You know when you stick your head in the clouds and get lost there?  Then reality hits hard and you don’t know what to do.  Well, it’s not so dramatic for me, but today was very insightful and may lead to some drastic changes in how I thought things would be.  Ever since I decided to come to Singapore, with so much hope and optimism, I have set my mind on one goal: starting an enterprise with Marylin in LA.  In coming here to immerse myself, I was going to learn what I could and take that back with me to help me build something that would eventually bring her over as well.  Even though I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, we had high expectations and lofty goals.  And there we were, floating, with me taking a wonderful ride on Marylin’s typical train of daydreamy thoughts.  For awhile, we dreamt together, of what we could make of ourselves over there.

Feeling a little lost?

Then, with months of the real thing, we’ve found that it’s not so easy to work together, live together.  At one point we even joked about how it would be like we’re dating.  And truly, I feel that it would benefit us to treat it as such.  At least if I communicated with her the way that I communicate with Panda, things wouldn’t have gotten to this point.  Alas, when there’s no romantic affection it’s just not the same.  Part of it is that we were still in the honeymoon part of our friendship, where everything was flowery and beautiful.  Now that we’ve spent so much time in close quarters, it’s getting to the point where things have lost their glow and we must face up to the challenges that are bound to occur in any relationship.  But of course, me being the type of person I am, everything just gets bottled up and though I’ve mentioned it here and there, it’s never really been addressed.

And so, I slowly started to notice the rift that was growing between us.  There was not so much hostility as rigid civility.  Not being much of a talker in the morning when we’re going to or arriving at work, I didn’t really mind.  I’m not a morning person at all, so all the exertion in the morning would be bound to wear me out.  It was only more recently that I started to notice we didn’t have much to say to each other at all, ever.  Part of that was due to the sudden divergence in projects that we were working on, but much of it really came down to that divide that had developed.  Additionally, we’d go our separate ways at night, only seeing each other again many hours later, as we were winding down for the day and getting ready to crash for the night.

When I concentrate on something, I really like to give it my all, because it’s not often that I can get into the right groove at the right time.  I get distracted easily, from the music that is played to the comings and goings of other people.  So, when I’m in the middle of something and Marylin gets back, I like to keep that focus.  And by the time I’m ready to ask her how her night was, she’s already on her laptop or out chatting with her parents.  I tend to miss the boat a lot.  There was one precious night recently that she came home very pleased with dinner and we had a warm exchange about that.  But other than that, at night we just don’t talk, because there’s so much going on in the cyber world that it’s hard to keep up.  Then of course, I also spend a lot of my time talking to Panda because whenever I see him, my mood brightens (and who doesn’t want that?).

So there’s definitely been some strain on our interactions, where we chose to avoid each other.  Though there have been many a moment that I tried to convince myself to approach her to say, “Hey, we need to talk,” I always talk myself out of it.  I just keep internalizing everything I think and feel.  Well, today I was having a chat with Starfish and she brought up how people have noticed the change.  That opened up the doors for me to share some of what I’ve been feeling.  She had apparently already heard from Marylin on the issue, so we were brought together to discuss.  From that, I know I’ve got a lot to work on in my… “areas of improvement.”  I have certainly not been the person I am capable of being while here and I’m still trying to figure out why.  So we aired out some of our grievances and got a chance to hear how our respective behaviors have been affecting each other.  Mostly we need to communicate more (and more openly), but, BUT, we also need to figure out if we have a common goal anymore.

It looks like plans may be changing yet again, which is not wholly unexpected, but I got so focused on the goal, that dream that was just out of my grasp, that I didn’t stop to think too much.  Ironic, since I tend to think too much.  But this was something I was doggedly pursuing in my hopes.  Forget all practicalities.  It was something I embedded into my mind and framed everything I did here in the context of.  I evaluated every single task based on how I could do it in LA, how I could make it work in a city like that.  It’s reminiscent of my younger days, when I decided I was going to be a businesswoman and get an MBA.  “But what are you going to study in college?” people would ask.  Oh.  Right… I had inadvertently skipped a step in my lofty ideals, forgetting that detail.  That you can’t get a Master’s without a Bachelor’s.  So then I set out to plan my college career and I guess I thought that this would work the same: have a destination, then figure out the details.

However, setting up a business (or even an extension or a branch of it) is far less straightforward than choosing majors.  It’s even more complicated when it’s overseas, you’re alone, and there’s a huge time difference.  So what now?  I don’t know.  It’s time to look closely at my fantasy and let it fade away to some sort of a reality.  I’m confused, but I know this much – I’m staying here for the rest of the duration to continue learning (and work on getting more involved in everything).  I’m not a risk-taker when it comes to my professional life when I should be, or at least more of one.  After all, what great entrepreneurs didn’t take risks, didn’t stumble, didn’t fall?  Though I know all this in my heart, it’s still hard to convince my logical brain that it’s worth all the struggle.  And really, I just don’t want to have to live off my parents, so they can do what they want with their money and not worry about still supporting me.  Maybe I will need to for awhile, to find my footing and understand what it is that I want from this life.