Byebye Taiwan. Hello SE Asia!

I worked in residence life during college, and once I proudly went on about my wonderful organizational skills in front of my boss. He laughed/snorted and said, "No, Mel, I'm pretty sure that's called being anal retentive." He sugar-coated a lot of things--probably a coping mechanism for living in the same building as 186 college kids--but when it came to my neurosis, he called it like he saw it.

In college classes, this probably worked in my favor. I never lost assignments or forgot exams, and my notes were essentially transcripts with doodles in the margins. But this behavior predated college by about 18 years. As a child, I kept my book series in numerical order and used a ruler to underline things in textbooks (to avoid squiggly lines of course). One Christmas, my gifts were "organization themed." I got an electronic organizer, Mary Engelbreit Post-its, and a markerboard. This might sound like lackluster parenting, but I was delighted by these presents. ("This organizer comes with a stylus?! SCORE!")

There are some upsides to trying to keep life mess-free. I rarely do things I will regret, like drunk text or paint my nails neon orange. And I've never gotten an overdraft fee or choked on poorly-chewed food.

But the downsides suck. I approach everything in life with the same attitude I have about gynecology appointments: "Let's get this over with so I can check it off my list." This has led to me missing out on some key rites of passage, like streaking or dating a bad boy. OK, I don't mind skipping the bad boy drama, but do wish I had run across the soccer field topless with my friends in college that one time. It was only streaking in the strictest sense of the word (It was the middle of the night and no one saw them except each other.), but I opted to sit in the running car and keep a look out for campus security.

It's not that I want to radically change who I am. Structure keeps humanity from imploding. Deadlines keep the world moving forward. Aspirations give people something to work towards.

I just want to stop getting nicknamed "Mom."

I have lightened up over the past few years. Living with another person has required it. Once Josh and I started splitting laundry duty, my once colored-coded underwear drawer turned into a mosh pit of mis-matched socks, men's T-shirts, and other miscellanous items such as plastic bags and ripped mittens, all bouncing out like a bunch of Bieber-crazed teens whenever I opened the drawer.

After about a year of such household mayhem, I realized two things.
1) Spending a few minutes a week searching for matching socks or re-sorting the recycling is not worth an argument.
2) Josh spends half as much time planning his life as I do, yet the vague plans he has in his head work out about as well as the bullet-listed ones I write down on sticky notes.

Since these epiphanies, my life has gotten a lot more relaxed. It started with small steps--mixing darks and lights, leaving the house without mascara, shaving ONLY once a week during winter--and now I've moved to the big leagues: backpacking through Southeast Asia for four months.

Yes, that's right. Josh and I are leaving Taiwan on Monday to traipse through the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam until July (or until we run out of money). We've been planning on this trip for almost a year, and I have been super excited. Until last week, when we went on a two-day trip to a friend's house. I was in the shower one morning trying to figure out which bottle was the shampoo.

This one? No. Facewash.
This one? No. Silky bodywash.
This one? All Chinese. Let's try it.

As I lathered up my hair with the mystery liquid, I thought, "Man, I can't wait to shower in my own shower again. [ Pause. ] On our trip, I won't have my own shower. Our trip is four months long. OMG. FML.*"

I don't miss sleeping in my own bed so much, but there's something about showering in other people's showers that freaks me out. That tile is caked with dirt and sweat and dead skin cells that countless strangers have scrubbed off their body, likely after peeing down the drain first, all sealed in by a thick coat of soap residue and mildew.

Also, I can't see in the shower. I'm pretty near-sighted, so to find the bottle I want, I have to either hold it a few inches from my face to read it or rely on the senses of touch, smell, or taste, which is not ideal.

Even without communal showers, this trip's potential for messiness is HIGH.

We are living out of backpacks.
We are staying with a couchsurfer for the first three days of our trip. After that, we're just rollin' into town / village / island without a plan.
The timeline we have put together ends abruptly on May 27. I typed up a timeline, but it has a lot of question marks. Like, for example, underneath "Return to U.S." Hell, we haven't even decided where we're returning to.
During the next four months, we are just going wherever the wind takes us.

WTF?!?!?!?!

I am terrified. But I'm also excited. I'm excitified.

The anal retentive me would have only felt sheer terror. So, even though I wish I could just be excited, I guess this is--albeit meager--progress.

I am excited for obvious reasons, like new cultures, top-notch snorkeling, and alcoholic concoctions in coconut shells, but I'm also excited for the personal growth this trip should bring. I have long envied the process-oriented, the ones who do for the sake of doing. They are the chalk-street artists, the sky-divers, the casual daters, the ones who do not live in a tiny drab box.

Really, it's the reason this blog is titled what it is--I am not bohemian by nature, but the idea is appealing. It always has been. My grandmother has a picture of my sister and I dressed up in my mom's old clothes when we were kids. My sister is button-cute in my mom's old Brownie dress. And I am dressed in a black sparkly top and a multi-colored tulle skirt. My grandma says I look like a gypsy. I guess part of me has always wanted to be a roamer. I just wasn't ready to embrace it until now.

Now that I think about it, I am brandishing a bejeweled wand in that picture, so I was probably going for princess. But I look like a gypsy. We'll just go with that.



*Yeah, I think in text lingo.

Out with the Old, In with the New

At work yesterday, I was browsing Inc. for reading passage ideas when I came across "6 Things Really Productive People Do." (Yes, the title really emphasizes really.) Normally, I would have scrolled right past this—it doesn’t take an expert to come up with gems like “Pick your priorities,” “Celebrate progress,” or “Lay off the Farmville.” But the tagline caught my attention. “Have you noticed that some people just seem to accomplish tons and still appear happy and relaxed?”

“Yes,” I thought. “And it makes me want to punch them in the face.”

New Year’s always brings out this sentiment in me. Even if I it was a good year, I am plagued by thoughts like:

What was I DOING all year?

I am frittering away my time. I am a fritterer.

I sleep too much. Why can’t I be like Hillary Clinton* or Leslie Knope** or those people that sleep like four hours a night and are still high-functioning machines?

Eventually, the year’s worth of self-loathing passes, and I settle into contemplating the year ahead. I’ve loved making New Year’s resolutions since I was a kid. I have a Rubbermaid container full of old journals, and each contains the resolutions I faithfully set every January 1 of my growing-up years.

When I was 9, I vowed to make that boy in Sunday School who kept putting glue in my hair fall in love with me. When I was 11, I decided to become just like Nancy Drew. In high school and college, my resolutions were run-of-the-mill and easily broken: exercise three times a week, pray before bed, eat salad for lunch. As an adult, I’ve been setting the bar quite a bit lower, like in 2011, when I resolved to try yoga one time at some point or other before the year ended.

And then there was last year, when I was hung over on New Year’s Day and felt that aspirations were worthless, as was life itself, and I would never be able to accomplish anything ever again anyway because I was never going to get out of that bed. So, I grumpily snatched my new 2012 planner off the bedside table and scribbled this on the inside of the cover: Either crap or get off the pot.*** I was stuck with that glorious ambition all year.

For the sake of my resolutions and my liver, I acted with more discretion during the wee hours of 2013. I’ve been mulling over goals since then, and I’ve decided to follow that ridiculous article’s advice after all since, so far, doing my own thing hasn’t been that successful.

I am picking new priorities.

1. End each day with gratitude. Before bed, write down (or at least think to myself before passing out) one good thing that happened. – It is a wonderful life, just like Frank Capra taught us, and it’s time to appreciate it more fully.

2. Read more. Watch TV less. – For feeling so superior about not owning a television, I watch an awful lot of TV. To start the year off right, Josh and I will be abstaining from TV and movies next week. Those seven days will feel like 40 days in the wilderness.

I am celebrating progress I’ve made.

The past year was a year of personal growth and trying new things. I . . .

. . . got a tobacco pipe, regularly went to yoga class, tried meditation, discovered the line between drinking and giving myself a hangover, and participated in like, my first real athletic competition ever (Dragon Boat racing).

. . . decided to be transparent with the people I love. With some, this means being open about my faith. With others, it means not hiding the actions that they think are wrong.

. . . acknowledged that I would probably not find the life of a “career woman” fulfilling, and what I really desire to do is write. I figured this out at a church retreat at the end of this summer. We were having a time of small group discussion, and one of the questions was, “If you could do anything and God guaranteed your success, what would you do?” and I instantly thought, “Write a book. [pause] Oh. So I do know what I want to do with my life.” And then everyone else in my group gave spiritual answers. Fail.

. . . realized that I want to adopt a child, maybe even a few. I also want to garden, bake, refinish secondhand furniture, and other housewifey things.

I am laying off the Farmville.

I’ve never actually played Farmville, but the same principle applies to Gilmore Girls. I’ve seen every season four times. And I’m most likely underestimating with that number.

Wishing you and yours a bright, happy, really productive 2013.




*Obviously excluding this blood clot episode
**Yes, I know she’s a fictional character. That doesn’t make her high energy levels any less inspiring/distressing.
***It’s supposed to be metaphorical, you juvenile dolt.

Genuine Thanksgiving

This past Thanksgiving weekend, I didn’t eat any turkey or yams, and I only had half of a piece of pumpkin pie, but I realized I have much to be thankful for. The funny thing is, I think this is the first Thanksgiving that I didn’t try to force thankfulness. It just came.

A common American Thanksgiving tradition is to go around the table and name a few things you’re thankful for. The social media craze seems to have taken this to a whole other level–listing something you’re thankful for every day of November. Usually, people give glossy, pre-packaged answers: my family, my significant other, my job, my freedom of religion. Come to think of it, it could make a fun drinking game. Hear the word family, do a shot.

It’s an admirable tradition, taking a few minutes to contemplate the blessings you’ve been given, and I don’t want to denounce it. But every year, it sets me on edge. I’m not good at putting on a show, of acting a certain way when I’m not feeling it. Sometimes, this is a virtue. (Saving my friend from buying an unflattering dress) Other times, it’s a fault. (Not complimenting my friend on her new baby because his face is raisin purple)

So when I’m put on the spot to fork over a serving of thankfulness, it often doesn’t happen. I just regurgitate something that will pacify the people around me. “My family, my significant other, this scrumptious-looking meal . . .” It’s not like those are lies. I am grateful for those truths. But I don’t really mean it, not in that moment.

I explained the tradition to a friend on Thursday. She thought it sounded great and wanted to do it. In our gluttony-induced comas, we kind of forgot, but I want to do it now.

This year, I’m thankful for . . .

. . . a group of friends. It takes me a long time to settle in to a place, into a group of people. I didn’t feel like Boston was home until it was time to leave. But Taiwan has been different. My friends and I may not have all the same interests or speak the same native language, but with them, I am free to be myself.

. . . Taiwanese friendliness. One of Josh and my Thanksgiving dinners was at our church. We were the only two foreigners there, and I was the only one who doesn’t speak Chinese. Yet all the festivities–the songs, the skit, the testimonies–were all translated into English. For me.

. . . parents who don’t always agree or understand, but who do always love and respect. I mean, my mother is reading Caitlin Moran right now because I mentioned it to her a few weeks ago. That is love.

. . . learning, at the behest of Josh, to ignore trivialities and pursue what makes me happy: books, writing, beer, copious amounts of coffee, and figuring out how to light my pipe by like, the third try. My underwear drawer is totally unorganized (finding a pair of matching socks is murder). My legs are getting prickly. And that is OK. I think.

I’ve pulled up a chair to many Thanksgiving tables: my mother’s, both my grandmothers’, my Boston landlord’s daughter’s, a French restaurant’s in Montreal, and a Taiwanese-Canadian couple’s. This year, it was some friends’ coffee table overloaded with seafood pasta and fried chicken. But I finally felt what Thanksgiving is really about.