The Boogeyman in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I am not very good at healthy coping skills. I deal with things the way I deal with them and then completely explode in anger whenever someone questions my techniques. I’m not very good at taking criticism about my mental health.

I say this because at one point, on Monday, the stress of this whole travel things bubbled over and I went on a rant on Instagram. If you know or follow me on any of my social media profiles, you’ll know that I’m generally pretty contained and regulate what I post rather strictly. And honestly, it wasn’t a video or anything, it was just a bunch of text being rather vague about a situation that had happened.

About 90% of people in my life have absolutely no idea that I’m leaving.

That’s a very specific choice I made because I used to have going away parties every time I went somewhere, which led to a joke about how fun my going away parties were, even if they weren’t really “going away” parties since I’d be back and having another party within 9 months.

When Chuckie left for Mozambique, I remember feeling a very steep drop in the pit of my stomach and I felt absolutely dreadful for having put people through this over and over again throughout all those years. This time would be different, people would know I’m leaving once I’m already there.

With one week left before I fly out, I knew that there were going to be little hurdles that might clothesline this whole experience. Monday morning, it looked like everything was crashing down around me.

Taiwan closed their borders which effectively canceled my flight to Bangkok. So I was left trying to find another way there, but due to the quarantine requirements, I had to arrive within 6 or so hours of the canceled flight, otherwise I’d have to start the whole process all over again.

So I went into total panic mode. I couldn’t really find anything that would work, but there was one more little hurdle. Money. The airline told me it would be 3 weeks before I saw a refund on my flight through Taiwan due to the gigantic amount of cancellations they were going to be handling. I didn’t get upset, I mean, I get it. They’re not happy about it either and I am not going to be that person that demands a refund RIGHT NOW! It sucks for everyone and all we can do is make the best of it.

However, that means that I had to use some of my quarantine hotel money to book a new flight. Would I have enough money to cover the cost of the quarantine hotel? And where was my passport? The Thai consulate had it for well over 2 weeks by that point. Was it worth spending all of this money when I wasn’t even sure I would have a passport? Because getting the passport with the VISA back is only part of a larger process where I have to provide them a photo of the VISA they just physically mailed to me in an online form… And that approval takes about 5 days.

Everything was unraveling in a span of like 15 minutes.

I took a deep breath, went ahead with my wax and facial appointment like everything was going to turn out fine. I’d found a cheaper flight that routes through the Middle East, but due to the different direction of the flight, I would have to leave a day earlier. I’d placed the ticket on hold so that I could reflect on whether or not this was worth it.

This is how I cope with this kind of stress. I give myself a short “meltdown” period where I can express my anxiety in whatever kind of episode I think is appropriate. Then I reel myself in, assess what exactly my choices are, in this case, preemptively cancel the whole thing or just hold on tight and hope things improve. I mean, really, what happens if I go forward but it still collapses? I lose money. Big deal.

Once the choice is made, charge ahead. That doesn’t mean I’m completely calm. In fact, most of Monday I was on the edge of my seat waiting for something to happen. For the other shoe to drop. Well, that night I got an email from the Thai consulate saying that the VISA process has been stopped because I provided them the incorrect documents. I emailed them the documents, and luckily, this established a kind of open communication between the VISA team and myself.

My passport arrived Friday morning with the VISA in it. I took the picture and sent in the rest of the paperwork necessary and was greeted with a form email telling me that it would take about 5 working days to get approval to enter the country. Uhhh, I’m leaving Monday, not going to work.

So I just casually emailed them and let them know I’d finally submitted the correct paperwork and my time table. 10 minutes later I was fully approved.

If you knew the amount of crises relating to this trip I’ve gone through over the past week, I think it’d make your head spin. It certainly made mine spin… both of them. As I was putting out fires left and right, I realized that this is something I’m good at. That kind of determination is not something I use too often, maybe because of how exhausting it is. Everyone keeps asking me how I’m going to make it being quarantined for 15 days all by myself… after the week I had, I’m looking forward to being locked in a room with a giant bed all by myself.

But it’s not just that. I’m looking forward to having a bed, period. Or running water. Or being able to take a shower whenever I want. For the past 6 years, these are all things I haven’t been able to do. I’ve been living in a temporary travel trailer with no hot water and no functioning bathroom facilities, sleeping on a couch because the bed was too small for me to fit in.

Dear God, please lock me in a room where I don’t have to see people for two weeks, and all of my meals are brought to me. This might be my idea of heaven.

Of course that’s a fantasy. What will the reality be?

It’s actually that last question that caused me the most anxiety throughout the last week. I don’t know what my future looks like past Monday. Most people have a vague estimation of what their Wednesday will look like.

I do not.

I have no knowledge.

There is no point of access in the accumulation of my experiences that could shape even a half-formed idea of what my life will look like. It made me lose sleep. I was on edge, far more so than I had been during the tenuous back-and-forth about travel and VISAs. There wasn’t really anyone I could talk to about it, no one really keeps my confidence.

I told Sarah, but she has two toddlers and doesn’t have the ability to actively listen while trying to stop little Lucas from playing with matches. Her words of encouragement were very much appreciated, but it still didn’t get at the root of my anxieties.

Ironically, it was Richard. I say ironically because this is the first time he let me talk about myself in months. Whenever we’ve talked it’s always about his drama, which is substantial and oftentimes he needs another perspective, but he’s kind of been clueless about this whole situation even though he’s known about it since the beginning.

As I was saying that, he kind of said, “You have done this before. Countless times. Seized your path and just pushed it in a different direction. That’s what you do.” I appreciated the sentiment but was persistent in my perspective that this was completely unique to me. “New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, even Paris were all things I could visualize. I’ve never actually pictured myself in Bangkok, it’s just something that I manifested and materialized from thin air because of my love for the culture.”

He looked at me (video calls really are quite a marvel that my 1980s child-brain can’t always comprehend), and said, “You said that about New Orleans.” And that’s when it hit me that he was 100% correct.

I was looking at this as alien because I don’t know the language. I don’t know any people. I’m going by myself. But really, going to New Orleans when I was 18 was just as alien. I never conceptualized during my years in high school that I would just go somewhere else. It seemed unrealistic. But a random job opportunity with Microsoft came up and I hopped on a plane.

There was no frame of reference that I had in my brief existence in California that could help me conceptualize what my life would look like in New Orleans. I was restless. I was off-balance. I was also desperate. It had been less than a year since Joe had died, and the boogeyman of domestic terrorism was like a vapor in the air, threatening to turn to panic everywhere. I just decided I’d had enough of being alone and I wanted to do something I loved: play jazz. So I didn’t tell anyone, I just sent everyone a letter once I’d already gotten settled… my mother was not happy.

This is almost exactly the same situation, 19 years later.

I’ve been restless in a kind of way that only comes from having been deprived of basic human needs like good sleep or… water. Much like Joe’s death, my grandmother’s passing completely reshaped my relationship with my own existence in a way that made the decision to live every day much more ephemeral than obligatory. COVID has made the air quite literally poison, nowhere is safe… a much more abstract boogeyman than Osama Bin Laden. I am restless. I am off-balance. I am desperate.

But look how New Orleans worked out. I forged a new path for myself. Everything changed and I learned how to cope. I was on my own for the first time. I had to cook for myself. Do laundry for myself. Get myself up. Get to work. Get to rehearsal. I did that.

Which means I can do this.