I’m about halfway through my break before being back in Hong Kong again for part two (of I don’t know how many parts). Three weeks in NY, two weeks in India — a significant break before heading back to HK, where classes will begin right away, and I will be in my new sublet in the Mid-levels.
While in NY, I’ve had many dinners/lunches/beverages as I catch up with friends from here and there all asking me, “So how was it?!” It got tiring to answer, and to be honest, I’ve started questioning what I’ve been doing in HK and even wondering if I should even be going back!
Seems weird, even manic, as upon leaving HK, I felt I was being prematurely torn away from so much I was in the middle of doing, disrupted. Not all that long ago, I also was so sure that I could not leave Asia by the end of April, when my second semester at CUHK ends. Further, during my time in NY, I decided to seriously reconsider completing the Advanced Diploma in Putonghua at CUHK, so why the sudden change?
During my break, I’ve had a chance to review, reflect and reconsider. And so I started to freak out.
As this blog intimates, I am not entirely sure what I’m doing all the time. I know I left NY because NY wasn’t working for me anymore. I’ll never forget that summer morning I awoke, just a day or two since returning from Rio, that I had gotten very very lost. I remembered feeling completely empty and unmotivated. Numb.
In HK, I’ve forced change upon myself, took away all that was familiar, created new challenges, and began to feel again — and as much as this includes the good (the euphoria of new curiosity and learning), it also included the bad (extreme loneliness and a heightened grieving for my mother). So not so numb.
But what gives? Fear. I just feel like I whirled myself into this new world, far away from anyone or anything familiar, where I am constantly grabbing for something, anything to provide myself with stability. And having come back to NY, where everyone and everything was familiar, I felt the extreme contrast, and started to become afraid to go back to all the uncertainty…. alone.
As I write this, I see how little sense I’m making — I’m having the hardest time getting my feelings out on “paper.” I just can’t quell this anxiety, which, while not entirely dormant in HK, was constantly being pushed aside as I dash about doing what I needed to be doing. After the initial two weeks of constantly rushing about in NY, I got to slow down, and just worry.
It has gone back and forth in the past few days — either I’m filled with anxiety and fear, dreading the thought of being back in HK, alone in a dark apartment, isolated, or I’m excited to get back to HK, get back to work on finding myself new vocation, learn Chinese, stop being on “vacation,” and just do do do.
I suppose either way, I just need to keep forging ahead and going forward.
Because It's Time 