2021 in 2021

Time passes in strange ways, and suddenly it’s been almost a year.

I left a job at a bad school in March of 2019. Two years on, and I’m still bothered by how much of it stuck with me. The specifics seem too far back to remember, but weird little habits stick around. It’s a reminder of fragility that needs to be overcome.

Most of 2020 was pretty lousy, but not for the typical reasons. Other than an inability to find a job, Corona did not really impact my daily life very much. I worked two part time jobs, one in the mornings as a traveling English teacher, and one in the afternoons as a driver/caretaker/occasional English teacher for a special needs school. I knew that I’d like the first, but the second one was surprisingly good. If I could have told myself ten years ago that I’d love kindergarten and taking care of special needs kids, I wouldn’t have believed it for a second, but here we are.
I started graduate school mostly to keep a visa as jobs were not forthcoming. However, due to the virus, classes were online, and I’m not aware that I actually did much of anything. I had to rely on my family in America for money, which was shameful to me, but there were not a lot of good options. It’s a sad thing to say, but my grandmother picked a good time to pass away. She didn’t have to go through the pandemic, and mom’s inheritance helped quite a bit. Thanks, Grandma. I hope you heard my goodbye message.
I started a new, excellent, job in April of this year (training from March). I love and respect my boss and coworkers, I like the students, and they like me. It has enough variety to be interesting, while having enough time to be in depth. It has enough work to be engaging, but not enough to feel crushing. It is really an amazing job, and I’m lucky to have it. It also has raise and promotion opportunities, so that is something spectacular. I am a very lucky guy.
The focus of my thesis has become more specific, but I’m yet to do much on it. I had better get on it, but it’s somewhat difficult to find the motivation.
I’ve noticed myself growing duller recently, and I wonder to what extent that is the natural result of growing old, and to what extent it is the natural result of not sharpening myself. Self expression becomes more difficult, so I spend less time on it. The cycle continues, and sooner or later I can’t manage to write in a diary. My house is a mess, and the garbage in my car is covered with a towel, but maybe writing here is the first step towards cleaning my room.
On April 25th, 2021, two weeks after my birthday, and on Julian Palm Sunday, I was baptized into the Japanese Orthodox Church. It’s been a life altering experience, but never as I was raised to believe such things would be. I think of it and imagine that this must be what marriage feels like. I am still me. Nothing has changed. But I’ve made a solemn oath, as solemn as a man can make. And I no longer belong just to myself. My actions are weightier. Things have a great deal more meaning. It’s not even necessarily that I have more responsibilities, obligations, or connections. It was always there. I was simply too scared to shoulder them. I started by writing, “too weak”, but I am still too weak. But I’m facing the fears that come and I’m moving forward. House full of garbage and all.
In some ways, I’m more alone than I’ve ever been, but I certainly feel less lonely than I ought to. Yoko and the Café see to that, for the most part. But even without them, I did not really struggle with it as I had before. I do get lonely sometimes, and I struggle to look back on the past with appreciation, but not longing. In the same way that I struggle to look at a beautiful woman with appreciation, but not lust. Obviously, it’s even more difficult when I am nostalgic for various beautiful women. Looking back on my life, I realize that I had more chances for happiness than most people would ever have. What I lacked was any sense of responsibility. Moreover, I had a crippling lack of discernment.
I’m at the point where I can look back at the fundamentals of where I went wrong, and I can evaluate them without negativity or resentment, but acknowledging the damage that they caused. We live in an era that fetishizes resentment, and I certainly grew up in that milieu. Being from and Irish family at the tail end of Generation X did not do a great deal to teach me that resent, cynicism, and constant complaining were not the ideal way to live. Talking to dad, and building a better relationship with him, has really helped me. I wish that he and I were closer, but I’m glad that we’re as close as we are. I used to hold up Gatsby and Heathcliff as role models. Then, I was shocked to learn that I did not have the strength to hate. Finally, I realized that hating is really, really, a lot of effort, and that it was a lot easier to just enjoy things.
My Protestant caretakers and educators did their best to explain religion to me in a way that would make sense, but they failed to ever explain things in a way that could really make any sense to me. I was constantly told to be humble when I was being obnoxiously and demonstrably right. Humility is much closer to the gracious acceptance that you may be wrong. Humility is the recognition of your limitations, rather than the denial of reality. The more they told me that I was being proud, the more sure I was that I was right, because that was the word that they used when I didn’t want to compromise with people who were demonstrably wrong. So, to me, humility was ignoring the fact that I could prove that I was right because it would hurt the feelings of those who were wrong. And so I had to be right, at all costs I had to be right. And I had to glory in it. This was just being obnoxious. Being humble is not the same as not being obnoxious.
I viewed all relationships as fundamentally doomed from the moment that they started. I’d been raised with the explicit motherly wisdom that, “All marriages are miserable.” So, relationships were to be pillaged. Rush in, get the enjoyment you can, hold your position until there’s resistance, and move on. I was good at the game, but nobody ever told me that there was a metagame, and I lost at that catastrophically.
I think that all of these people were doing their best to look out for me and to try to make me a better person. But I don’t think that they understood themselves, their topics, or me well enough to be of any real help. And I cannot blame them. I have agonized about the students that I cannot help. Maybe they agonized over me. There, I just added my old 4th grade teacher on FB. I’d ignored her for two years. Maybe she was trying her best with me, too.
I’m also trying to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Looking forward, my house is still full of garbage, but I’m almost done with my last work of the semester. I didn’t practice any instruments, but I did do this. It’s not bragging or self deprecating. It just “is”. The notion of “adulting” is childish. So are most notions of childishness. Watching Anpanman with a gaggle of giggling kindergarteners is part of the life of an adult. As is paying my bills. They are just . . . life. I wasted a lot of time rejecting things that I liked because they were “childish”, and I held on to far too many things I had outgrown for fear of being too “adult”. What I want now, is to live without shame. What does that entail? I want to know that at any time of day, I am caught up with the things that I have decided to do. How close am I to this? Not very. But maybe this will make all of the difference. I do not want to catch up so that I can do more. More will happen on its own. I want to catch up so that I will have the freedom to choose. I look forward to saying, “I have nothing to do,” and meaning it from the bottom of my heart. The Spartans called idleness a gentlemanly pursuit. But what work we must put in to be so genteelly idle. Still, the work awaits, regardless of the season or the quality of the workers. A bit of slacking off and some work the day after. A bit of shame, but better than before.