Hong Kong

My computer says it’s it’s 9:11 pm, but when I open the window shade, it’s nothing but bright white that drops into the blue of the ocean — I’m not sure which ocean. Pacific, maybe? My geographical perception is forever screwed by flat maps. When I think about flying to Tokyo and then Hong Kong and then Vietnam, which is what I’m doing, by the way, I picture flying across the US, over Africa and Europe.

We’re 388 miles east of Tokyo. A few hours ago, I pulled out my laptop only to discover that internet costs $35 for one flight. So I spent an hour, maybe two, reading my downloaded diary entries from 2007.

That was eleven years ago, and I was already feeling old. My diary consisted primarily of drunken, depressed, entries on the periphery of suicidal, punctuated every now and again with declarations of “I’m not depressed anymore!” and “I’m happy!” that were as sweet as they were obviously untrue. 2007 was the year I tossed handfuls of sleeping pills down my throat, measured alcohol consumption by factions of bottles rather than glasses, and I am so glad that I didn’t die that year, because I was so careless with, and so ambivalent about, my life.

Boyfriend and I will only be in Tokyo for four hours, on layover, and then are staying for three days in Hong Kong and a week or so in Vietnam. The extent of our trip preparation has been me ordering more sunscreen and him borrowing a Vietnam travel book from a friend. We’re staying in Hong Kong with a friend of his from college, and then going wherever the wind blows in Hanoi. (lack of preparation, exhibit A: I just had to look up how to spell Ho Chi Minh, and then saw that we’re actually going to a completely different city in Vietnam.)

Flights were cheap, Vietnam is cheap and, well, we’ve never been. I did wash a bunch of my clothes in SPF detergent and have a hat and sunglasses and wraps and sunscreen pills, so I guess I’m prepared for the sun, though no clue how I’ll deal with 90 degrees and 77% humidity. There is a non-zero chance I will step off the plane and immediately lose the will to live.

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I don’t remember how the last update about relationship stuff I wrote went, but I know that I’ve definitely written about frustrations and hurt and hopelessness.

Oh. The pilot just came on to say we have to stow all our large electronics. (I took a break earlier to eat pancakes and watch a few minutes of I, Tonya – which was pretty depressing, btw.)

So I’ll just say this. After 1.5 years with our couples therapist, we started seeing someone new, and holy shit what a difference that has made. I can’t even begin to describe it. We walked into our new therapist’s office whilst in the midst of a constant low-stress walking-on-eggshells thirty-seconds-away-from-a-blowout-at-any-given-time state during which we had fights every week or two and I spent hours reading about abusive relationships and narcissistic personality disorder and viewing my relationship with hopelessness. And I’m not sure precisely what it was about this new therapist, but he is magic.

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It’s been a few days — we’re now in Hong Kong. I’m going to make an effort to write more in here, more often.

xo