8.16.2009

existential crisis

back from beijing. i have to say i've been hit with a strong wave of what is akin to depression. i am even convinced that i have become uglier when i look in the mirror. my skin seems to be not cooperating. i just KNOW that i've gained weight. i even feel dumber.
i know it's silly to feel like this and i am privileged and i have a great year ahead of me ( potentially) and blah blah, but i just can't get the energy up to feel excited about anything. before i went back to beijing this july, i always suspected i was missing out big time in new jersey. 3 weeks in china confirmed my suspicions. i WAS missing out. hugely. i have to say these past three weeks have probably made up one of the best, if not the best, summer of my life. best summer of my life in 3 weeks. and now i'm back in new jersey.
i've come to realize that i love beijing so much it hurts inside. it hurts to be there, it hurts even more to leave. even when i'm having the time of my life in beijing i still feel irrevocably sad, because i know i have to leave. it's the most ridiculous conflict of emotions. it's scary, the feeling that i just cannot tear myself away from that city, and yet i am forced to tear myself away again and again.
like colin meloy sings, melancholically, in "the legionnaire's lament":

lord i don't know if i'll ever be back again.

i mean, the world is small nowadays and i know i always can go back. but in the pit of my heart there's this fear that i can't; that i won't. i don't want to give it up. i don't want to change. i just want to be a beijing girl.
but once again i have to slap myself in the face. once again i have to tell myself to suck it up, to grow the fuck up. at least in the back of my mind, i still retain the happiness i experienced in the capital; the wild nights, the laughs, friends, the hot city sun and irrepressible fun of it all.

but these 3 months changed me. i haven't even begun to describe and i won't say because i can't put it into words.
i guess i know something more about myself now.
but fuck, i'm sad.