Friday, April 7, 2017

Time goes by...

It has been over six months now since we made the move to America.  I had vowed to write more when we came here, but somehow the desire slips away just as the life I once led slipped away.  I've mentioned it several times before, how it's impossible to live two lives at once.  I feel it so much now, much more than I ever have.  When I am here, I am here.  I guess that's not totally bad.

So, I'll start from the beginning.

We arrived to LA on our 3 year anniversary.  Travel though China was hell as they held poor Amon hostage in the Shanghai airport for nearly 24 hours and sent Asher and I through.  It was one of the worst nights of my life, I won't lie.  But it was soon over and then we got to California and made it through the immigration line smoothly.  We stayed in LA for about 3 days, and Amon got to see America at its finest.  Ha.  He seemed to enjoy it actually, but was super jetlagged so it was hard to tell, maybe he was just delirious the entire time.

When we got to Colorado I immediately set forth finding a car, signing Asher up for daycare, going to official job interviews and seeing all my friends again.  Amon started working with my dad pretty much right off the bat, and we fell into a good rhythm.  Asher seemed to fit right in at his new school (it was the same one he had gone to when we were here for 6 months in 2015), and it was really enjoyable to spend time traveling around and showing Amon beautiful Colorado before I started working full-time.  It was funny too.  Showing him how to turn on the oven, how to use the dishwasher, how to put gas in the car, opening a bank account, going grocery shopping, driving on the right side of the road.  All the little nuances that we know so well, I had to teach him from step one.

In October we moved to Denver, closer to my work (fuck that hour long commute at 8am after working 14 hours overnight).  I found an awesome little preschool for Asher, and the sweetest little duplex across the street from Sloan's Lake and right around the corner from US Thai, a Thai restaurant.  When we were in Thailand and I was spending endless hours on the internet researching our future life in the states, I imagined just this life:  Living here in this neighborhood, Amon working at this restaurant, and Asher going to that little school.  Our mind is a powerful thing let me tell you.

So yes, Amon got the job at the restaurant, Asher started school, I started working at a hospital finally and life was pretty sweet.

I say was.

I guess it still has sweet moments.  And I hate to sound dire.  It's not all that bad.  Amon just does not enjoy it here.  Just like I did not enjoy it in Thailand.  I completely understand.  But now I am on this side of the coin and I would be lying if I said it wasn't worse than it was when I was there.  Sometimes I think I never would have done this to him if I knew he would be so miserable.  I knew there was a chance of it, I stayed up at night before we left, worrying and worrying about it.  I knew that I could not reasonably take a jungle boy out of the jungle an expect him to be completely happy.  Maybe I am just selfish?  No, I know I am not.  It's my turn to experience the life I want, it's all about compromise in any relationship, but especially so in a cross cultural one.  But his heart just isn't here.  He has changed.  He is not the happy go lucky, positive and outgoing person I met and fell in love with.  I feel awful for turning him into a negative nancy, someone who stays home all the time, who hasn't made any friends, who probably feels like he is in a prison.  He sees all the horrible that is America (and there is a lot right now thanks), and he further recedes into himself.  I sometimes feel like I stole his happiness in exchange for my own.

We still enjoy going to the mountains on our days off and still have so much to see and do.  There is a whole country to travel around, there's camping to be done, shows at Red Rocks to be seen, picnics in the park to be had.  Summer is around the corner and as the flowers bloom, so does my hope that my husband just might adjust to this life.

He will go back to Thailand in May, and our hope is that it will give him perspective.  He still focuses on saving his money to build us that house in Sangkhla, to give us that life that I so longed for while we were there.  But the more time goes on, the more embedded I get into this life here.  There's the never ending question of Asher's schooling, and I will be going back to school in June.  I started looking into buying a house, a fixer-upper that could keep Amon busy.  There is even a master's program in Women's Health that would fulfill so many of my own dreams and desires.  I try not to get ahead of myself, but I can't help but be excited about the possibilities and the future that America offers me and Asher, and Amon too if he chose to accept it.

I wish there was some way for us both to be happy, to be content in each other's home.  But I know from living his life, that I would never be 100% happy there, just as I can't expect him to be 100% happy here.  I guess what I am aiming for at this point is 50/50.

Also, I have to say that I do miss Sangkhla sometimes.  I miss the simplicity, the community, the friends, a happy husband, the jungle and freedom.  All things I knew I would miss.  Asher is losing his Thai, and he is becoming an American whether I like it or not.  A fly flew into the house the other day and he freaked out.  If only he remembered where he came from.  He watches way too much TV, simply because we have one.  I am far busier and gone a lot (which is good on a lot of levels), and miss out on my one on one time with my son.  We spent nearly 3 years of his life sitting in that little room in Sangkhla, and we bonded and I was creative and we were always outside.  I do miss that.

I don't know where we go from here, but I will try to keep this blog up to date more frequently.  And I apologize for the negativity.  I so wish I could post always about rainbows and butterflies, I guess we just have to look deep to see them sometimes.

Thanks for reading <3


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