A new chapter

It has been a quiet week. The two tenants I shared the house with have both moved out and now that I out of a job I don’t see my colleagues or have people to talk to during the day. Often the first time I say anything is when I answer Nancy’s call from Taiwan in the evening. It is a familiar situation though. I feel like I have been here before.

Last year while I was in South Africa I remember feeling very lonely during the long summer break. Nancy was in Taiwan at that time too and the people I worked with were on holiday. The town itself was virtually isolated as all the school kids and university students were away as well so I felt kind of stranded. For a while I enjoyed it. It is therapeutic to be alone. Most people like some time completely by themselves every so often - I actually need some time by myself everyday. But even so, being alone for days and weeks on end made me depressed.

After only a few days away from people this time around I can already feel myself becoming gloomier - which is not alleviated by the quietness on the job front. As yet there has been no response to any of my applications. Even the recruitment agencies I am dealing with have not called up with any leads...

Nancy tells me that I need to relax and enjoy the fabulous excuse not to go into work. She assures me that I will find a job in due course and that I will then wish I made more of the time I have at the moment.

I suppose she is right about not worrying, but it is easier said than done. I cannot just decide not to worry. It’s beyond my control. The best I can do is to pretend that I am not too worried (which I suspect Nancy is doing herself).

Friends and family often ask me how it is that Nancy and I can maintain our relationship being so far apart for such long stretches of time. I tell them that it is circumstantial and that we wouldn’t make it if we did not love each other enough. I can tell that they don’t understand though. “I couldn’t be away from my boyfriend like that”, my sister told me. “I got married to have a wife”, my friend Stephane said, “by my side, not somewhere else”. A school friend of mine in London did not even realise I was married to Nancy. Recently my mother wrote me an email saying that I am essentially neglecting my marriage and that it should be more of a priority.

Nancy’s friends express similar sentiments. They told her that I will fall into the arms of another woman eventually, because “a man has needs after all” and that it is better for her to lose her job and join me in the UK than to lose her husband by staying in Taiwan. Over the years we have laughed off these concerns because between the two of us we know our situation perfectly. Even though it seems unfeasible when copy pasted onto other relationships, it has worked for us all this time because it was for a reason we both thought was worthwhile.

Nonetheless, our ability to live on opposite ends of the world has slowly come to a close. We cannot carry on living apart any longer now. As such Nancy will arrive in the UK on the 21st of July and we will start on a new chapter of our marriage. In a way the scary prospect of both of us being out of work and starting from scratch together is beautiful and it will probably make for a good story in the end.