In 2001 I extracted myself from a horribly unhealthy relationship and lost my head over my 'rebound'. My misguided affections coupled with the intense self-imposed pressure to ace the GREs spun me into an emotional whirlpool. I was drowning and there was no lifeguard on duty. I didn't leave my apartment for a week. I stopped eating. I missed class regularly for the first time in my life, striking fear into the hearts of well-meaning professors. No one, least of all my parents, knew where I was or what was going on.
One day I stepped out of the bath and examined the foreign creature in the mirror like the surface of a distant planet. The body that had always been healthy or occasionally a wee bit plump was now jagged and angular. I could count every rib. My hip bones jutted out at unfamiliar angles. I looked gaunt and drawn with dark circles framed by limp lifeless hair. It slowly dawned on me as I stood there that I was starving to death and didn't really give a damn.
Somehow I found the strength to make a phone call. The only number that made any sense from that shadowy pit was that of my recently-exed boyfriend. He had been my best friend for two and a half years and we had completely isolated ourselves from the rest of the world. I had attempted to swim away from our island but found I needed a lifeboat. Although he was incredibly pissed at me, and a piece of him likely wanted me to rot in hell, he sensed the urgency of the situation and came to nurse me back to life. That, and get in a few digs as soon as I found my feet…
Somewhere in the chaos of this period I signed on for a three-month stint in the Philippines. While I was lying on the floor of my apartment wondering what in the hell I was going to do with myself, my classmates were arranging for three geology units normally taught winter quarter to be offered in the field on the other side of the Pacific by professors from our department. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and ultimately the lifeline that pulled me through the darkness. In December I crawled out of my pit, out of my depression, out of my apartment and relationship for good, and dove into the unknown.
The Philippines is a challenging little archipelago for a westerner. There are inklings of the familiar, "culture" handed down from the Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Christian missionaries, Mormon missionaries, and finally American GIs; yet it is undeniably foreign. The Filipino spirit is indefatigable. They somehow take all they've been given, all that's been thrown at and foisted upon them and embrace it to make it uniquely their own. They are like bamboo: extraordinarily flexible, strong and resilient. I was completely humbled by all they withstood on a daily basis and in a lifetime as I could barely make it through my grad school applications without a complete breakdown.
We were there predominantly to study the geology in and around Mt. Pinatubo 10 years after its cataclysmic eruption that completely decimated central Luzon, shut down a major US Air Force base and cooled the planet by several degrees for a few years. I was ready for strenuous days in the field. I was mentally prepared for culture shock and homesickness. But nothing could have prepared me for the watershed experience of a lifetime.
There's something about being confronted with abject poverty on a daily basis that really puts one's own pitiful ethos into perspective. For two months there was no way to avoid the harsh reality of what the one-two punch of environmental and economic destruction could do to people. Their homes, villages, families, businesses, farms, schools, churches and streets had been obliterated. Parents had had their children swept from their arms by lahars. Everything that had been was undone. Yet you wouldn't know it to see the beaming faces smiling up to you from a pile of burning garbage or down from an overcrowded jeepney. These were deeply happy people; happy on a level I'd never even conceived. To be honest, it made me extremely uncomfortable.
So first there was this whole new paradigm staring at me from every direction; then there was the 'team'. Our motley little crew consisted of eight undergraduate geology students from three universities, one or two grad students and a professor or two, depending on the month, crowded into every nook and cranny of a tiny little pick-up truck or a purple VW Bug (affectionately named Violet) everywhere we went. We were together 24-7 for three months - meals, classes, field work, play, showers, brushing teeth, relaxing, and for many weeks even sleeping - there was no respite. This was neither a familiar nor a comfortable lifestyle for someone who just jumped off an island of two to become one. I thought I was going to die.
I'm the kind of person who seems to do the best on my own, like a saguaro cactus in the middle of a desert, I can be perfectly self content with no one around. Conversely, I never feel more alone than when I'm in a crowd. Except, of course, when that crowd has quite blatantly left me out on my own.
This happened one night. I could hear them outside having a grand ol' time. I could tell that everyone was there from their voices and I could hear them talking about me. I'm not sure if there's any sharper stab to the heart than hearing your name spoken followed by a series of hushed conspiratorial exchanges. I felt completely alienated. I didn't know what I had done. I didn't know what I could do. I wanted to go home, but then I remembered there wasn't anything for me there either. And then I got angry. I wanted to lash out, hurt them physically and emotionally, but instead I turned my anger inward and beat myself up for being unlovable and endlessly unloved.
Thank God for Joey. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I don't know where I'd be today without that woman. Probably a lot less happy and a lot less loved. In many ways I feel I owe her my life, if not physically then at least emotionally.
One night, after the I-wasn't-invited-but-everyone-else-was night, I slunk into Joey's room under the auspices of needing a book to borrow. We chatted idly for a bit as I fingered the Harry Potter book she'd proffered and mostly stared at my feet or the walls. Finally, carefully and very awkwardly, Joey said there was something difficult she really wanted to talk about with me. I was taken aback but encouraged her to go on. It took her a long time to spit it out because she sincerely didn't want to hurt me, but knew it was going to be rough no matter how she laid it out. Basically it all boiled down to my odd aversion to asking people about themselves; my unusual brand of shyness in an otherwise extroverted shell. Everyone found me to be a conceited, self-centered show-off and had ultimately decided that I wasn't worth the time of day.
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. With tears streaming down my face I trembled in the middle of the room and whispered for help: what could I possibly do to turn this tide? I tried to explain that honestly I am interested in other people's stories, but I'm terrified of asking the wrong question, prying, or calling up some unhappy memory. I always felt that by telling my own stories I would provide people with opportunities to tell their own as the conversation flowed along. I never felt that I was superior to others nor more deserving of attention. If anything, I felt exactly the opposite.
Perhaps this weird paranoia of mine grew out of a childhood populated primarily by adults. Sure, I had to deal with the other kids at school (not that I handled that well either), but I spent an inordinate amount of my formative years attending very grown-up functions with my parents. We went to the theater, dinner parties, music recitals and church functions; frequently I was the only minor in attendance or at least the only one who elected to chat with the adults. I learned the gift of the gab in an environment where I was an anomaly, a little trained monkey who would dance and sing for her dinner while all the adults watched on in adoration and commended my parents on my 'grown up' behavior. The problem was, they never expected me to actually carry on an 'adult' conversation. They asked me questions. I answered adroitly, eloquently, humorously. They were charmed and continued asking questions until something more interesting came along. Hence, I spent a lifetime at bat and never learned how to pitch.
Things got a little better after I talked with Joey. In part they improved because I worked so hard and watched myself constantly, but mostly it was because Joey saw the real me and genuinely wanted to be my friend. She helped me limp along, giving me sidelong glances when I got carried away and a little wink when I 'did good'. I believe she may also have tried to explain where I was coming from to some of the others to help break the cycle of estrangement, but I'll probably never know for sure. Regardless, she saved me; she was the ultimate life raft because she actually taught me how to swim the distance.
For the first time in my life I actually felt empowered to change for the better. I saw that people could legitimately like me. I learned to appreciate other people and all that they had to offer. I learned a little self restraint and I saw how happy it was possible to be. I still didn't know if I had the capacity for so much joy, but I decided it was worth looking into. So, with a little nudge from a true friend in a strange place at a difficult time, I found a path and vowed to stay on it until I found joy.
