Relapse

I thought I was getting over my Hawaii-hate.  It turns out that what I was feeling was something akin to what happens when people eat poisonous mushrooms:  you're horribly sick, then you get a little bit better, and then you get way worse, and then you die.*  I was in the "get a little better" stage, the phase in which one gets raised up very high solely to increase the force with which one hits the ground.  I have allowed myself to be a loner for the past few days, and it has given me time to enumerate my grievances.  Here are two:

• I am feel unattractive in Hawaii, both inherently- and relatively-speaking.  The humidity makes my skin break out and my hair look stupid, and the long hours and early-morning commutes to work give me stress lines and dark circles under my eyes.  Also, I am coming from Boston to Honolulu:  the 20th most attractive city in America to the 9th.  I was on the upper end of average-looking in Boston, what with my plethora of argyle sweaters, my assortment of quirky tights, and my hipster-librarian glasses, but I can't compete with these Hawaiian bronze goddesses; I literally pale in comparison.  Furthermore, I am much older than many of my friend-quaintances, and it shows:  I am an Ann Taylor in a room full of Abercrombies.  Finally, I have developed body-image issues, which is why I never put on a swimsuit which is why I am so pale.
• I don't fit.  I have friend-quaintances, and they're nice people, and some of them I really feel could become actual friends at some point, but as of right now, I feel very alone.  Not alone in the terribly-depressing sense (yet), but in the sense that I have nobody similar to me in age and life situation.  In Boston, everyone was about the same age and everyone was either a grad/professional student or a young professional.  Here, I kind of feel like I'm the only one (see above, re:  I'm old), and that's rough.  Therefore, I have no confidante, no bosom friend, nobody who will come over when I'm feeling very unspecifically sad and let me hug them for two whole minutes, or rather, nobody whom I trust enough to hug for two whole minutes.  On at least one occasion, I felt hopeful that maybe I had found someone like this, but on at least one occasion, it did not turn out well.  Hence the trust issues.

Maybe it's not Hawaii's fault.  Maybe I would feel this in any other place, but any other place isn't an ocean away and five hours behind anyone I would want to call.  Any other place isn't so foreign and hot and bright and crowded and difficult.  Living in Hawaii is difficult.  And looking back over the past six months (yes, it's been exactly six months to the day that I moved here), I can't say that it's gotten any less difficult.  

So that's that.

*This is one of the few things I remember from many semesters of being a TA for Molecular Biology at BYU.