A Portable Identity

I recently began reading a book titled "A Portable Identity: A Woman's Guide to Maintaining a Sense of Self While Moving Overseas". I decided to buy the book because ever since we moved, I have felt a bit adrift (okay, a lot adrift). Essentially everything about my life changed in a matter of weeks. I got married. I became a stepmother. Right after the wedding, we moved to KL. (And I mean right after. The morning after the wedding we took off for our honeymoon, and rather than flying back to Texas, we flew to KL instead.) My job changed tremendously. And so now I find I'm juggling all these new "roles" and it's overwhelming sometimes. I'm still me, except...I'm not. I'm me, but me within a whole new context, if that makes any sense. This whole feeling sort of crept up on me. Between planning the move and the wedding, I was so immersed with that, that any doubts I had I just shoved into the back of my mind because I just didn't have time to think about them with everything else doing on. I was the optimist who thought, "Oh, everything will be fine. It will be an adjustment, but it will be fine."

Well, it's truly not THAT bad. I mean, I'm not talking to the voices in my head (any more than usual), or prone to long afternoons drowning my sorrows in cheap wine (any more than usual - I mean, who can find cheap wine in KL anyway? But I digress...), but it's been more of an adjustment than I bargained for. So I figured, rather than sit, talk, hypothesize and over analyze (which I'm prone to do), I'd take some action. My job is a source of my frustration, so I'm taking some action on that. Matt and I are planning to start playing tennis. We discussed learning golf, but one sport at a time for me. I'm not exactly the sporty type. We are also talking about some other activities that we can get involved in as well, to get out and start meeting people other than work colleagues.

I've also sent several inquiries about doing some volunteer work, but I haven't heard anything back. I find that odd. I never thought I'd struggle to find somewhere to volunteer my time. Hopefully, I will hear something soon. In the meantime, if anyone knows of any volunteer opportunities in KL, let me know. I'm ready.

And lastly, I bought this book. Now, as I mentioned earlier, rather than over analyze the situation, I'm trying to take action. And while this book is really good, it is all about self-reflection. I guess that makes sense, since how can you figure out your identity without some self-reflection and analyzing of yourself? But the book is exhausting! It's a workbook, so every couple of pages there is an exercise for the reader to do. I have spent all evening thinking back in great detail about my identity (internal factors, external factors, roles and relationships) before we decided to move, during the move and after the move, writing summaries and drawing diagrams from said summaries. In other words, "YOUR LIFE IS MUCH DIFFERENT NOW, ISN'T IT? SEE YOUR DIAGRAM?" Well, duh. At least it's kept me out of the candy dish tonight. It's actually been quite a bit of work, so I hope it pays off. I just have to get through this part so that I can move on to the next part where they tell me how to fix everything and become a rational, normal person again :) Okay, kidding there. Sort of.

Sigh...it would be wrong to skip ahead, huh?