Hanoi: Day 8

The Temple of Literature is a centuries-old botanic garden and temple complex dedicated to the exaltation of Confucian ideals and learning. It has several pool-embellished, garden courtyards, and ornate pagodas, leading to a shrine at the back of the complex. I was enjoying my time in the historic temple, but Aaron seemed listless. He kept resting his head on his hands next to ponds, sighing, and putting on a general air of melancholy. My heart broke for him. 

While I don’t really understand what it’s like to be hypomanic (seems a lot like having 5 cups of coffee, but without the jitteriness), I am all too familiar with depression. If you’re not, let me explain: it feels 1) like all is boring, useless, meaningless crap including yourself and everything you usually love, 2) like happiness is a lie we tell ourselves, and really this is how it is, how it always has been, and how it always will be. It’s pretty insidious. It changes your perceptions of the world, your image of yourself, and even your understanding of the depression itself. Most people think of it as being very sad, but sadness is at least an emotion. Sadness stabs, stings, and wrenches. It makes you feel, so it makes you feel alive. Depression is just a gray wall between you and life. 

So, when Aaron goes through it, I know all too well what he’s going through. As I said, my heart breaks for him. I also know that it’s not really helpful to try to cheer him up or do something fun; these methods often just make depression worse. It’s not an absence of happiness– it’s an inability to feel. Knowing that you should be happy, given the circumstances, just makes you that much more aware of how incapable you are of being happy at the time. The best thing for depression, usually, is just basic self-care. Get enough sleep, go for a run, shower, eat healthy, take your meds, and give it time. If you’ve found an approach that works for you, eventually your brain chemicals will balance out and you’ll be back in the land of the living.

I told Aaron to let me know if I could do anything, then gave him space. I knew no matter where we went or what we did today, it wasn’t going to hold a lot of meaning for him. The worst thing I could do for him would be to try to force him to enjoy himself. So, I walked through the gardens mostly alone, and let him wander where he liked. I took photos and bathed in the many pagodas’ pulchritude and peace. 

After, I found Aaron. He seemed miserable. “I think I’m just going to go get our binoculars back from Ethnic Travel [we accidentally left them in the van] and rest at the hostel. Nothing is going to do anything for me today,” he said. I agreed, and told him he could go pick out a backpack, too. This backpack conversation had a history. I thought, by telling him he could pick one out, I was throwing him a bone, but there were a lot of sensitivities around this backpack on both sides. A couple of days earlier, we had decided that we should get another backpack, so we’d have room to put gifts we wanted to buy or anything extra we figured out we needed. Aaron wanted a certain kind of backpack, I wanted a certain different kind of backpack, and we had quarreled a few times about this already. So now, in the Temple of Literature, we quarreled again– over a backpack. We did not part ways on good terms.

The rest of the afternoon was spent fighting over text, descending into pettier and more emotionally-driven responses. I went to the Vietnamese Women’s Museum, which was fascinating, but I was extremely distracted the whole time. I kept having to find benches to sit on so I could craft the perfect retort to Aaron’s last message. It was turning ugly, too. Both of us had crossed the threshold of self-righteousness. The whole thing was about something bigger and extremely important. We were in that space where you start thinking things like “I’m not gonna let them make this about them,” and “if they don’t even care about this, why should I care about that?” You know, those really irrational thoughts your angry mind tells you to hold on to with all you’ve got. Finally, we decided to meet in person and figure out what to do from there. 

I stopped on the way back to the hostel to get Aaron an Auntie Anne’s pretzel. He had been eyeing it for a couple of days, so I thought it might serve as an olive branch. It did the trick. Sort of. I mean, there was also a lot of apologizing on both sides and working through feelings and mending hurt, but it was probably the pretzel. A fight started by a backpack ended by a pretzel. We stayed in, ordered in Poke Hanoi savory salmon bowls, and binged Rick and Morty until we both felt a little better. 

This was our last night in Hanoi (sort of; technically, we were spending one more night here before our flight to Da Nang, but that was probably just going to be sleep and getting to the airport). It was fitting. We started our trip to Hanoi frightened and we were leaving it grumpy. Both of these are emotions this city frequently invokes. But, we also started it surprised and relieved, and were ending it growing as people. These states, too, are frequent invocations of this city. This city is challenging. It’s crowded, loud, busy, and not particularly pretty. It’s uncomfortable. But so is growth. So is challenge. Do I want to come back to Hanoi anytime soon? Probably not. But am I glad I came? Yes. I came, I saw, I was conquered by its congested concrete. And in the end, I’m sure a lesson was learned– even if I haven’t figured out what it was yet.