Kaohsiung, Taiwan

I've been dreading this weekend and now it's here, and after waking up with a migraine, I'm now in Kaohsiung, putting my brain into sleep mode cruise control to get me through my cousin's wedding on Sunday, to my parents' departure on Tuesday, so that I can get out of here and back to Taipei. Family from all over are converging here and all my usual comforts coming to Kaohsiung have been thrown out.

I usually have a whole apartment to myself, with my own room, with my own bed. Now I'm stuck on tatami in a little corner of my uncle's apartment, which, mind you, I consider extremely gracious on my aunt's part, but I do feel like an inconvenience, the one who doesn't belong here, the one who no one can talk to, the only one that doesn't fall naturally into some relative order.

With all the people here, my isolation couldn't be more deafening. Yea, I know, this weekend is not about me, it's about my cousin, but I can't even participate in making this weekend about him, which I'd be more than happy to do. I've known him longer than most people in my life. It's only by virtue that he's family, but that's not the point.

Because the moment I open my mouth, if I open my mouth, which I'm not doing, I make it about me. I'm the only one here who only speaks English. So if I speak, it disrupts whatever thread of conversation was going on and makes people struggle because no one else here is a native English speaker. If I open my mouth, I have to be accommodated.

Is there a different way I could be handling this? Or should I succumb once again to being the butt of the big joke of my life. What would be the left turn way of handling this? One of my life lessons is to always take the left turn, always try to do something different, don't be predictable, habitual, caught in cycles and grooves. No, I don't follow this lesson very well.

My tendency, my habit is to try to disappear, sometimes even disappearing. Should I smile? I always smile, I'm sick of smiling, I'm sure it's obvious how fake it is now and it makes my face burn. Should I "just get in there" and mix with people? Even thinking about it fills me with dread and disgust. Don't take the left turn if it's going to make things worse. Sometimes bad is as good as it gets. Voila, two more life lessons!

I can do better being pleasant to my parents. Especially if this is the last time seeing them. They've been pushing me to go back to the U.S. and I don't know how long I can keep nodding and saying, "uh-huh". They mean good, they just don't know.

So this is my weekend of reckoning. This is the weekend I've been waiting for, and yes, waiting for this weekend was the right thing to do. Everyone should be happy for my cousin this weekend. But after this weekend, I have to decide whether to go to the edge again. I have to make it real again. No setting dates. No waiting for anything. It's wide open now, and I have to face what I'm about.