Those of you who know me and love me know that there are two constants in my life (three, if you count being chronically single), namely, I am always starting a new job, and I am always moving. I do change jobs a lot, usually every two years or so, and it always happens that after the first year on the job I am moved to teach a different subject, or another level, keeping me in a constant flux of developing curriculum and teaching plans. I would like JUST ONCE to teach the same subject two years running so that I don't spend September in a panic trying to come up with a year-long teaching plan based on materials I haven't written or which haven't been ordered yet. As for moving, that comes with the change of jobs, or in the old days when I had a child with me, dependent on which school she was attending that year. Since I live sans wheels in the form of my own car, this has limited our housing options quite a bit.
Given this, as well as a huge hit of heartbreak, it should come as no shock to anyone that I am moving again. Yes, I'm giving up my lovely sunny one bedroom flat on upper northwest Beijing to move smack dab downtown. The reasons are myriad, but include the fact that I have lost a temporary battle with the Health Gods and am having difficulty coping with the lack of grocery stores on this side of town, as well as my ayi's difficulties in getting over from the extreme east side of town to this neck of the concrete jungle known as BJ. Having the unnamed auto-immune disorder apparently wasn't enough--I sprained my knee again and also dislocated my left shoulder. It's been popped back into place but the agony of sprained muscles, torn tendons and strained ligaments remains. It's been over a month but the alternate numbness, tingly, and searing pain in three fingers of my left hand is breathtaking in its variety, as well as its tendency to flair up at night when I'm sleeping.
The only thing more wearisome than having ill health is reading about it, so enough of that. This, in a nutshell, is why I've been silent. I have veered this year between extreme happiness, having too many wonderful projects, to being alone and in pain and in the dark. But that is life, sometimes, or at least its my life sometimes, and I just have to deal with it. I don't call people at three a.m., because who the hell wants to deal with my shit at that time? Conversely, I'm silent on the subject during the day, because who wants to bring anyone down? But it's there, lurking under the jokes and the pain, the knowledge that I got myself into this situation and will get myself out again, but that it's increasingly difficult to remain upbeat and positive when you're not cute and young anymore. Yet this is the pay off too, when you get to a certain stage in life you learn to relax and forgive because that's what you just have to do to keep positive and upbeat and keep moving on. I really don't know if I'm going to end up a bag lady on the streets who can't button up her own cardigan, or if there's going to be a miraculous last-minute intervention when one of the products I've written will actually sell and get me money and kudos and financial security or if miracle of miracles I actually meet someone who thinks I'm cute and funny and who wants to hang with me the rest of my life--or if this thing that hides in my cells flares up and sniffs me out like a candle in the wind--I honestly don't know. Perhaps that's just as well.
