What coming to Taiwan has meant to me.

Coming to Taiwan has been largely awesome.  Here’s why– I’m a single woman without kids.  I’m divorced and I no longer own a home.  I can’t say I didn’t enjoy being married and a home owner, but the trappings of full-fledged adult life in the States is honestly really burdensome.  I just couldn’t work full time, keep the spice alive in my marriage, clean and decorate my home, work out, be an active part of my community, and carve out me time.  All the aspiration wore me out.  So here I am, hanging out in my room blogging, with very little that I HAVE to do.  I’m teaching myself Chinese, reading a lot, going to try painting again.  I have some friends who are nice.  This is like life in college, except minus the crippling anxiety I felt when I was 18-22.  Things feel pretty low-stakes here.  I make enough money.

I think I might get addicted to living like an adolescent who makes a decent living.  It’s really relaxing.  I don’t consider this phase of my life “giving up” (I aspire to own some plants and get a cat and find a better apartment, plus learn Chinese), but I’m definitely not feeling compelled to do much today but wash my dishes, myself, my clothes, listen to World War Z on Youtube, and give myself a manicure.  I guess I’m an advocate of the lazy life.  It’s up to you, you might find it boring; but I find paring down my responsibilities and not feeling guilty about it to be a delicious combo.

Being an introvert in rural Taiwan turns a disadvantage into a superpower.  We introverts get stressed out from too much interpersonal interaction (I do need some, but my needs are easily satisfied).  If you like to while away time reading, surfing the web, making art, doing solo yoga or dance, life here will not stress you out overly much.

On one level it feels weird to have accidentally (my life unfolds accidentally for the most part) rejected normal adult life in the land where I was born and spent most of my time.  I maintain my people on Facebook and like what feels like thousands of pictures of little kids (largely genuinely, sometimes dutifully), so I’m reminded on a daily basis what life is like for normal people.  I like them, they’re good people.  Sometimes I feel bad for them because they always seem really busy.

Brides Throwing Cats

http://bridesthrowingcats.com/about

http://www.yourtango.com/2013196408/married-forget-bouquets-here-are-15-brides-throwing-cats

No cats have actually been thrown, so let’s all breathe a sigh of relief for the fates of the cats and the poor, hapless bridesmaids who would potentially catch a scared ball of claws in a strapless dress (bad idea).  So far all the pictures are photoshopped, and let’s all hope no one is stupid or cruel enough to actually do this.

I’m one of those people who likes cats and dogs equally.  In a perfect world, I’d have one of each at all times.  As a pet lover, on a really simple level, I find the images unpleasant because there are people who have, (IMO) a too casual relationship to pet ownership.  So this raises my hackles on that level.  There, simple PSA about making a genuine commitment to an animal that bonds with you on a profound level.

But this really hits me in the gut on a feminist level.  I use the word “feminist” because woman + cats= more than just a woman with cats.  There’s no such thing as a “cat dude” as a social construct.  There are cat dudes in real life; I know one, he’s super hot.  But I’m reaching for the “f” word because this is a gender issue that ladies have to deal with.  Don’t worry, men; this is not your fault!  Fun fact, a sizeable chunk of women’s gender (gender= physical sex + societal notions) issues are not your fault.  Women are often as likely as men, and in some cases more likely, to perpetrate gender-related unkindness.  The person who created the website is a man, but I doubt he gave this as much thought as I did.  He probably just thought “Hey, if you’re married, you automatically cannot be a cat lady, so wouldn’t it be funny to photoshop some brides throwing cats?” and left it at that.

Cat ladies are single past the age where such a state is seen as desirable or acceptable.  Their cats represent a cheap substitute for what they should really have; a partner and children.  Their cats become their babies, and cat ladies discuss their cats’ peccadillos at people who would rather be elsewhere.  Poor, sad cat ladies; no wonder you would toss that feline away once you landed a man.

But people, that’s a heap of steaming not-true, nuh uh, wrong story.  When I was married (which I enjoyed and would do again) and younger (ah, the real culprit!  Youthful ignorance!), I worked like a dog and envied my cat.  “Look at her” I thought.  “She’s overweight, but she still looks gorgeous.  She’s sleeping in, will get up, eat, groom herself, amuse herself, sleep some more, mess with the dog if she gets bored, do something illicit and be forgiven, and then sleep some more.  If I could choose what I get to reincarnate as, I want to be my own cat in my next life.”  Instead, I did lots of stuff I didn’t want to in order to make money to pay for a life that didn’t feel like it was mine (I was its), and so I wanted to be like my cat.  I wanted more sleep, not to care about food, not to be crippled with worry about offending people (which would probably come as a surprise to some of my former colleagues).

Cats are great role models for the downtrodden.  They have a sense of importance that stems from nothing concrete.  It just is.  “I’m a cat, I’m very important just because.”  You can’t put a cat in the dog house.  Cats don’t go to the dog house, they go take a nap until the shouting is over and then re-emerge when all is calm again.  My cat will sleep in the middle of my bed and use its cat voodoo on me so that I sleep shaped like a Z to avoid disturbing it.

Everything I’ve learned about people and life that I didn’t learn the hard way, I’ve learned from watching others who are more skilled at handling situations than I am.  Women worry a lot about taking up too much space, gaining weight, displeasing others; as a consciously scrappy woman who still automatically apologizes to other people when they bump into me (Oh, I’m sorry I was in this space you wanted to occupy), my cat is a powerful reminder that there are multiple ways to navigate space, people, and what you want vs. what I want in our lives.

I’m not slamming marriage or motherhood.  I liked being married and I hear good things about motherhood.  But there are a lot of stats that indicated that working married women are still doing more than 50% of the housework.  I know a lot of full time mother/house managers report feeling unappreciated because the work they do somehow doesn’t count even though it’s labor and they have to do it whether they feel like it or not (that’s my definition of work).

So maybe brides shouldn’t throw away their cats so gleefully.  We all need inspiration, a role model, someone to show us that you can be fat, pushy, and self-important sometimes and still be loved.  Maybe those bridesmaids clamoring to catch the flying feline aren’t so stupid after all.