The Exile's Adventure

Throughout my life, there have been certain words that have interested me. Why a certain word catches my fancy, I can never say. The first one I remember was "Oxygen." I remember being a child, probably around 5 or 6 years old and pulling out the phone book to see it written in a Yellow Page ad for a medical supply company. I would then copy it over and over in my little sketch pad. I think I liked it because it had X and Y in it, which to my young mind were a truly strange combination of letters you rarely saw.

Other words that have interested me include: silver, nuclear, purple, lunar, harbor, Terraform, flagship, coastal, sanctuary, enclave, legation... the list goes on. Just one of my quirks I suppose.

But  one word that has always figured very prominently in my list of words is "exile."

I can't really say why this word holds such power for me. I've always been fascinated by people, governments, and even nations that were driven out of their homes and into strange lands. Perhaps I was an exile in another life. Perhaps it's because that with very few exceptions, I have always felt like a bit of an outsider around most people; usually just a little, but sometimes a lot (now that I am older and hopefully a little wiser, I realize that everyone feels that way growing up). Either way, there is a pathos surrounding that word that envelopes me at times.

In many ways, I am an exile at the moment. When people ask me why I am in China, one of my main reasons is usually "economic refugee." This is a trite, if accurate description. Any economic future that I might have in the United States remains highly in question and it appears that it will be for the foreseeable future. All those direct and implied messages I received during my childhood and adolescence amounted  "You must go to college to get a job. But to get a really good job you must get at least a masters!" So like a good little soldier I did all that, but here I am years later, and still no job. All the time I was getting my degree, now I'm told I should have been getting 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 years experience. But to get the jobs that would give me experience, I need a masters. Do you see where this is going?

It's hard not to be a little bitter and disillusioned about this state of affairs. But although you may not be able to tell from the tone of many of my blogs, I remain, unbelievably, the eternal optimist. I've decided to see this situation as the opportunity to do and experience things that I may never have had the opportunity to do had things in the world gone differently. And, of course, it's not like things were going my way back home before I left for China, either.

That said, I find myself at something of a crossroads, as though there were several versions of myself standing at a nexus in time, pondering which timeline to traverse.

1. There's the Tab that would like nothing more than to find a nice guy to settle down with in a fabulous downtown Charleston home (with a fabulous vacation home in Murrells Inlet, of course) and happily spend my days hanging out with my friends Nick and Naylor, maybe while our hypothetical future children had weekly play dates while the fabulous gay dads of Charleston swapped recipes and then took wonderful little family vacations together (Sounds nice).

2. There's the Tab that wants to keep traveling the world and seeing and doing new things, racking up new experiences.

3. There's the Tab that wouldn't mind moving to Europe with perhaps a  handsome Celtic gentleman who strikes my fancy and living my life as a glamorous (relatively speaking) ex pat Doctor's "wife", which sounds better than an exile.

4. There's the Tab that want's to be the popular author/actor/ Emperor of the World who solves everyone's problems, writes a bestseller, and wins a Best Actor Oscar for the greatest movie ever in which I get to play the romantic interest opposite Zachary Quinto (Hey, a guy can dream!).

5. There's the Tab that wants to follow the "correct" path that he's always felt was expected of him: Get into government and work my way up to some prestigious post (Ambassador, Senator, Secretary of State... I once wanted to be President but nowadays I pity any person in that position). 

When I arrived in China, I saw it as an exile. Now I see it as an adventure. But now that my time in China is nearing its end, as homesick as I have been at times, I find myself somewhat dreading my return to the "real world" and all its problems. I like to think that my time here has helped to create a new me. It has given me more confidence and faith in my abilities than I previously thought I was capable of. If I can survive here, I can survive anywhere.