fadagaski | General Reflections

Today I received confirmation that I can stay on in Shanghai, thus rescinding my notice. It's not that Shanghai is super amazing or that the job is super amazing, but I've come to some realisations. Namely:

This is my life. This is the rest of my life. I am an ex-pat English teacher. I will spend the next 30+ years working in foreign schools (unless there's WW3 or a zombie apocalypse). I've been halfway assuming that I will be coming back to the UK to look after mum but ... that's not really possible. I am the breadwinner. I have to be abroad to support people at home, which means trusting sister to get on with things here and hoping that mum can cope with being on her own so much. Or else finding solutions to those things in the future, but me — I'm gone.

It feels good to come to terms with that. I can start to feel a little less transient, start to think about finding comfort and a life in the places I'm staying, start to consider longer term stints at whatever school I'm at.

I need to give Shanghai more of a chance anyway. Be less of a hermit. Stop waiting for, well, nothing. I've been living in a train station waiting for the next arrival but there isn't one. There's just me, making choices about how I want to live my life.

So. No more waiting for nothing. Yes, I have hardly any money. Yes, the school I'm at isn't brilliant and the hours are long as fuck, but. I can still make the best of it. I can still do something with my free hours beside sit under two quilts and surf Tumblr.

I'm 32 and we're coming into 2019 and tomorrow is another possibility.