany. And the thought of packing and organizing a move again (and having to deposit all my plants with my mum again), with all my stuff (that I haven't really unpacked completely yet because the back wing isn't finished but that I would have to unpack and repack to sort it through) and Tuesday and everything, makes me feel sick in every sense.

I've tried to look for a therapist. But the few ones I've found here that take patients (not that there isn't a therapist's practise on every corner here) have waiting lists of a year for regular appointments. I managed to get two introductory 20 minute-appointments in September. And obviously, H doesn't really want to wait to see whether a therapy would help though he made me promise to see a therapist (and I sort of tend to think that if I really managed to move back to Taipei, I wouldn't need therapy).

When I was in Taipei last november (where I actually decided to leave H and move back and even got a job opportunity on my last day there and spent ten days with Alex in Shanghai making it all seem soooooooo easy. And then came back here and told him, and he wouldn't let me go), a friend who sort of was in a similar position put his head on the counter of the pub we were in and went: "If only I could hibernate here and wake up when my life has resolved itself." And I was like: "I know exactly what you mean."

"Behind my impassive face, my soul curled up into a ball, waiting until the unpleasantness was over" (from: Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex)

5 Comments:

At 5:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering. --J.G. Bennett

While is may seem out of reach to leave, it is the first step out the door that is the most daunting. It is the inertia that we both fight (to get moving) and revel in (when we are out and the wind is blowing though your hair).
Packing, organizing and having friends or relatives look after things or a cat is mechanics; liken these to the workings of an automobile versus arriving at your destination. Where you get gas, what the odometer reading was or whether the air conditioner was not cold enough mean nothing. It is getting where you need to be that counts.
One thing you can be proud of: You know something very important – You know where you SHOULD NOT BE.

 
At 5:41 PM, Blogger Tpe_Tuesday said...

I don't even know how to drive anymore. And those mechanics aren't quite as easy as they seem.

 
At 8:00 PM, Blogger MUC_Sarah said...

Kann dir ja nicht viel anbieten, aber was immer dir einfällt, sei bitte nicht zu stolz zu fragen! Du solltest wissen, dass ich dir gerne helfe, wo ich kann. Kann dir auch bestimmt für eine Zeit meine Wohnung zur Verfügung stellen und bei jemand in München unterkommen. Ist natürlich zu klein für Tuesday und dich, aber wenn ich dir irgendwie helfen kann, bin da. Hab auch dsl, wenn was zu organisieren ist, was dir zu viel wird...

Finde es traurig, dass es jetzt endgültig ist... habe immer gehofft, dass ihr es auf wunderbare Weise noch hinbekommt - bin halt ein hoffnungsloser Optimist.

 
At 10:52 PM, Blogger Tpe_Tuesday said...

Danke, aber das ist mein Ding, da muss ich allein durch. Und die Tatsache, dass es hier steht, ist kein Grund, es rumzuerzaehlen!!!! Hier liests ja eh keiner. Und vielleicht ueberlegt er sichs ja nochmal....

Will dir deinen Optimismus ja nicht nehmen. Aber auf Dauer funktionierende Beziehungen gibts nicht. Daran hab ich in Deinem Alter auch noch geglaubt :-S

 
At 6:44 PM, Blogger MUC_Sarah said...

Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall... warum um alles in der Welt solltest du da allein durchmüssen??? Wozu hat man Family, wenn nicht dann, wenn man sie braucht?! Viel Glück! :-/

Und wegen deiner Rumerzählphobie, gehst mir langsam ziemlich auf die Nerven. Solltest mal mit jemand wie Sasch zu tun gehabt haben, nach dem ganzen Getratsch in und um Breitenbronn geht dir danach sowas total am Arsch vorbei... Und bin doch niemand der ständig telefoniert, "hier, weißt schon das Neueste?" oder sowas, bin doch hier echt aus der Schusslinie, dann lass doch das endlich mal bleiben. Und falls ich hier mit Petra zB drüber reden würde, wen irgendwo in Deutschland würde das interessieren. Das geht doch dann nicht weiter...

Und denke ehrlich gesagt nicht, dass du viel reifer bist als ich, denn ich hab mit Männererfahrungen früher angefangen und viele gemacht und daraus meine eigenen Schlüsse gezogen.
Im übrigen war das der erste Artikel seit langem, den ich ganz gelesen habe, weil es endlich mal richtig um dich ging, aber werds besser wieder lassen.Wie gesagt, viel Erfolg...

 

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