What am I doing with my life?

Well I am 28 years-old and I have been in Xi’an, Shaanxi, China for a little over 9 months now! It is strange to think about that I am ¾ of the way finished with my contract, it is completely believable though because never in my life has time gone by so quickly. It was a blink ago that I was sitting in my living room being amazed by the barrage of fireworks from Spring Festival, or that November night that I looked out of my window and saw that in just a few short hours a blanket of white powdery snow had covered the ground below.

It has been a life altering 9 months. People ask me what it was like when I first arrived in China and I tell them all the same thing, I don’t know, I can’t remember. The first month is a complete blur, a sort of cultural and life withdrawal. I remember being confused and a bit scared, not scared in a safety kind of way but in a completely helpless way. Not being able to navigate the community around me was distressing. Separation from everything and everyone that I knew and loved, all I was accustomed to was gone. I didn’t leave the most stable and healthy life in Columbia so there was a bit of emotional recovery needed, an overall self-rehabilitation, and that first month was the thick of it.

I remember climbing Huashan in October, and after that everything comes into focus. I remember sitting at Oscar’s on a Thursday night and listening to Ryan sing familiar songs while young handsome Marcello strummed the acoustic guitar. Helping Pierre hang curtains in the bar so that when the temperature dropped the tiny space would retain some heat. On cold winter nights sipping and staining my teeth with the smooth red wine, laughing with new found friends and walking to the main street to hail a cab. I remember having to show the cab driver my address on my cell phone because I didn’t know enough Chinese to get myself home.

Now the weather has warmed, so much so that my friends from England are near their personal boiling points on a daily basis. For me it is much like home, except that Xi’an has a wonderful breeze that trolls through the city which I hope last through August.

August. How strange that seems, August, two hard hot months away. It is the month where everything will change again. How it will change is still somewhat of an unknown. I have options, which is always nice, but which way to go which alley to walk down which door to choose? I have been offered a job in Shanghai. I would still be teaching the young enthusiastic children that have been such a monumentally wonderful part of the past 9 months. I would get paid a better salary that I am now and would be in a city that sounds fast-paced and fascinating. I would have mornings off to write and study, I could take the GRE and hopeful head back to school in fall 2011. A plan that sounds ideal, but a bit unnerving. Moving to another city after Xi’an has finally become familiar. Learning a different language, again, because each province has its own dialect and the mandarin is twisted and turned. My simple knowledge would become almost useless in the busy streets of Shanghai. However, it is a city more apt and accustomed to foreigners. It would be easier than Xi’an, less staring and there spitting is not allowed. One Chinese habit I will be glad to part from.
That is what I would do if I stayed in China. It is a path that I can visualize. I know the job and I would have a track, a goal and a purpose. But if I choose that path I might not be able to come home to visit in August, I would have to stay here to make the visa process easier. That would push my trip to the states back to October or maybe even Christmas or February. Something that I could ultimately be OK with but not necessarily an idea I am happy about. I miss the faces and the streets of my home town.

There is a part of me that wants to say no to the job offer in Shanghai. I could get on a plane in August and fly home, welcomed by those whom I have missed. That is all that I can see of that choice though, the visual ends there. I don’t have the opportunities in the states that I do in China. I am inherently employable here because I was born in America and English is my native language. It would take much more than that to land a job back home. I don’t have a home to go back to, and the process of seeking a job and an apartment seems daunting and expensive. Oddly enough staying in this foreign land is the easy thing to do.

So here I am. Changed is the girl who got on a plane and flew to China. Ready to make the next leap, but wanting to be fully prepared and aware of the ground that I will land on. The next couple of months will be sweaty and hard but I will welcome the cool breeze of autumn wherever I may be when it blows past!