Narrowing. Expanding.

The geography of my life has shrunk to five places.

Home. Work. School. Gym. The pool.

Anyone who knows me knows this is a radical change.

I’m always going somewhere new. A cafe that just opened in an alley that also doubles as an arts space. A restaurant I saw on Tik Tok that has been open for decades. The alley in district 8 with a large Cham population and tons of Halal restaurants. The thrift shop that sells American military parephanlia. The mausoleum in District 5, tucked in an alley, also a Tik Tok find. You get the point…

I had a moment the second week into work where I realized I hadn’t been to District 5 in weeks. I used to go all the time, as often possible. To visit my favorite cafe in a market. To eat at my favorite Vietnamese style dim sum place. I haven’t ridden a bus since getting back from Taiwan at the end of August. I love the bus. I miss the bus.

I know it’s a temporary shrinking. It’s because of work M-F and then school at night. And a full day of school on Saturdays. By the time I publish this, the semester will basically be over, but I want to capture this period of my life, where I have a geographially limited experience.

I thought I’d be miserable. I’m much less stressed than I expected to be. Actually, I probably was more stressed leading up to this period in time, which is typically how my anxiety works—the build up is worse than the experience itself. A friend I talked to about my current life-state put it perfectly. He said my life was “logistically tight” but not necessarily actually stressful or difficult.

This is true. I wake up some time between 6:30am and 7:00am. I buy a coffe at the same shop every day on the walk to work. I’m at work by 8am. At 5pm, I hop on a Grab to school. I snarf down dinner, which I either get delivered to the office or buy the night before. Class starts at 5:30pm. Most finish between 8:00pm or 8:30pm. I then hop on a Grab and go immediately to the gym. I work out for an hour. I’m home by 10pm. I eat a snack, because I’m hungry from the 5pm dinner. I’m asleep before 11pm.

I have Saturday classes (mornings AND afternoon). I sneak in a swim between the classes, which really helps manage my classroom angst. I’ve been going to the bathhouse after class, also a much needed release after hours and hours of being lectured at on subjects I don’t care about.

I have Sundays totally off. Laundry gets done. I swim. I sometimes see friends, though moreoftenthannot (doesn’t this feel like it should be one word?), I want to be alone the whole day. I lay in bed and space out in the void that is Instagram reels. I read, a little. I buy food for Monday. I recharge. I do homework, if I have homework.

I’m kind of amazed with myself, honestly. I expected to be totally and completely exhausted.

Part of it is that I have no obligations beyond myself, really. I don’t have a partner or kids or even a pet. I’m in good health. My family is in good health. My life can be lived for me and me alone. I don’t particulary like this, but it’s possible for me to live like this in this moment.

I’m too busy to obsess over things, which is also radical. I go immediately from work to school, so I immediately switch what I’m thinking about. Is being busy the cure to my anxiety? I don’t have imaginary conversations (arguments) with my classmates or teachers. I barely think about them. There’s no space in my brain for that.

I sitll don’t know if this is what I want, though. That’s more the big question. I’m okay with this lifestyle for this moment in time because I know it’s temporary.

I wrote a lot in my diary during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic (and the immediate aftermath), that I felt I was living this incredibly passive life. My existence was at the whims of forces greater than me. Nations closing down borders. Fears of getting sick (and getting others sick) having me stay inside. I went from feeling like I had a lot of control over where I lived and how I lived to feeling like I really didn’t have any control at all.

I didn’t mind this existence. The year of the big summer lockdown in Vietnam, I read 120 books, most of which were novels. In that July alone, I read more than 20. Most days I got up and read and read and read. I never felt particularly lonely. I had access to food.

As we moved into this life with Covid, I felt stuck in this passive state with so little control. This wasn’t particulary distressing to me. It just was. I had learned to accept that I have little control over my life. I felt like I was floating through life.

I would sit in conversations I didn’t care about or pay attention in classes I felt were boring. I spent a lot of time alone, often doing nothing. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot over the past year of what am I. What lifestyle I want to live. I think I used to live the lifestyle one might imagine of an artist or an academic, a lot of freewheeling whishy washy days, but I don’t really think of myself as either artist or academic. I think of myself as a writer, sure, but I also need money. What do I want in life? How do I live a life that works for me?

I don’t think the answer is something static. It changes based on my needs. My desires.

I spent the summer in Taiwan. I went so many places. I ate so many things. I had a wonderful time, but at the end of it all, I was tired. I wanted stability. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I wanted to be in the near-perfect neighborhood I’ve lived for the past two years, where I know what coffee shops to trust, and what stall sells my favorite cơm tấm.

I’ve swung from floating through life to an incredibly structured existence. This small geography. This structure. It’s incredibly rigid, which also gives this sense of fragility, that even a minor fracture in the system could break it irreparably. If I don’t order food in time for class, I go to class hungry and am miserable. If I’m too tired after class, I then miss a day at the gym, and exercise is key to me maintaining my mental health. If it’s raining and I can’t book a grab, I’m late for class. (Didn’t I say a few paragraphs ago I wasn’t obsessing over things anymore? I guess that’s not totally true)

I’m handling it fine. I’m sleeping plenty. I’m exercising enough. I’m feeding myself. But it doesn’t feel fully right, either. It’s too radical of a shift. I like having things to do, but I don’t like being this busy. Or rather, this busy with things I might not even want to do (I’m looking at you, classes).

I like having time to walk to school if that’s what I feel like. I miss down time. I do a lot of my most creative thinking when I’m thinking about nothing. I have this fear that I’m selling out, that I’m giving up on ever writing a short story again. I know this is irrational, but the anxiety is perhaps representative of this greater fear I have about becoming basic, working a traditional 9-5 for the rest of my life, never doing anything interesting again.

The big loss in this period, the one I struggle with most, is that I don’t feel as present to my friends as I used to be. I like to be helpful and availible to my friends, probably too availible. I used to be able to answer any message almost instantly. My friend needs to know where that shop that sells those special pens are? I can send it instantly. Someone needs a sudden restaurant reccomendation in District 7? Sure. I’ve got that. Someone needs emotional support and needs a phone call or coffee in the middle of the day? I’m availible…I was availible.

It’s not just about being able to help, but it’s also just the time I had for casual hangs. Daytime hangs. Evening hangs. Weekend hangs. Hangs at home. Hangs at a bar. Hangs at a coffee shop. It was all possible, could be arranged at the drop of a hat.

Now people message me to hang out and the answer is almost always “Sorry, but I have class.”

That’s the most unstainable thing about this lifestyle longterm. Or the thing I find most difficult. I can handle a tight schedule. I handle stress incredibly well, honestly. I’m good at school and work because I’m a very organized person. I can focus for long amounts of time. I’m well-designed for this life…

But I miss my friends and want to see them more, and I want to be able to relax when we hang, not have work or schoolwork hanging over me. I can handle a geographic narrowing of my life, but I’m really over the social narrowing. My coworkers are nice, but I don’t want work as my only social interaction. I don’t interact with most of my classmates, and I don’t want to either.

I know this is all temporary. In less than a month, I get a lot more flexibility back in my life. I’ll get my weekends back. I’ll still be at work during the day, but honestly most people are somewhat busy during that time as well. It will be another adjustment to see how I want to spend this time.

This life is mostly a narrowing, but there are moments, sparks of expansion, visions of some grand release after the narrowing reaches its conclusion. Without talking much about the details of my job, the content is interesting and has me thinking about things I like to think about. I could work in this field for years with the right job.

Money is also incredibly expansive. I flew to Dalat for my birthday. I would never have done that a year or two ago. I would have done the 6+ hour bus ride at night (to save on time and a night in a hotel). I stayed in the perfect bed and breakfast, ate perfect food, and pet many cats (who don’t care about money, but were a lovely part of the trip).

Money makes everything easier. I can afford to buy pasta salad that becomes dinner at the fancy grocery store in the mall my fany gym is in. My apartment is in a bit of a…state….but I’m never there so it doesn’t really matter, and once my life is a little freer, I’m going to pay someone to clean it.

Food has become a wild expansion. I love to eat, and I used to think I had an unlimited budget on food, but this is not true. I usually try to eat cheap, and cheap food is often excellent, but I’ve been trying out restaurants in my neighborhood that previoulsy gave me sticker shock. I had what is probably the best pasta I’ve ever had in my life recently. The other day, I had thick and creamy carbonara sauce on rice and it was a revelation.

I don’t know what comes after my classes end, but the feeling I have right now, in this moment, is it only gets better than life right now. Even the simple thought of having a Saturday is incredibly freeing. Life with nights free too, that’ll be something different, something I’m ready for, something I need.