Perspective

I haven't felt much like blogging lately and that is quite simply because I did not want to burden you, my loyal readers, with my unhappiness. I have been fighting the loneliness but there are times when I just can't help but feel like it is consuming me. I am the kind of person who needs people in my life. I love people. I rely on the companionship that comes with having a loved one near by. And that is just something that doesn't exist here in Wuhan. I don't like to complain because nobody likes to hear anybody else whine, and that's why I haven't written about being so lonely. I have immersed myself in one of my favorite TV shows, Grey's Anatomy, because Chelsie left season 6 and 7 with me and it has occupied my time fairly well. Today, though, I watched the season finale of season 7 and it left me with a feeling of "now what?" I tried to take a nap but I wasn't tired because, obviously, I hadn't done anything all day. So I cried a little, took a shower, and headed out to the river/snack street. It was good to be around people. I sat at the river and watched people dive in the dirty water, wash their dogs, and play with their babies. A couple people even motioned for me to get in the water, as though I was clearly missing the point of being at the river. Then I walked through snack street and got something that tasted similar to an egg roll and some watermelon juice. I was still feeling pretty bummed but a little better, and I decided it was time to head home.

This is the point in my story when my title, perspective, comes into play. As I was walking home I glanced in all shops that I passed. Many stocked the equivalent of a gas station: beverages, ice cream bars, and some snacks. Most of them were about as big as my bathroom: about 5 feet by 5 feet. Then in the back of one of these tiny shops I saw a bed. I started looking more closely and realized that in the back of most of these poorly-lit shops there was narrow, 1-foot long hallway that led to the back of the shop that was probably where most of these people lived. In one I could see a woman cooking something in a wok. I could see a small bed through another. I looked at the people who sat outside these shops and kept seeing babies in nothing but a t-shirt and dirty shoes just tottering around with an adult nearby. I realized then how silly my lamenting has been. These people live in a space that is hardly bigger than my bathroom and I am sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I probably make more money in a month than they do in several months, maybe even a year. I scolded myself for being so small-minded. Does this realization make it easier to be alone? Not really. Does it make me miss my family or my friends or Cody any less? Nope. But it does slap me in the face with the reality that things could be much much more difficult and I should be grateful that they are not. And it definitely makes me appreciate the fact that the Chinese people as a whole have been incredibly kind to me even though they probably know that as a foreigner I have much more than they do and if they reacted the way many Americans do towards foreigners I would be looked at as a nuisance. Instead they try to understand me when I butcher the small attempts at speaking their language, and they use hand gestures and smile at me when I get a couple words right. It is difficult to not be able to speak the language and to have that giant form of communication taken away from me, and it does leave me rather lonely. But things could be worse. So I'm accepting my loneliness and not expecting it to go away, but I now have a new appreciation for how much I actually do have.