After thoughts: Notes on having settled whilst still unsettled

Easy Rider, Central Turkey style (2003)

I was wrong. Last week, I declared with false confidence that I was settled and ready to stay in Shanghai for a few more years. Or maybe the better word would be ‘bracing myself’ or ‘girding my loins’ or ‘grudgingly acquiescing’ to staying put for a while and enjoying my job and my slow cooker and my bookshelf.

As soon as I had posted it, my brain went into panic mode, shouting quite urgently that it disagreed vehemently with my verdict.

I was most certainly not settled, it insisted as I went about my day.  And that grown-up thing, with all the stability that ought to come with it? Not happening. I started day dreaming on kayak.com. I started reading about Arabic courses in Damascus. I stayed in bed all morning yesterday, mournfully looking over a decade’s worth of digital photos, jealous of my various previous incarnations– look at that smug Younger-Me, off galavanting in Africa (or Europe or the Mid East or where ever)! Doesn’t she know that some of us have jobs and responsibilities?  Doesn’t she know that it’s not that easy to just pick up and leave?

Jealous of myself! Indeed, how embarrassing!

I also had more conversations with friends over the past few days after writing that post which led my mind and emotions astray- one friend gave me a very persuasive pep talk over lunch as to why I ought to be true to myself and my dreams and talents and not a slave to work or money (go to Italy! be a writer!); the other was in a funk about Shanghai and was very persuasive in reminding me why this city does my head in (crowds, heavy metal rice, pollution, no greenery– this place is bad for you, MaryAnne!).

Have I ever mentioned how easily swayed I am by others’ arguments and others’ whims? I think it’s one of the reasons why I’ve ended up doing so many things in my life so far- I’m more than happy to tag along when someone gets a brilliant idea. I’ve tagged along to some rather amazing places and found myself in, well, interesting predicaments as a result. It’s been interesting, to say the least.

Waking up on the Namibian border

Unfortunately, some of those brilliant ideas (so convincing!) work against my own decisions so I’m left with a rather noisy battle in my head and a good deal of indecision.

This is what my brain’s non-grown up impulsive side is shouting about:

Lisboa laundry. Like Shanghai mops, ‘cept different
Yoga in the Omani desert
Solo road trips through Turkey, with lovely pitstops near the Aegean
Roof top terrace parties in Istanbul, with meze and wine and friends
Golden monks in Myanmar
Camping with my cousin, in Butterfly Valley, Turkey

And finally, with an achy breaky heart:

Delicious West Coast beaches, back home on Vancouver Island

So I’ll be going there in July, I’ve decided. Back to Vancouver Island, back to Canada. I’m heading home for a month as soon as classes and exams finish. It’s camping and music festival season so I can be nomadic and enveloped in the metaphorical bosom of my family. Speaking of nomadic, I found this great survival tomahawk on the internet and cannot wait to try out its puissance in the woods near home. After I get my fix of waves and calm and greenery and family and quiet solo writing time, Doug and I will run off to Sri Lanka for another month of impulsive wandering.

With this in mind, I can just about handle Shanghai. Just about. I’m still jealous of my other selves who didn’t have to make do with mops and mannequins and chalkboard art. Lucky selves, they are. Unappreciative of what they’ve had!

The new Spring fashion styles for mops
Shanghai has some dire window mannequins
An exam room, with chalkboard art

I’m still struggling with this whole stability/grown-up thing. If anyone has any helpful tips on how to overcome deeply ingrained compulsive travel habits, please let me know.



22 thoughts on “After thoughts: Notes on having settled whilst still unsettled”

    • No, not just you. I swear, I need a travel version of AA to carry me through til July (‘Dog grant me the serenity to accept that there are places I cannot visit, the cash and time off to visit the places I can, and the wisdom to know when I need to be a responsible, stable grown up and to not grumble about it!’)

  • oh my, butterfly valley was beautiful… and i was living in lovely lush devon at the time and went from my long-term “holiday” to meet you for a little holiday… and now i have two kids and no time to write and no work of any kind to go straight back to because i don’t know what to do when i grow up, but we could use a second income… does that sound settled and grown-up? i wonder now what i used to DO with all the hours in my day…

    • It was beautiful. I miss sleeping on beaches. I still can’t quite wrap my head around who we’ve become- you have two kids, I’ve been teaching for nearly a decade… Pity time portals don’t exist/work because I think I’d be quite happy bopping back and forth between my past’s unsettledness and my current stability.

      Are the little ones still bouncing from one flu to the next?

  • Gosh MaryAnne,

    I go through the same thoughts all the time about wanting to wander about or finally be settled. We’re leaving Japan for DC this summer and my husband is raring to buy a house. I’m going along with it, but a part of me is freaked out!

    Like you, I make deals with myself about rewards and responsibilities. I personally love the idea of cruising around Turkey for a few months…

    • Turkey’s lovely. Well worth a few months of wandering. It must be an odd feeling realizing you’re on the verge of buying a house and staying in that house long term. Although I grew up in the world’s most stable family and am very grateful for it, I’ve always felt the need to go somewhere else, even for just a little while. I can’t quite fathom the permanency of buying a home and, well, staying in it. Wow.

  • The household is mostly back to health, except for my mom with a lingering lung thing.

    I YEARN for a house and property. I want my own garden and dogs and cats and trees and space and a loom and a couple of goats. Mohair and home cheese. And a light little space, clean and airy, for writing…

  • Oh. And i miss the sunglasses in that photo – i left them in a clith diaper store in Toronto and somebody immediately pinched them. Cheeky.

  • I’m the last person to give you advice on how to overcome your travel habits (*cough still unable to stop traveling *cough*) but I really enjoyed this post. I also tend to add a +1 to whatever fun and ridiculous travel trip someone has planned, usually to great effect – I’ve never regretted doing so. But lately, I’ve also found myself trying (and failing and struggling) to define what I want for myself, without all the extraneous factors. It’s a tough thing to whittle down, as you said above in photos and prose. I have found that going home for a bit to recalibrate is a good thing, but I’ve never shaken the desire to take off again soon. For me, it’s the food and the chaos – nothing compares at home. Looking forward to hearing about your thoughts when you get back to Van.

    • Food and chaos: good. They’re what keep me going too. Luckily, Shanghai has plenty of both but I do miss variety in my food and chaos. Ha. I think one of the things that is making it more confusing for me than in the past is the prevalence of social media in my life– I didn’t use to have a million people whispering in my ear about the Awesome Things they’ve been doing and how Wonderful Things Are where they are. I want to be all of those people! I want their contentedness- or at least the contentedness they project in their word choice. Could I be able to settle more easily without the buzz of choices in my ear? I do wonder.

      I think that month at home will help. Get some quiet outdoor tent time. Think without extra voices chiming in.

    • I bet your Grown Uppery came screeching to a halt as soon as you found out I had abandoned mine!

  • I will confess to you that I am old, in fewer years than I care to mention, that I will be 50. And I have not outgrown my travel lust, not in the tiniest bit. Because of this, I have thrift store dishes and a bad wardrobe. I also have a mortgage because I decided, some time back that Seattle is my home. There’s a lot of juggling, and not enough savings, and a squidgy “career” that helps pay for things like health insurance and that mortgage I mentioned, and that’s interjected with bouts of “Should I sell everything and go back to a tiny studio apartment so I can travel more?” I wouldn’t be surprised if I do exactly that some day in the not too distant future.

    For me, it has not gone away. Though I DO feel so at home in Seattle.

    • Aw, lovely to see you here! Did I ever tell you you’re my hero? Seriously, in the wanderlust-narrative-writing-career category, you’re tops. I have a feeling I’ll be very much like you in the coming years (which really wouldn’t be a change from how I have been up to now) aside from the fact that I’ll be a burnt out shell of a teacher, rather than an actual full time writer. I’ll send you the expat/repat/settled questionnaire asap.

      By the way, I’m heading home to BC for a month in July. Not sure I’ll have time to get down to Seattle (my family is on Vancouver Island and in the Interior) but if you happen to be, say, anywhere near Vancouver or even Port Angeles, I’d love to meet for a coffee or a beer or something.

  • It’s been so wonderful finding your site!! You’re a beacon of hope for those of us who don’t want to be conforming “adults”. 🙂

    I’m with your friends here. Be true to yourself, and follow your heart.

    Here’s a really good link a fellow blogger sent, as I’ve been going through somewhat of a life crisis recently.

    “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future…because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give the you confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference…”

    • I’m glad you found it too! When you commented in the interview request post, I clicked on your site and read back several pages– I think we are soul mates. Pity you aren’t in Shanghai. This has been the most brutal city ever for me to make friends. It’s like Nancy says in her interview (the latest post, up as of midnight last night– oh insomnia!), there are lots of people here that one could meet but pretty much no one to relate to if you’re in our frame of mind. Hell, I haven’t even met Nancy and didn’t know she existed until last week! Yay for my blog for letting me (and y’all) know that there are similar people out there!

  • I have sent a bunch of your latest posts to my Kindle so I can finally get around to reading them (possibly/most likely on the subway). Anyway, I read this one (and the preceding one), and they are pretty much exactly how I feel. Except I have a weird desire to stay in Shanghai (as well as the occasional desperate, irrational need to leave).

    I have a feeling that I will end up writing a million page essay for you, so don’t hold your breath. I’m going to see if my boyfriend wants to fill it in too, since he’s a newbie expat! Aww!

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