https://medium.com/hopes-and-dreams-for-our-future/how-i-currently-feel-in-istanbul-dca817d588cc

Deborah Kristina

Author of ‘A Girl All Alone Somewhere in the World’, ‘Confessions and Thoughts of a Girl in Turkey’, ‘From Just a Girl Grown Up in America’. (Amazon.com)

Oct 10

How I Currently Feel in Istanbul

A lot of places and things are usually beautiful on the surface but let’s keep in mind that there’s a possible glowering hardness underneath

Most days, I don’t want people to know me in Istanbul.

Istanbul is a nightmare.

I long to be at home to get away from this nightmare:

I no longer want people to ask me what my umbrella is for (even though, the first syllable of the word for umbrella in Turkish means ‘sun’ in old Turkish, modern Turks never give this a thought when they see me protect my skin with it; whereas, in China, where umbrellas are always used when the weather gets hot, the Chinese word for ‘umbrella’ in any dialect doesn’t have the word ‘sun’ in it).

I’m tired of losing students because they complain behind my back that I’m too hard to understand, and so when the students suddenly don’t come see me again, the management leaves me wondering until I find out indirectly that other teachers are teaching them instead. (I would like to say that I teach mostly IELTS and TOEFL prep classes; it’s fair for me to expect students to be at a level where they are ready to take on either one of these English proficiency exams as my lessons specifically detail strategies, not intermediate level English grammar. I could stop and go over grammar with them but I find it to be a waste of time in a class particularly meant to target IELTS and TOEFL test-taking strategies and exam practice.)

I’ve never been able to earn money to comfortably cover my part of the rent. There hasn’t been one day in Istanbul when I’ve felt free to spend my earnings without thinking about how much I may need for the next day.

I have yet to meet someone (out of the hundreds of students I’ve met) who has a wide and meaningful understanding of what silence means (and would be willing to sit silently with me for just five minutes).

I have also yet to meet a local whom I can converse with without my feeling angry inside about how the person can’t see my logic.

I’ve never met as many people within a small space of time that said they were coming for a lesson or a meeting at a certain time and not show up as I have experienced anywhere else so far (and they looked seriously in my eyes and said they were surely coming; I would even repeat myself at different times [sneakily and not], and they insisted that they were going to arrive and it turned out not to be that way when the time came).

Never in my life have I snuggled up with my stuffed koala and have needed so much reassurance from her that everything was going to be okay (I often have conversation with the koala in my head when I’m out in public. This is going a bit too far even for weird, odd me).

I long to launch a career. I am finally at a point when I would like to somehow ease into a 9–5 career with plus hours that I may need to finish a day’s work at home. So far, my plans and research aren’t working out like I would like. I feel like exploding from the excruciating unhappiness with my teaching job.

It’s become a habit for me to say that I’m becoming a worse person while living in Istanbul. I’ve even come to the conclusion that no one leaves a better person after living in Istanbul long-term. I feel that I was a nicer person before coming here. How nice I used to be has gradually chipped off and this side of me is still being chipped away. I want to be good, not bad.

I’ve never been practical for anyone to understand in general. I feel that I’m a walking abstract painting that only few people take an interest in understanding. This is fine. In Istanbul, though, being this way feels especially lonesome since I especially don’t resemble in any way how the locals collectively relate to each other.

I don’t feel inclined to be visible in Istanbul. It’s the only city that has brought my mother’s temperament out of me. I’ve screamed so many times that I’ve shaken from the anger. I’ve gotten angry in many China and Georgia (the country) but the way I’ve behaved in Istanbul almost shows itself to me as stress from trauma. The anger I expressed in China and Georgia were more from frustration or from thinking of the absurdity of a situation. (I feel that I have a part of my mother in me as well as my inner koala. The mother part of me is monstrous. I don’t want this part to grow so much or else there’s no taming it. Istanbul keeps bringing it out faster than I can keep it under control.)

I don’t want anyone in Istanbul to know me. I wish I could stay in my room all day like my stuffed koala. I actually don’t feel that anyone deserves to know me. I don’t have an interest in anyone in return.

There’s no way for me to live up to my full potential in Istanbul. I’m incompatible with the locals and vice versa.

I honestly feel, overall, that I’ve overstayed my sojourn in Istanbul. My mind is plagued by the feeling that no one welcomes me here (particularly since Turkey’s stance on the United States has become less positive nowadays and is likely to continue to deteriorate, and given that a lot of locals are unconditionally loyal to their government, this can clearly be observed from the attitude of the people); as of 11/10/2017 (October 10th, 2017)