One Year On

I've now lived in Texas for over a year. I am a resident of Texas, a Texan. It seems a good time to take stock of the last year, to see where I am, where I've been, so that I can inform where I'm going. I started by going back and reading my posts on this blog from last April, something which you may wish to do as well. There are even pretty pictures.

The extraordinary thing about those posts is how they could be written again today with very little alteration. That's still the park that I take Larry to walk in and it's still a vital escape into nature. I still live in suburbia, in an environment that is anathema to a sense of community. I still have no-one I would really consider a friend (although I think there are a couple of people even more desperate for friendship who would consider me a friend). There are people across the street that I can have fun drinking beer with, and that's a major plus on where I was living.

Other than my wife I don't know anybody who would like my favorite tv show, has heard of the music that I listen to, has the slightest agreement with me politically, shares a similar aesthetic sense, has traveled to the places I have gone, or comes close to my philosophical or political beliefs. That isn't one person who shares all of those, that's one person who shares even one of those characteristics with me.

What I feel most at the moment is a sense of unreality, a disassociation with my surroundings. In the morning I walk around a few of the cul-de-sacs in my neighborhood like a student on a foreign exchange. What are these places? Who are the people who live in them? Why would you possibly organize a life to be like this. The heavy scent of pollen, the steaming lawns, the tropical sunlight streaming through tall, fragile pines all adds up to a deep sense of being a foreigner, an outsider, someone from somewhere else.

I'm even getting to the point where I am losing interest in leaving my house. Why bother?

Financially the year has been poor for us in that we have spent thousands and thousands of dollars in moving house, buying things to put in the house, moving house again, buying cars, surgeries on the dog and people. On the other hand, the alternative to this move was unemployment, so financially we have done poorly, but much better than we would have done.

Christina's work is still difficult for her in terms of getting along with people. There's still the person who accused her of racism yelling at her co-workers without any consequence. There's still her boss who has a job Christina would have liked, but Christina in that position would have a very different job description. There's still the person who told her she would be promoted down here while Christina remains in the same position. Christina still looks on the house as a refuge from the world, a place to get away from people.

We live in a truly lovely house. A permanent vacation. But I have to get out of this place at some point. I can feel my life slowly slipping by. For me, living in Texas is like being at the airport. I have all I need to sustain life, but I'm just waiting for my plane to arrive.