On Being an Expatriate - Part 2: Some Cons

In my previous post about being an expatriate (expat), I discussed what an expat is and why some people choose such a life. I also got into some aspects of my own situation. The reasons why people become expats are interesting, of course, but another interesting aspect is to consider the pros and cons of living an expat life.

There are things that you expect to be good about it (or at least hope will be good), and these are the reasons you do it. And there are things you might understand from the outset will be difficult. But there are also things you discover along the way, things you never considered, that turn out to be either good or bad. Often, the judgment of whether it is a good or bad thing depends on the individual; what I consider a cool surprise, someone else might see as hardship.

So, some of my next posts will discuss the pros and cons of expat life as I have experienced it. I will try not to make it the “good and bad of Ukraine” – that will be a different post. What I want to look at here is what I have found to be good or bad about living like an expat, but I suspect there will be some necessary correlation with the pros and cons of Ukraine itself.

This first post will discuss some of the cons; next time I will focus on some of the pros. But neither post will be all-encompassing. I’ll return to the topic from time to time with more additions to the list on both sides.

So… here are a few of the cons:

Language difficulties:  This is anticipated, of course. Unless you spend months or years taking language courses before you go, you have to expect to have problems communicating when you drop yourself into a country with a completely different language. It’s been no different for me, except that, to be honest, I’ve not made enough effort myself to become fluent.

From the beginning, I had a grasp of the basics of Russian, and in those days before I made the permanent move, I did work on it. And I was not totally lost in the beginning, but it was hard. Understanding what others said was the hardest thing, especially when many people speak a dialect called Surzhik, which is sort of a combination of Russian and Ukrainian. For those who are unaware, Kharkiv is mostly a Russian-speaking city, as are most cities in eastern Ukraine.

After almost six years, my Russian is still embarrassingly poor. And my Ukrainian is nonexistent. But I am able to manage most things I need to deal with on a daily basis. I have no problem shopping, ordering taxis and dealing with other daily matters.

And I can communicate pretty well with the guys at the physical therapy clinic I go to twice a week. I’ve been learning more Russian, and they’ve been learning some English. Still, my ability to communicate on a more complex level is very poor, and this makes often life more difficult.

One of the reasons that I’ve learned slowly is that I am immersed in English almost constantly. My work is in English. My friends all speak English well, and they WANT to speak English with me; I represent a rare opportunity to practice with a native speaker. Plus, my friends are all intelligent, interesting people who like to have intelligent, interesting conversations. I excel at that in English, all modesty aside, but my Russian is on too low a level for anything but the simplest kinds of discussions.

So, I speak English a lot, and I practice Russian quite rarely. It seems ironic that my Russian should be so poor after living for so long in a Russian-speaking city, but there it is. I am actually quite ashamed of this.

But language difficulties are an issue for anyone who chooses to live in a different country with a different language. Some people learn faster than others. Maybe I’m just too old to fully acquire another language.

Having to Depend on Others:  Not completely, of course, but too much for my liking. It’s closely related to the language issue, but also involves having to navigate the nuances of another culture. In many cases, you just can’t do it successfully by yourself (at least not without it costing you a lot more money).

Perhaps the biggest example for me is with medical treatment. There are several layers of clinics and hospitals in Ukraine. Most people have to deal with the “free” state medical system which is not really free. The care is usually substandard, and there can be long waits. And if you can’t pay at all, you are in trouble. People usually have to supply their own supplies and pay doctors something directly to get reasonable care.

Pay attention, America – this is how socialized medicine works in reality!

But there are private clinics that operate much more like clinics in the USSA (though still not exactly). The prices are higher, but the quality and attention are far better. When I have needed to see a doctor, I have gone to such a clinic. The problem for me, however, has been that the vocabulary associated with visiting a doctor and getting explanations of the diagnosis and prescribed treatment is far more complex than I can handle, even today.

So I have always had to find someone to go to the doctor with me – someone who has time to spend helping me and whom I feel comfortable sharing my medical problems and other more personal stuff with. Someone I don’t feel squeamish taking off my shirt (or more) in front of. This has not always been easy.

There have been times when I’ve been able to find someone to help; during my first few years, I had a several people who worked with me in the company I was trying to establish, and one or another was usually available when I needed such help. Then for a few years, I had a very close person who was always ready to help. But that ended last year. Last summer, one of my private students was between jobs and had some time on her hands, and she was glad to help me with some visits for basic checkups and especially for the process of getting an MRI on my back. She was a Godsend!

But since then, there really has been no one who I have felt I could impose upon for the time required for this. Everyone has their work to do, along with their other life responsibilities and needs. So I prefer not to impose.

It’s my problem, and I ought to be able to deal with it on my own. After all, in the USSA, I would just jump in my truck, drive to the clinic and get my checkup, treatment, or whatever I needed – and I would not need anyone else. But here it just is not that simple. And because there has been no one to help, I’ve put off doctor visits. That, really, is not a good thing.

Another example is dealing with government agencies. On several occasions, I have had to deal with Ukrainian immigration authorities and the bureaucracy involved in getting permission to stay here. Again, I had to have a friend help me with it, not only due to language, but also because there are subtleties of dealing with these people – often involving a bit of bribery – that just don’t exist in American culture. 

But the problem with all of this runs deeper than just simple inconvenience. It’s an issue of feeling independent, of being able to take care of myself, of being a man. Although I have always been VERY grateful for the help, no matter who took the time for me, I still found it disconcerting to sit there, listening to someone else discuss my situation with a doctor and say, “Just hang on, I’ll tell you everything later.”  I want to interact directly with the doctor, to ask my own questions.

I don’t like feeling as though I am at anyone else’s mercy or control, in anything. My independence is critically important for me, and it has been for a long time. This is why I can’t work for some big corporation with stupid rules and office politics that reduce employees to obedient automatons. I cherish living life my own way and doing my own thing.

But I’ve learned here that I sometimes have to put that pride aside and let someone take the reins for my benefit. I appreciate those friends who have been willing to do this for me, but still, it’s hard. So… this issue of feeling a loss of independence has been a nagging problem for me here.

Dealing with a Lower Quality of Life:  I live in a small, two-room apartment in a fairly good area of Kharkiv. I’ve seen places that were better and many that were much worse. Overall, I consider my place to be pretty good for the conditions here. It’s a lot better than my first apartment here.

But at the moment, my toilet is not working: the tank will not refill. As a result, I have to flush by pouring water into the bowl from six-liter bottles. My landlady is on vacation, so it won’t get fixed until next week at least. It’s a bad situation, but it certainly could be a lot worse.

For most of the summer, I had no hot water. Hot water is supplied in a communal fashion by city heating plants, and they always suspend service for a month or so for maintenance and repairs. But this year, there were some other problems, so I had no hot water for more than 12 weeks. The owner of my place finally installed a water heater about three weeks ago, so that problem was solved.

Well, not quite. The water heater eats a lot of electric current. If I forget to unplug it before I turn on my water pot to make coffee or tea, the circuit breaker trips. Sometimes the circuit breaker trips just for fun. So I have to go out into the hallway to reset the breaker.

There are a number of other things about my standard of living here that would make most Americans question my sanity for staying here. I described a lot of them in a humorous old post entitled Substandards of Living. Ukraine is a country that is still struggling to improve its antiquated Soviet infrastructure, and it has a long way to go. Roads are often terrible, buses are a far cry from what one might expect in the USSA or Western Europe, electricity can be cut off, and because many houses receive their winter heat from communal heating plants, they can remain cold into November.

The list could go on, but that’s not the point. There are many places in the world where things are similar or even MUCH worse than in Ukraine. I’ve never lived in Africa, but I know people who have, and I admire their ability to live for long periods of time in much more primitive and difficult conditions.

And I’ve experienced a number of interesting conditions. One temporary house I had in northern Japan had just a single kerosene stove to heat the whole house, and one corner of the house was collapsing. My apartment in Lima, Peru, had no window screens and no heat. Insects were not really a problem in Lima (next to the ocean), so screens were not considered necessary… but there were pigeons. And Lima never gets really cold, so heat was not considered necessary. But there were times in winter (June to August) when the combination of temperature and humidity made it feel very chilly.

The point is that an expat from North America, Western Europe or a similar country has to expect and be able to tolerate conditions that would be considered intolerable in the native country. If you can’t laugh off the fact that the doors on your wardrobe are about to fall off, your stove has to be lit with matches, or you can hear your neighbors’ intimate conversations and arguments, then you probably should not be an expat.

Sometimes Feeling Very Alone:  This is a big one. Even if you are very outgoing, learn the language pretty well, and are able to adapt to the local life, you can still have moments that remind you that you ARE a stranger in a strange land. No matter how well you assimilate and fit in, and no matter how good a social network you develop, there will still be times when you feel isolated and very alone.

Of course a person can feel alone in his or her own country and culture. But I think that’s more about the person. When you are far away from family and friends (even if you make new ones in the foreign country), there is a different kind of aloneness that can hit you. Your friends have their own lives and families, and though you might be introduced or even included in a celebration or two, you are still not a part of that group – you can’t be. And very often, when everyone else has their plans, you have nowhere to turn but your own apartment, books or the Internet.

Holidays are a good example. Your national holidays generally mean nothing in the country in which you’re living. Meanwhile, their national holidays are usually celebrated by families or among friends whose common language and culture make the celebrations special. It’s not that you are rejected for being a foreigner, but you just are not part of a family unit, and many holidays are family-oriented.

I wrote about this kind of situation at the beginning of this year in my post, The Same Old New Year. In Ukraine, New Year is a good example of a holiday that has special family significance and which is very difficult for a foreigner to enjoy with friends.

This can be a really debilitating problem for someone who isn’t psychologically able to deal with occasionally feeling alone and isolated. But even for those who can normally take it in stride at home, the kind of isolation you can sometimes feel in a foreign land is unique and can get to you.

Not Being Able to Watch Favorite Sports:  I am not a sports nut who would sit for hours on a sofa watching any game on television, and I can’t say that this is something I miss terribly. But there are times when I would like to be able to watch a special game in real time and not just hope to catch a few fleeting highlights on the Internet a day later.

This came to a head for me last spring when the Colorado Avalanche was shocking the NHL en route to its first division championship in years. I really wanted to see some of the games, especially in the playoffs. But it wasn’t possible to do that from here.

I thought it would have been great to have been able to watch this year’s Super Bowl because the Denver Broncos were in the game. Considering the result, I guess it was a blessing that I was not able to see it. More recently, my alma mater, Colorado State University Rams, thoroughly defeated the despised University of Colorado Buffaloes in the annual Rocky Mountain Showdown game. That is a game I definitely would have liked to have seen!

But overall, missing out on these games is a small thing.


So... that's just a few of the cons of the expat lifestyle, or at least MY expat lifestyle. I'll come back soon with some of the pros. And in the future, I hope to toss in a few more of each as they occur to me.

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On Being an Expatriate - Part 1

I am an expatriate (expat), a person who lives in a country that is not his native land, a country in which he is not a citizen. Many people choose to live this way at some points in their lives, some for almost their entire lives. While most expats are just ordinary people, some very well-known people have been expats at some points in their lives. 

The Famous and Not-so-Famous

For example, the American author Ernest Hemmingway lived in Paris, while his contemporary, Henry James, chose to live in England. American actor Johnny Depp splits his time between France and the Bahamas, and British actor Roger Moore (James Bond of the 1970s) has lived in Switzerland for years. His predecessor as James Bond, Sean Connery, left his native Scotland for the more agreeable weather of Spain and then the Bahamas. American actor and producer Orson Welles went into self-exile in Europe for much of his life.

Those are just a few examples of famous expats. There are many others.  But the majority of expats are not famous at all. Since the second half of the 20^th century, more people have become expats for business reasons. I knew a number of guys – Americans and Australians – who chose to live in Peru or elsewhere in South America, mainly because of the work opportunities they had in engineering, environmental science or other fields related to mining. As you might expect, many met and married local citizens and decided to stay for love.

Why Live so Far from Home?

So, besides strictly for business, why do people choose to live an expatriate life?  For many, it is the lure of curiosity and adventure.  It is interesting to see new places, experience new climates and geography, get a feel for different cultures and ways of seeing the world, and of course, to meet and get to know diverse kinds of people.

Some thrive on the challenge of overcoming language barriers and cultural unfamiliarities to make their way. It bores them to do things the same old way at home. When they get to know a place too well, they might again feel the need to move on to a new place with new customs and new challenges.

There are those who decide to live in another country because they are fed up with their own country. Usually it is because the government has gone in a direction that they find distasteful. Many of these are people who put a high value on personal freedom, and when they feel that liberty is being suppressed at home, they seek it elsewhere.

A number of people leave their native lands because they feel lost in some way. They feel that they don’t exactly fit in or that there is something important missing from their lives. And their search to “find themselves” spurs them to see if their answers might be discovered in a mysterious foreign land.

A lot of famous expats have been artists or writers in search of inspiration or ways to expand their creative perspectives. Hemmingway might never have produced such significant works if he hadn’t spent his years as an expat in Europe. And I suppose a lot of hopeful artists and writers live the expat life seeking similar inspiration.

In more recent years, most expats are people who have been sent to overseas locations by their companies, or who took jobs with companies in foreign lands. A number of American and European executives and technical experts live in China or other countries. And the vast majority of the population of the thriving metropolis of Dubai is made up of expatriates from countries like India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Expat or Immigrant?

Expatriates don’t give up their native citizenship; if they do that, they become immigrants. This is why we normally think of expats as those from advanced countries who live in less developed ones. People who go the other way are almost always immigrants looking for a better life. 

But an expat could well be someone from one advanced country, say, Canada, choosing to live for a time in an equally developed country like Japan, Germany or New Zealand. In fact two of the top expat destinations are Germany and the UK. And at the same time as the UK is a top expat destination, Brits are among the most common nationalities living as expats in other countries.

My Curious Case

So I am an expatriate. I’ve gone to some great lengths since early 2013 to be able to stay in Ukraine legally, but I am not about to give up my USSA citizenship. Things may have degenerated a great deal under the current socialist regime back there, but I have confidence that the nightmare will end eventually and my homeland will bounce back (meaning I’ll be able to drop the second “S”).

So I do expect to return… someday. Perhaps next year, maybe the year after. I could decide not to return to Ukraine from my vacation to Colorado next month. Who knows? Anything can happen.

But WHY am I an expat? Which of the reasons I listed apply to me?  Do any of them apply? Maybe I have a unique reason. Or maybe it’s some combination. Or maybe I don’t have a reason – maybe it’s just a matter of circumstance. Sometimes I think that I had a reason at first, but now I’m just here because I am here, and it seems to work. Or maybe I just haven’t thought of a better alternative recently.

Living Abroad

I’ve spent a good deal of my adult life outside the USSA. My first experience was living for 18 months on the lush, tropical island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t exactly an expat life, however, because I was assigned there when I was in the U.S. Navy and lived most of the time on a Navy base (although I did live off-base for a few months in a little village). Plus, Guam is an American territory, so although the culture and people are quite different from what I had known before that, it was officially still the United States.

But those 18 months were an amazing experience. I changed so much during that time, partly because of living there but mostly because of events that happened around me. I probably had more experiences and lived life more fully – for better or worse – during that time than during any other period before or since. It certainly gave me an appetite for living in a totally different kind of environment.

After a year and a half spent mostly in California and Texas, I embarked on my six-year assignment to Japan. Again, this was not a true expat experience. I was still in the Navy and lived mostly on military bases. I did interact with local people quite a bit (I even taught English) and had a number of Japanese friends. But everything I needed, I could get on the American bases, any problems could be solved by the American authorities, and my usual, day-to-day life was pretty much American.

Again, an awful lot happened during those six years, and the experience changed me in many ways. Both of my daughters were born there. I climbed to the top of Mt. Fuji (twice) and spent 10 days motorcycling alone around the northern island of Hokkaido. And I lost a dear friend in a stupid, horrific car crash. I had a lot of highs and some terrible lows.

After a long stint living in Colorado (which is still mostly American) broken up by a couple of years in Massachusetts (which I think is still fairly American), I began working periodically in South America, mostly in Peru. Usually, these were working trips of about two or three weeks, but there was a time in 2004-05 when our team had an apartment in Lima, and I spent a month or more at a time.

I also had the opportunity to travel far and wide across Peru and to visit other places, like Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. I experienced the thin air high in the Andes, found myself surrounded by a huge herd of llamas in a high Andean valley, ate alpaca on a stick, braved the cold and snow of the windswept Patagonian plain, soaked up the sun on a Chilean beach in Jaunary (their summer), and attended an amazing, all-night Peruvian birthday party. This was closer to the expat experience, but because it was short-term, and I still maintained a home in Colorado, it was not truly the expat life.

It has been in Ukraine that I have truly become an expat. Between May 2007 and May 2008, I spent about half my time in Ukraine, and since May 2008 I have lived in Ukraine exclusively with only a couple of vacation trips back to the USSA to visit family and friends. That’s more than six years. Some of my closest friends are here, my work is here and my community is here.

It hasn’t always been easy. In fact, at times, it’s been very tough. But I’ve grown a lot here (and not just around my waist), and I know that I am a richer, wiser and better person for the experience. At this time, it’s hard for me to imagine living anywhere else. Yet I sense that my time here might be very close to the end.

What’s Next?

Of course, it usually IS hard to imagine something else until you have made the change and experienced it. I’ve thought about returning to the USSA, but maybe not until I can remove that extra “S.” And I’ve also thought that maybe I’d like to move to another European location. I’ve long dreamed about trying Ireland, and from my visits, I know that Switzerland is nice. But… I have no idea what I would do for a living in either place (or in the USSA, for that matter). Thus, I remain in Ukraine, at least for the time being.

Several times this year, Ukraine’s turbulent troubles have had me considering whether it was time to go. At one point in the spring, I even started making some contingency plans, because it wasn’t looking good in this part of the country. But the Kharkiv region has managed to remain calm, even as Russia and their “separatist” surrogates have brewed up a terrible war to the east of us.

Thus far, it has seemed that the danger has been kept far enough to the east that I don’t really need to feel any urgency about it. But things can change, so I do keep my eyes open and stay abreast of the latest news.

But even with all of this, I still think about the future here and what I can do to improve my work and life. I’ve been thinking about how to improve my own teaching skills, expand the reach of what I do, and bring new vitality to one of my client programs. And I’ve been considering how to renew my writing work, which has languished badly. More frequent blog writing has been a step in that direction.

There are many factors to consider in deciding “what’s next.” Perhaps the most important of these is people: family and close friends. But you can’t please everyone, so you just have to find the right balance. But most important, you have to do what’s best for yourself. That might mean staying here for years to come, or it might mean just not returning from my planned visit to the USSA in September. I'll know when I know.

Pros and Cons of the Expat Life

There are so many things to say on this subject. And this post is already quite long enough. So I’ll have to leave that for another time (Part 2). Actually, that was supposed to be one of the main themes of this blog, and I haven’t written too much about it. So I need to get cracking. I have started writing a piece about Ukraine (or maybe it will be about Kharkiv), that I am tentatively calling “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” It’s sort of a cliché name, I know, but it is very fitting.  That will be coming soon.

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Circles of Friendship

My two most recent posts were each written in a day, the second in one sitting, which is a refreshing change from the way my blog writing has usually proceeded for the past year or so. I have a number of posts that I started and haven’t finished, either because the inspiration failed me or I just got busy. Lately I’ve been trying to go back and complete some of them, like the one about my father.

Here is another that had been languishing unfinished… until today.

One of the more popular conversations themes I get into with my English conversation groups is on the topic of friendship. It includes some thought-provoking questions such as:

• Are friends more important than family these days?
• Do two people need to have a lot in common in order to be friends?
• Can a friendship last a lifetime?
• Did you have any imaginary friends as a child?
• Can men and women be “just friends,” platonically?

But perhaps the most interesting question is about the definition of a friend. What does this word really mean?

When asked to define what a friend is and how many friend they have, my students’ opinions are very wide-ranging. Some have a very limited definition of friendship, and as a result, report having few real friends. Others, however, use a looser definition and suggest that they have many friends.

What’s difficult, everyone agrees, is that it is very hard to categorize these relationships, because they exist at more levels of closeness and importance than we have words to describe them. We have the word friend, but that seems to cover everything from just a bit above acquaintance to a person who is intimately close.

So, in many cases, we are left with the word acquaintance, which describes someone whom you have met and know just a little bit, and the word friend, which seems to cover everything else. We also have the term best friend, but for many of my students, this is what friend means on its own. That seems to leave undefined a large number of people who impact our lives.

Best Friend?

Many people like to talk about having “best friends,” but the use of the term can create problems. When you announce that one or two people are your best friends, you eliminate from that category others who might be close and who might consider themselves to be among your closest friends. They can be hurt to learn that they are not as high in your estimation as they had thought.

And it can be awkward when you tell someone that he or she is your best friend, only to discover that the feeling is not completely mutual. It’s almost as bad as when you tell a girl (or a guy, if you are a girl) that you love her, only to see that uncomfortable, “I don’t know what to say” look in her eyes. When you’ve gotten up the courage to say those three little words, only to realize that they are less than welcome, well… it sort of makes you want to crawl off and hide under a rock for a millennium or two.

The Effect of Social Networking

The meaning of the word friend has been further diluted by its use in social networking. A person might have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook or similar sites, but how many of them would he or she call friends in real life? And how many social networking “friends” are just friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends? How many are just people trying to expand their contact network for marketing or other promotional purposes? A lot!

Nothing has cheapened the value of the word friend more than social networking sites. They should be called “contacts” or something like that… not “friends.” Friendship can only be assessed in the real world; what transpires online is “virtual,” which by definition is something falsely fabricated in a realm that doesn’t really exist.

Friendship over Time and Distance

Often in our lives, a person who was very close at one point moves out of your life. For a time, you do and share everything together, and it’s a true friendship. But then perhaps one of you moves away (distance). You try to keep in touch (and the Internet does help with that), but the distance changes things over time. You just cease being such integral parts of each other’s lives; other people enter and take up the time and closeness that the first person had. Things change, life goes on.

Alternatively, you might drift apart over time not due to distance but due to changes in life circumstances. This often happens, for example, when one gets married and starts a family, while the other continues living the single life. The conditions of their lives just don’t match up so closely anymore. Work, relationships and other factors can have similar effects.

In these cases, one of two things can happen: the friendship can fizzle out more or less completely, or it can shift to a kind of relationship where time and distance don’t really diminish its deepness. In the second case, the two people might not see each other for years and perhaps rarely communicate, but when they do have a chance to meet and catch up, the time seems to have disappeared and they are able to pick up almost where they left off.

Clearly the first case was not meant to be a lasting friendship, while the second obviously is. I have had the first case, of course, as have we all. And I have very good examples of the second. There are several people in the USSA whom I have rarely seen during my seven or so years in Ukraine, and with whom I communicate only by occasional FB message, e-mail or phone call. But when I do return, we pick up almost as though no time has passed.

Another post I am working on concerns the idea of soul mates and soul friends. These are kindred souls who come into each others’ lives repeatedly over multiple incarnations, and, thus, the bond is unusually strong. Perhaps if the friendship sort of peters out over distance and time, it means the person was not one of those individuals you are close to in the spiritual realm. And if you are able to maintain contact and closeness for years, even without seeing each other, the person really is one of your soul friends. I’ll explore that idea more when I finally get that post finished.

Circles of Friendship

Getting back to the matter of definition, I have always seen friendship manifesting as a series of concentric circles. I am at the center, of course, because it is my personal universe of friendship, and the people in my life have places on various circles around my center. For them, they are in the center, and I am someplace on one of their circles. The number of circles a person might count out from the center depends entirely on how that person views the nature of his or her friendships. Here is how I see it.

The innermost circle is where the closest people reside. These are the people with whom, at the moment, I have the most in common, spend the most time, share my deepest thoughts and feelings, and trust the most. We have the most mutuality. Some might call such people best friends, but as I said earlier, I don’t like to use that term except very privately.

There are never many people on this circle – maybe two or three at most. Often there is only one. If you are in a relationship, your partner should be on that circle; if he or she is not, there is a problem. And it has been my experience that often there might really be no one occupying a place on that circle; sometimes we are just at such a point in life when no one is really that close.

I don’t think I have ever really had more than two people on this circle, and for most of my time in Ukraine, I’d have to say there has been either one or none. Presently, I'd have to say that I'm not sure whether there is anyone on that circle or not... which probably means not.

The next circle out is where most of the people we comfortably call “friends” exist. These are people we know pretty well; meet and spend time with at some level of frequency, either in a group or a twosome; share some experiences, thoughts and feelings; and generally feel pretty comfortable being around. They are not “everyday” parts of your life, but still quite regular.

The number of people on this circle depends really on the person at the center. For a very sociable person, there would be more than for someone who is more of an introvert. I suppose for me this circle averages around five or six people. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a bit less.

Outward from this circle is a third circle composed of people who are more than acquaintances, but not really friends in a true sense. Work colleagues and other semiregular associates usually exist here. You have some influence on each other’s lives, usually in some specific way, but it pretty much ends there.

For me, this is a large circle composed of students, teachers and others whom I have gotten to know, but don’t really interact with beyond the circumstances of our knowing each other.

People who are just acquaintances could make up yet a fourth circle before you get to the open space where all the other people in the world exist, the space filled with the faceless strangers who move all around us. It seems to me that there is a difference between acquaintances and the people who occupy that third circle. But I am sure that some people could see acquaintances as belonging to the third circle, while others might relegate acquaintances to the open space of strangers.

Moving Between Circles

And the circles are not static, they are dynamic. A person might move from one circle to another, either closer or more distant, depending on how things change between the two of you. Sometimes you might spend a little more time with a person from that second circle, and he or she moves to the inner circle. Or a person might move back because one of you moved or just stopped spending as much time together.

Anyway… that’s a capsule of one theory of friendship. There are others. And there are myriad other questions about friendship like, “What qualities make a friend?” “How long does it take before a person can be called a real friend?” or “How can two people (of opposite genders) comfortably make the leap from friendship to a full-blown relationship… or is it even possible?”

Probably it’s better not to think too much about the questions. Just enjoy having friends, and try to be the best friend to them that you can be.

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It's Getting Better (all the time)

OK… so my last post, Living in a Cage, was a little on the negative side. But that’s how I was feeling last week.

It’s a new week, and I’ve chosen to come back to the light.

I’ve documented on this blog my struggles with my weight and the pain in my back and hips. The weight has been a growing (pun intended) problem of poor choices, lack of discipline, living alone, sedentary work, Internet addiction and – to be honest – laziness. The back and hip pain, if not a direct result of the weight gain, have certainly been exacerbated by it.

Last year, I tried to summon up some discipline and put myself on a strict diet, which I wrote about in the post, Die-it! That lasted barely a month, and the failure just left me more embarrassed, defeated and believing that I couldn’t beat the problem.

In March of this year, I started going to a local gym. I started going with a friend on the idea that we would go together and encourage or push each other to do it a couple of times a week. I began with a flourish, but she quickly gave it up, and I got lax pretty quickly too. Another failure… more or less.

Finally – Success!

In May, however, I hit on something that has been a success and really helpful. I began going to a local clinic for spinal health. It’s called Espina. They offer medical consultation, physical therapy, massage and other techniques to help people with spine and joint problems. I go twice a week for physical therapy and massage, and next week I will add what they call “underwater traction” to the mix.

The results have been really quite good. It’s not apparent (yet) from my appearance or weight, but that’s a matter of finding that discipline to force myself into the kind of eating habits that – combined with the workouts – can melt off the kilos (or pounds). But the main things are that my back and hips are feeling better and that I feel stronger overall. The pain is not completely gone, but there is definite improvement!

The physical therapy is essentially a program of gym exercises with a trainer/therapist. My program focuses on muscles that support the back and hips. I do a lot of back work, both upper and lower, as well as a full regime of exercises for the hips, groin and legs. There is a bit of chest work thrown in as well.

I am working muscles I have almost never worked before. Interestingly, many of the exercises are things that we used to see girls do in my health-club weightlifting days, but “us guys” rarely did them. These are exercises for the inner and outer thighs, hips, butt and groin. And there is a big focus on abdominals. This is all stuff that I need.

Steadily, I’ve been getting stronger, even in my hamstrings, which were always a problem area for me. And I have begun to notice that, under the layer of “soft tissue” that I still carry, my arms and shoulders are getting harder – almost like the old days. That is a GREAT feeling!

My work schedule allows me to go only twice a week, but I’ve started doing the “warm-up” exercises at home every morning. I am trying to retrain myself to do this BEFORE I turn on the computer in the morning. I still have my gym membership, and I try to get there at least once a week to supplement the training at Espina. At the gym, I do some of the exercises from my physical therapy (or at least similar), but I also try to do more with my arms and chest.

And… I am cycling more!

But Still… the Hard Part

So, it’s getting better. The next step – and definitely the hardest – is to make the kind of real and lasting food-choice changes to supplement the physical stuff. This is incredibly difficult because I (my Self or my “soul mind”) am still locked in a battle with that “devil on my shoulder” (the “physical mind”) as I wrote about in the post, The Soul, the Mind and the Heart. This is absolutely the hardest part.

This is the part where a partner can really be helpful: someone who cares about you and can encourage and even push you, but out of love. It seems to me that when you have someone close who is “in your corner,” who you know wants the best for you, and who you CHOOSE to be responsible to, you have a powerful force for change.

You want to please that person, to make her (or him) proud of you, and you want it for the right reasons. If the relationship is right, you appreciate the other person’s concern and effort to help you, and through your own love, you want it to not be in vain. You want that partnership to really mean something.

Making a public declaration of “dieting” as I did last year is a loser; it has no real power. It’s too easy to listen to the physical mind saying, “Who cares what other people think?” And so you slide back into the bad habits. But when it’s someone you care about and who cares about you, when it’s personal and private, you don’t want to mess up. And best of all, you have someone to help you defeat that stupid, grinning devil on your shoulder.

Finding a Way

That all sounds nice and great. And I’m sure it would be. But my reality is that I am on my own in this. My message to myself has to be that if other people can do it without help, then I can too. I have made some changes, and I am seeing some real results. Now it’s time to build on those results and take the next step.

It’s the hardest thing, to be sure. But since this is a beautiful, sunny day, and I am writing this post in one sitting shortly after my Espina workout – and as I am choosing to be fully positive today – I believe that I can and will get on the right side of this thing.

Maybe I will still find some help along the way, but whether I do or not, ultimately it is up to me. And this is really how it is for all of us.

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Living in a Cage

For the past five or so days, I’ve been unusually cranky and irritable. Maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s just that I’ve not been sleeping well and have been really tired. Maybe it’s the frustration of not being able to get essential things done without help, or maybe it’s not having any hot water at home for 12 weeks (and counting). Maybe it’s stress: work stress, physical stress or stress of some other sort.

I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about this. It was Saturday, and I was physically and mentally exhausted, so I never left my apartment. Mostly, I slept – something I clearly needed. But I also tried to do some writing, and I did a lot of thinking.

The Realization

Repeatedly while I was trying to think, I found my contemplation interrupted by a variety of distractions. Someone’s stupid yappy dog was “yapping” outside (as they often do), and shortly after that, a car alarm went off (as they often do). Then there was the sound of voices outside my window: people sitting, talking and laughing on the bench outside the entrance to my building. At least they weren’t drunk – that would come later.

A number of times, the metallic door at the building entrance was slammed shut, and there was the sound of footsteps up and down the staircase. And of course there was the ever-present sound of cars on the main street: the simple whoosh of cars going by, honking horns, loud and irregular engines, and the unmistakable screech of bad brakes on marshrutkas (buses).

These are the sounds of life in a city, the sounds you have to expect with people all around you. And that is the problem, or at least part of the problem: I was not made to live in a city.

I got to thinking about a post I wrote almost exactly a year ago entitled, Just a Fond Memory, in which I compared my Kharkiv environment to the life I used to have in the Colorado mountains. Reading the post, I realized what has been eating me; it’s something I’ve realized before: living in Kharkiv sometimes makes me feel like I’m stuck in a cage… or a prison.

I’ve always been a pretty adaptable person. This is why living in a different culture is not really much of a problem for me. Whether in Japan, Peru or Ukraine, my fascination with the differences in culture and people, and recognition that we have more in common than not, has always more than compensated for any cultural discomfort.

So it’s not about living in a foreign country. For me, that’s a piece of cake. But living continuously – with no break – in a foreign environment… that’s the problem.

A Country Boy Out of His Element

For me, a city is a foreign environment. If I was stuck in Chicago, Boston, Paris or any other big, noisy city, I know I would feel pretty much the same. It’s only slightly worse here in Kharkiv, which is probably a little more intrusive on a person’s peace than most North American or Western European cities (though, I’m sure, far less than places in many other parts of the world). I'm sure I would completely lose it if I had to live in some pit of swarming humanity like New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City or anyplace in China or India.

I’m a country boy. I’ve loved the natural peace and quiet of the Colorado mountains and forests since I first met them. And I’ve found similar comfort in wild, natural places like the coast and forests of Maine, the Monterey Peninsula and the hills of Arroyo Seca, the Peruvian Andes, and any number of secluded forests, shorelines, plains and pastures I’ve discovered in my travels.

My soul craves the peace and quiet of the natural world, especially a mountain forest of pines and aspens. There is an energy in it that recharges me, lifts my spirit, and renews my sense of purpose. It helps me maintain some sense of equilibrium and not lose my sanity in a hectic, overpopulated and often insane world.

I need it!

But in Kharkiv, I don’t get it – not ever. The city parks are always crowded with people who never seem to pay attention to where they are going. And what passes for “nature parks” in Kharkiv are also too crowded or trashed to feel like you are in a truly natural environment. 

I occasionally go bicycling in what’s called the “forest park” near my home, and it’s impossible to really feel like you have “gotten away from it all” when you see bottles on the ground, pass by so many other people and often still hear the sounds of cars from nearby roads.

There may be some forests and other natural places outside of the city, but I haven’t seen them. Having no personal transportation, it’s nearly impossible. Four or five years ago, I went on an excursion to a place outside of the city that was sort of a botanic garden, but there were a lot of other people there too. It just wasn’t the same.

The Transportation Quandry

I guess the culprit is lack of personal transportation. I don’t have a car and don’t drive here. I am limited to the places I can go on foot, on bike or by bus, subway or taxi. And that is a huge limitation! My world here consists of the same streets, the same stores and cafes, the same offices, the same places, the same sights and sounds – day after day. The overall square area of my regular travels is relatively small, but it wouldn’t matter much if I expanded to other parts of the city – it’s all about the same.

In the U.S., no matter where I lived, I could just jump into my truck and head off to the mountains or the shore. When I lived in the Denver metro area, I did that regularly. I went camping in the mountains often from spring to autumn. And when I lived in Massachusetts for a couple of years, I did the same: up to Maine or out on Cape Cod. It was important to put the crowds, traffic and noise behind me and spend at least a few days with nature.

That kind of escape was like a release valve to vent off the stress of work and everyday life. It was essential. When I moved to the mountains, it was even better because I spent most of my time in nature, only venturing into the city frenzy to work, shop and a few other things.

To be honest, during that time, the scale sometimes tipped a bit out of balance toward being a bit too alone, and I have written about the problems of living alone in the post, Living Alone. But overall it was far better than feeling constantly surrounded by madness.

I haven’t been out of my Kharkiv cage since I returned from 10 days in Switzerland in early May. It’s not as much of an issue in winter, but in good weather, the need to get away becomes like an irresistible pull on the soul, like gravity, a bird’s urge to migrate, or the need to breathe. The longer I feel cooped up here, the worse it gets.

This year, I thought I might have some opportunities to get away, but it hasn’t happened, and it’s apparent now that it’s not going to. I am going to have to just find a way to deal with it for another month until I leave Ukraine for a periodic visit to… Colorado.

Relief is Coming

If I can survive the next four weeks, I’ll jet off to the USSA, where I’ll have an opportunity to really get away from it all in the Colorado mountains. To make it even better, we’re going to have a family getaway to Steamboat Springs, a beautiful resort town in the rugged mountains of north-central Colorado.

I’ll be out of my cage and free to roam the mountains, as a mountain lion spirit should. That will be a sorely needed salve for what has been ailing me, and I plan to take full advantage of it. Hopefully it will be enough to carry me through the fall and winter back in the confines of Kharkiv.

But after that, I think something will have to change. Either I’ll have to find a way to be more mobile and independent in Kharkiv, or else I’ll have to make a move. I know that I won’t be able to stand another summer in a cage.

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