Hitting the Wall

Thursday I hit the wall. I hit it everywhere I've ever moved. I hit it about at the one month mark, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Usually I get over it; though when we lived in Harpers Ferry, I never really did. I'm talking about the I-Don't-Know-Anyone-And-I'm-Lonely Wall. Oh, I've met a few people and I can nod and say hello at pickup at school, but I haven't really met a friend yet. The funny thing here is, so far, I haven't met hardly anyone I would care to make friends with. Most of the folks at the school are nice enough to smile at and exchange a few words, but no one I have wanted to have an in depth conversation with. There are a lot of women at the school who are off to the gym or the tennis club or cooing or clucking over this or that. I think if Sumner were in the US, it would be kind of a Red State meet me at the club in a working-class kind of way, and that is so not my cup of tea.

I have met one Canadian gal who lives on my road. I met her because she and her brood lived in the holiday house we rented right before we arrived. She popped by to see if she had left something. She is a hoot, but she has three kids the oldest of which is younger than Ruby, and this makes things a little hard logistically for us to do a lot together. There is another nice man, a Scot, who just arrived with his family, two boys Ethan's age, but so far we haven't been able to connect as families. Too busy.

So, I have spent a fair bit of time by myself. It was a delight for the two weeks the boys finally went back to school after the quake, but I guess two weeks of my own company is my limit. I started to think about how I am going to meet people, because I have to find a way to connect if I am going to have a genuine experience here. I thought about going to work. I even found a lead on a part-time therapist position in an eating disorders program in town. Then of course I have started having the" if I work, how will I manage" conversation with myself. I won't have the freedom to travel, which is what we came here to do. Also, who will look after the kids? And how will I manage the drop off and pick up for school? And what if they get sick? Steve's job is shift work and changes constantly; it is my job to be the constant in their lives. I thought about volunteering. Surely they could use an extra trained counselor in say crisis intervention or trauma counseling say about now, after a major, natural disaster. I called Presbyterian Support (The equivalent of Catholic Charities here), but the Volunteer Coordinator is only in on Mondays and Wednesday mornings). I guess she'll get back to me this week.

The boys are off from school now for two weeks between terms, so I won't be so lonely, but the issue is lurking around. The most interesting thing about hitting the wall here in New Zealand is the question of is it the trip or is it something more? Part of it is being here, of course. But I wonder if part of it might be me, or might be a function of getting older, because I was having some of this feeling back in Portland – feeling a bit disconnected, though there it was muted because of course I was so connected to so many people. But I was feeling a bit lonely even there. And I am finding as I get older, it takes more for me to be truly interested in being friends with another person. I feel like has to be something genuine about the other person. They have to be real, and substantive and full of depth in themselves. There was a time that a situational connection was enough: our children were the same age or we were in the same school. That doesn't feel sufficient anymore. As a result, I feel more and more without who to talk to about real and substantive things, yet longing to do so. (Maybe I should have been blogging all along as this post has suddenly gotten precipitously deep.)

In any case, it remains to be seen how I get over the wall and how the other Nemeroffs get over their respective walls during our journey in the land of the long white cloud.