Observations of a Global Nomad

So my sister is here to visit. It’s the first time our family has got together like a family in years, at least 3, maybe 4 years. No wait, it’s 5, so not since I left to Florida for my job.

My sister is going through some personal problems. She’s not talking about them but it’s partially why she’s here. I think she’s in a somewhat vulnerable place so she just wants to come back to somewhere she feels loved or appreciated. She hasn’t talked about it with me, but she just wants that feeling and I’m happy to give it to her. It is actually pleasant to have her around.

But my parents… Look, I know that the restaurant is the big part of their lives and that it’s a source of great worry and stress, but it really can’t be the first thing they talk about when she gets home. Well, my parents were arguing about it with each other. There was a bit of initial welcoming, and then the usual arguing about whose fault it is the restaurant isn’t doing well.

I get that you don’t really want to talk about, you know, that 3 year gap that she and my mom hadn’t talked to each other, but still. At some level my mother just doesn’t trust her because she thinks my sister tells everything to our uncle she doesn’t like.

And… they’re just so oblivious. They’re not really listening to her. Not that they’re good at listening to me either, but I don’t need it.

So my sister is coming to visit this weekend. Basically the next month is going to be nuts, starting today.

My sister is here this weekend, and leaves on Monday for Lausanne. My cousin and my grandfather are flying in on Thursday, she’s going to meet them in Geneva, bring them to Lausanne, and then I have to pick up my grandfather there in Lausanne, and bring him to my parents’ place in Morgarten.

Then I’m going to have to mostly take care of him. My parents wanted him to stay in their flat in Zürich, but they get a stupid number of complaints from the tenants living below them, and my grandfather tends to wake up during the night.

My sister has a conference in Bologna, and she’s bringing my cousin with her to show her Italy and such. When they get back, I’m supposed to show my cousin around Zürich and Zug, a few bits of German Switzerland. I hope I have time. It’s the last month or so of uni, so essay deadlines and exams are coming. So it’s that and also having to take care of my grandfather

He’s pretty healthy for his age, but he’s diabetic and yet also loves sweet foods, so my mother worries about that. I think it’s less justified for her to limit his carbohydrates intake, but I don’t know enough to argue.

Still, busy month. Starting tonight, when I pick my sister up from the Hauptbahnhof.

So my parents’ restaurant has been open since Easter, or thereabouts. It was during my one week off for Easter, too.

In the past couple of weeks I haven’t been at the restaurant much. They haven’t been that busy, for one.

But overall I just feel like I don’t have time for anything anymore.

For most of the last year I’ve had to put up with the commute to Zürich and haven’t been too bothered about it, but ever since the restaurant it just bothers me every day.

I never liked the way my parents volunteer away my time, and they still do it now, only now there’s the added urgency of “It’s for our business! It’s our livelihood!” but at least I’m away from them most of the week.

And to play devil’s advocate, I’m not that productive with my free time. I slack a lot. I’m not even at the restaurant that often.

So why do I feel so frustrated about this? Why do I just have this feeling of annoyance that they volunteered away my Saturday, despite barely being at the restaurant at all this week?

Probably it’s that.

My parents have a Chinese-Indonesian girl interning for them, and she told them that she was surprised that they asked for my permission before asking me to do things. Her parents just tell her what to do and expect her to drop everything to do so.

My parents told me this story as a way of saying “See? We could be worse” but, you know, not too bad is still bad.

My ideal arrangement with them would be for them to just keep me updated on the things they’re doing and to make it so that they don’t have to ask for my help… but I can help if I want to. My dad wants to move a bed this Saturday and needs my help. My problem is that if I really am genuinely busy, what would they do?

Besides, they only really seem to consider my class schedule to be the times that I’m busy. Unfortunately, and this is still a challenge for me, studying is not like working. You don’t just go to class and come home and fuck around. There’s a lot you have to do in-between. But you know, throw away my Saturday, why not?

And yet… with the free time I do have, I’m not that productive. So I feel guilty, not least to myself, and that my argument is weakened.

Woke up this morning to leg cramp. Was unpleasant. It interrupted a dream i was having, and the dream was full of old friends who I miss. Cramp pains and nostalgia make me an unhappy camper first thing in the morning, which gets me thinking about…

Among the things I found in that box today out of storage was my Extended Essay that I wrote for my IB. I got an A for it, though looking back even just after graduating I wonder why. But hey, I guess for an 18 year old it was good.

I also uncovered all these pieces of paper with photos from my trip to Russia stuck to them.

I wondered at first “What the hell are these?” but then I remembered.

My last year or two of high school, my IB years, were like most other American high schoolers: permeated with the stress of university applications.

The thing about American universities that sets them apart from those in other countries is the way they value your extra-curricular activities. So everyone is under pressure to make themselves sound like more interesting people than just the numbers on their grades.

When I got back from Russia, I was encouraged by my parents to write an email to my extended family describing it. My parents, particularly my mother, was so impressed by how it was written that she suggested, strongly, that I include it in my applications.

Even at the time I was skeptical, but she was insistent. And I did many things just to make my parents happy so they’d stop bugging me.

As with all applications for anything, I can’t say how much it did or didn’t weigh in my favour. But I still think it was a dumb idea.

One of the times my parents moved, and they moved a LOT since coming to Switzerland, they packed away a folder full of collected things I had.

Between when I was 17 to about 21 I collected all kinds of little pieces of junk that I attached sentimental value to. I remember much of why I had them, which is the reason I kept them.

Some are cards or notes from friends. I like little handwritten things. These have real sentimental value.

Some I kept as a sort of evidence, mostly to myself, that I had been places and done things. Receipts and promotional cards from nightclubs, cover charge slips, random little business cards, boarding pass stubs, train ticket stubs, I’m throwing most of that away. Some of it was just to show off to my American friends at the time that I had had a great night life, which was a self-centered feeling.

But there are other things… handwritten dedications from my friends, small gifts from girls who were special to me at the time…

I was a very nostalgic person at that age. I wanted to keep everything that seemed to matter to me. In a way I still do it, but I’m much more picky about it. Some things don’t mean as much to me, because I have a wider context from which to understand what is important and what isn’t.

For example, I have these cover charge slips from Jalan-Jalan, a favourite club in Jakarta. And I remember that the date was stamped on them, and that the reason I kept them was in regard to specific things that happened on those nights.

But I no longer remember nor care. So they’re going into the trash.

I kept probably half of it. I even kept my scriipts from when I did theater at my hotel college, which was great, great fun. I might reread them later and reminisce.

So I was introduced to a girl who actually lived in Jakarta as an expat!

I have to tell you, this is an incredibly rare experience for me. I meet a lot of TCKs, a lot of expats, a lot of international people, but rarely from the expat community in Jakarta. She even lived there around the same time I did, leaving in 2002 while I left in 2003. So we were privy to the same events, could talk about the same things, had somewhat similar lifestyles, all that.

Granted, she’s a lot younger than me. She was 11 when she left in 2002, and I was 18 when I left in 2003. She’s still familiar with the place because her father still works there and her mother’s side of the family is Indonesian, so she goes back somewhat often, perhaps yearly.

But it’s different talking to Indonesians I’ve met about life in Jakarta, compared to talking to TCKs or expats from Jakarta. We live different lives so it’s harder to relate, even with sharing the experience of that country.

With her we got to talk about food, familiar places, hang out spots, the bombings, evacuating, all of that. It was so… refreshing.

We made our mutual friend jealous. This is the girl with the boyfriend, and like I said, she wants to travel, and I think we nudged her along that route some more.

Feeling sorry for myself below the read more.

Sometimes you just need a hug

You don’t need advice, or someone to bitch about things with, or even a distraction.

You just need a hug, and someone to remind you that you are a worthy person, and that even if things won’t be great, they’ll at least be okay.

There are two ways to work. One is where you treat everything like it’s your business, you take responsibility for everything and you push, push, push.

The other is what I rather call corporate working.

Some rambling about things below the read more.

Last year, when my parents were gone for a month, or 6 weeks, not sure how long, I enjoyed myself by hunkering down and just watching movies and shows and such.

When they were gone for 2 weeks or so earlier this year, during my Christmas break, I used the time to bunker down and play lots of SWTOR.

Now they’re gone 5 days a week, and I just don’t feel like doing either of my normal bunker-hermit activities. It’s kind of lonely.

Considering how often my parents are in a state of either fighting or not-currently-fighting I do generally prefer being alone to having them around a lot, but it’s still a big, empty house, far from people I know and things to do.

I’m also getting tired of losing 3-4 hours a day to commuting. That also happens to be more time spent alone.

This whole being alone thing is getting old.

Last post before calling it a night like a good boy.

I just heard from an old friend. I had last messaged her back in May 2012 and she only now got back to me. Got lost in the traffic I assume.

I was a little hurt by it before, but I know myself well enough that I should give people the benefit of doubt. And lo and behold, I was right about myself. Way too self-conscious sometimes.

It makes me happy, to hear from old friends. I can’t express how tiring it can be, changing your life and location all the time, making new friends, losing old ones, watching some friendships fade away, losing your sense of self with every move and making a new self each time. There’s nothing really constant there except yourself and your memories, and memories are sadly fragile. You feel like you’re flapping loose on the end of a thin string that’s gotten so long it’s hard to see the beginning anymore.

But old friends help. They remind you of when you knew them and remind you of who you were then. And in that way, they help you to understand how you got from there to where and who you are now.

I think my mom needs her own trigger warnings. She opened the fridge and noticed that some of the vegetables were starting to go bad, which is unsurprising considering most of us haven’t been here all week.

But that caused her to spend the last 45 minutes muttering and complaining about how my dad always buys too much food without asking her if they need it, and then it goes bad and it’s a waste. And now that they have a restaurant and not a lot of liquidity they really need to watch their expenses, etc.

Yes, it can be a problem when he does that, and he doesn’t really change his behaviour. But really 45 minutes? And it’s 45 minutes of repeating the same point, of criticizing him personally, of predicting future doom as a result of his behaviour.

She stopped for a little while, and then when she saw the vegetables again she started all over…

At these times I want to intervene but in this case it’d be taking sides with my dad. He usually sits and just takes it, but I can tell that the pressure builds up. Me taking his side would just give him an excuse to burst, and he still wouldn’t change his behaviour.

I dunno, maybe one of these days it’d be worth it. Maybe I could yell them both down and knock some sense into them to help them realize how much they’re acting like children.

I think my mom’s TW list would be rather long, though. The things which stress her out by reminding her of things which really stress her out are many indeed.