The Last Post of 2008 - Sorry It's a Downer

2008 was kind of a rough year for me. In Nov. 2007, while on a course of antibiotics for a UTI, I contracted a serious bacterial infection of the intestines. It took me a full six months to rid myself of this infection. I was on antibiotics for almost the whole six months, and had to follow an extremely restrictive diet. It was miserable.  I lost a lot of weight and felt terrible all of the time.

Fortunately, I got better right as my now-husband and I were planning to go on vacation. Initially, we had intended to go to Mexico, but after my illness, I didn't want to take any chances with possibly poorly prepared food. So we decided to go to Hawaii instead. My husband chose Maui because we'd never been here (I had never been to Hawaii at all). While researching things for the trip, he discovered the job that he would eventually get that would lead us to move to Maui.

We became engaged on our vacation. But what should have been a happy occasion for me really wasn't. We spent most of our vacation exploring the island in a "do we want to live here" way, in case he got the job. It wasn't very fun. Honestly, I never felt very impressed with Maui. I knew I didn't want to live here, and I hoped that he wouldn't get the job. Obviously, I hoped in vain. I cried when I found out we were moving here. A lot.

We were originally planning a small, simple wedding for the Fall. We opted instead to get married in a "quickie" ceremony before we moved here. And then we were off. I said goodbye to the best friends I had ever made, to the place where I had worked for 8 years, to the city I had lived in and loved for 10 years. Everyone was happy for me, many of them jealous, but I dreaded the move to Hawaii.

It's hard for me to tell if I'm not giving Maui a chance or if it just isn't the place for me. I feel so out of place here. I would like to love Maui the way so many people do; it would make life so much easier. I'd be so much happier. I've essentially been miserable the whole time I've been here. I feel like a superhero who has been removed from her source of power.

At the end of the day, the only reason I'm here is because I couldn't deny my husband the chance to take the best opportunity that had come his way in a long time. I would expect him to do the same thing for me.

One of the most frustrating things about being both very self-aware and socially conscious is understanding - on an intellectual level - that my problems are minimal in comparison to the problems of many others. But I think that what amounts to existential angst is a very painful thing to experience. I feel crippled by the inability to truly enjoy things. I'm also aware that it's my own fault. It is my own choices and actions (or lack thereof) that have led me to this impasse.

I'm not yet sure what 2009 is going to bring. I would like to take this negative feeling I've had all year and turn it into something more positive. There's this line in the Jethro Tull song "Inside" that I love. It goes: "And I won't worry about a thing because we've got it made. Here on the inside, outside's so far away."

I'd like for that to become true for me in 2009.