I'm back to work. I no longer have a limp, and I'm able to walk long(ish) distances. I'm able to write fairly normally, with maybe a hint of uncontrolled messiness in my handwriting. The fatigue lasted what seemed like a long while; it was only about a week and a half ago that the constant exhaustion started to subside. It was around then, too, that I started being able to control my emotions again. Needless to say, I cried a lot. I'm crying less now, which I consider a triumph. My balance has remained kind of weird, although it has improved a lot and doesn't seem to affect my mobility. I mainly notice it when I get some rather crazy vertigo for a few seconds if I'm in a car that suddenly accelerates. Other than that, I just kind of notice that something isn't right, that it's not always easy to find my center again if I'm thrown off balance. Nothing dangerous or outwardly visible. Oh, and I start feeling drunk after even a little alcohol. Drinking less is far from the worst thing in the world.
I'm on a new medication (which is a pill rather than an injection!) and you can bet that I won't be missing any doses ever again if I can help it.
In dealing with all this, I've realized that there are certain issues I haven't been dealing with head on. I'm telling you this because I think they're directly related to my life and integration here. I figure it might be of interest, if that's what you're here for.
I've put a lot of work into fitting in, into being unremarkable in the context of Finland. Recently, I've come to realize that this is an impossible goal to achieve. I'll always look different. I'll always talk funny. I'll always be different. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is an inescapable fact.
I'm perfectly conversational in Finnish, yet I feel as if I'm impossibly bad at socializing. I'm incapable of being funny or charming (not that either of these things is my forte in English either), and sometimes I even feel as if being sufficiently polite or sympathetic is beyond my ken. A student's mother called me last week to tell me that her child has been ill. Comprehension went smoothly both ways. Yet I felt as if there were something more she wanted from me - some appropriately reassuring words, perhaps. I couldn't really go off script, so to speak, in order to provide that.
I have it on good authority that some people find me closed off and hard to engage. It's just that small talk is somehow harder than deeper, more abstract conversation. And, often, when I do try to insert myself into the kind of conversations I'm okay at, people often smile at me politely and then move on, or else talk over me. I don't necessarily fault anyone but myself for this; I should talk louder, with more confidence and, most importantly, more often.
In truth, though, the isolation that results from all this is very painful. For five years, I've anticipated that my ability to communicate would improve at the same rate as my language ability. In truth, it has developed much, much more slowly.
The Meeting Places is a band whose pretty, shimmery music has been comforting me lately, in part because it reminds me of when I felt better and more like a human. I also hope that you and I can find places here and there in which to meet in the middle.
Edit: I want to make it clear that I appreciate and thank those who have been kind to me and tried to make me feel welcome. Thank you.
