daft punk - digital love

last night, i had a dream about you
in this dream, i'm dancing right beside you
and it looked like everyone was having fun
the kind of feeling I've waited so long

Truth be told, I am terrified.

I have been earning at less than the American poverty line for a family of four for the past year-and-a-half. I have a job with such insane responsibilities that no 28-year-old with no managerial or executive-level experience could ever hope to do a good job, and who has been working in such a crazed context that if I ever tried to describe my day-to-day to an American employer, they'd think I was either making it up or that I lost my mind. I no longer remember how to function in the American work culture, even how to behave in a meeting or act competent or whatever. I have lost much of my network, and more importantly, tenure at a job where I would never be fired and would be guaranteed an annual raise for coming to work everyday at 8 and leaving everyday at 5.

F*ck.

I tell myself, in my logical moments, that I am no worse off than when I left. In fact, I should be better off: I have immense managerial experience now, I have insight into dealing with significant organizational crises, I have encountered and managed major challenges like launching a survey of thousands of households in a rural area when my survey team doesn't speak English and I don't speak any of the five languages that they do.

But is any of it relevant? Likely not.

It remains to be seen.

In my logical moments, I tell myself that I have savings. That I wouldn't have left the States unless I knew I had enough saved up in case of an emergency. That I am smart enough, and scroungy enough, to find my way, as I always did before.

The thing is, I'm 28-and-a-half-and-some-change now. No longer willing to live like shit. But also unwilling to compromise on having a job that bores me out of my mind.

I've gotten pickier, so picky that I wonder if I can't help but be disappointed or a failure on some level when I go back. But I suppose that, just like India, if I just persist in going after what I want, it will be possible.

And, so, that's the best I can do.