Bad Timing

Honestly, I don't think there is a single day that would be worse for me to leave than Monday, because I have so much unfinished business here in York.

If I hadn't spent almost a week in Jersey and Philly, I think I'd be ready to return. But when you spend one week, in the middle of three, on vacation from your vacation....the other two weeks just feel wasted. The first week I was terribly jetlagged so I spent a lot of valuable family time napping, and since I got back from Jersey/Philly, it's felt like a prepare-for-the-trip-back week. There are so many friends that I have not had a chance to see, and I've seen my family even less than my friends.

Of course, the fight with my father has done nothing to improve the family bonding situation. I only saw my sister for an hour on her birthday on Friday, for which I will feel awful about for a long time to come. I've started spending every night at Ryan/Lys/Nikol's apartment, so when I went back today to start packing, my mother and I had words. I've never seen her so disappointed in me, but it can't be resolved before 5 am Monday morning. Over 10 years of pent up issues do not become unraveled in 30 hours. Plus I'm just not at that stage in my life where I feel like I can put the past in the past and suddenly open up to my mother. How do I explain to my mother who I am, when I'm still trying to figure that out and it's changing on a monthly basis?

I also have no idea what I'm going to do once arriving in Shanghai. Whose house am I staying in, and for how long? If I stay with my aunt in Pudong, I most likely won't be able to venture out at all because her villa is so isolated. If I stay in my grandmother's apartment in the heart of the city, I'll go slightly mad of a humidity/over-concerned relatives combination. I've scrapped Beijing out of my August plans but do I still have the money after going to Shenzhen to tour the cities close to Shanghai? Hell, am I even still going to Shenzhen?? I'm really a go-with-the-flow kind of gal, so I wish I'd booked a hostel for my time in Shanghai, just to have for whatever the days and nights end up bringing.

In comparison to wanting to see my friends and settle things with my parents, this last reason's more selfish but...my laptop's gone haywire and I wanted it fixed before I left. Lately it's been loading only Skype and a few random sites (yet not Facebook or Google) so I uninstalled Firefox with the goal of reinstalling it, but after I did that it just went mad and nothing is reliably working anymore. I want to just reboot the entire system but I need to find my drivers first, which thanks to my mother's packing methods are hopelessly lost in the boxes in the garage that contain my entire life pre-China.

Though going to the Jersey Shore was definitely what I needed to finally relax, if I had just one more week, seven measly days, I could gain so much more out of this "recharging trip" that I'd originally planned. I'd see more friends, go shopping with my mother, eat at Texas Roadhouse, try out the Wii my sister got for her birthday, eat at least one sit-down meal with my family, play tennis and go running....

I feel like I've not done right by a lot of people these last 19 days, and when I next return to York it will be 2009, it will be winter, I will have two cousins and an aunt living in my parents' house, and I will be a second semester Junior in college. From half a year in China I felt like I grew so much as person, in light of the ups and despite the downs...now I feel disappointed in myself again, kicking myself for lost opportunities with people and not knowing who I am or what I want in life. Something about being here seems to always do that to me, perhaps it's best I leave? Even if I am leaving only to face completely sketchy Shanghai plans.