Houston Update Summary

For the three or four of you who might still read this blog I expect that you will be wondering how Christina and I are doing in Houston. It's still the first month, the most difficult time in moving to anywhere, the time when finding things is most difficult, the time when there is the most to do, the time when we know the fewest number of people.

The first couple of weeks for me were particularly tough. After months of working on details to get down here, and then an exhausting drive to get here I just wanted to rest, to do nothing. But things always need to get done, Christina was lonely, so no rest for the wicked. Now, I'm not going to suggest that I have worked hard, far from it. My job is not hard at all, it's just that it doesn't come with any time off.
Then something happened. In 1997 I started meditating in order not to become depressed. This trained my mind to achieve a brain state that lives in the present, doesn't worry, remains calm. As a defense mechanism I just started feeling this return. This is not happiness, not excitement, not joy, just an absence of misery or worry. What I feel right now is basically an absence of living, blandness, going through the motions.
I know nobody and there are no prospects of naturally coming into contact with someone. Suburbia is set up to separate people from each other. The point of suburbia was to combine country living with city convenience. Everyone has their own plot, with greenery and space. There aren't sidewalks and stores and other businesses because those are city things. You get from one place to another by car, you might drive 5-10 miles for "local" conveniences. This means that you don't meet your neighbors, you don't go to a local place, you don't run into people. I call it pod living. So, in order for me to meet people it is necessary to artificially create opportunities to meet people. So, I will have to join clubs, groups, activity organizations (I have signed up for meet-ups online) I will have to be actively trying to make friends. Anyone who has ever gone to a high school knows how well that works. Anyone who has ever met an englishman should understand how against my cultural background this situation is.
Christina has lots of contact with people. She goes to work every day in a cubical surrounded by the bustle of people. She interacts with multiple people every day, and they are the same people day after day. This has not gone as well as we would have liked, there have been some personal difficlties with people at her work. Enough so that when Christina comes home she wants to complain about them, and then not really interact with anybody. Christina comes home from work looking for a peaceful oasis from stress and effort. When I talk about her going out and doing more things with different people Christina has always not been interested. In her words, "I do't like people." I wait for the only person I interact with to return home so I can have some fun. Two different goals in one situation cannot work forever.
A strength of our marriage has been that when one person is suffering the other sacrifices themselves to help the other out. At the moment Christina needs it more than I do, and I think being selfless often is a great thing for happiness. It is still April, after all.
But the thing is that there isn't really any reason why this shouldn't be the same amount of fun as being on vacation. The weather is warm, there are thousands of places to go and see. Everything is new. At any time I can have a beer under a tree in the tropics while listening to reggae music. Happiness is to a large extent a decision. This must be my goal.