Well it seems to be with me that changing plans is like changing
underwear, if you don’t do it often enough things can get messy.
Don’t worry, I’ve changed. Again.
When I started the summer I was going to hike the Colorado Trail and going
to visit China and then I was going to be in Durango again, working and living
and trying to figure things out. Then I wasn’t going to China anymore, I was
driving across Texas with my life in my car, headed home. Then I was on a plane
with my life in 3 bags flying south for Central America for…years? Now I’m in
Antigua, Guatemala, about to be flying to Costa Rica in two weeks and where
before I was going to start looking for a job straight away after TEFL school,
now I’m going home again. That’s right. I’ll be home for Christmas.
And then…?
Well I think I’ll go to Asia. South Korea maybe? It always happens
suddenly for me. For a week or two I know things are wrong and I don’t know how
to fix them, then suddenly one day I wake up, or someone says something or I
see something and in an instant I know…Oh,
this is what I’m supposed to do. All is right with the world once again, until
that plan runs its course and it’s time to change once again.
Asia. I thought I wanted to teach English in South/Central America…but
you have to try things out to know if they are right or not sometimes. I think
this plan has been great so far and I have learned a great deal from the path I’ve
come down so far. I wouldn’t trade this time here for anything, but now I know
I am supposed to be going somewhere else.
How do you know it’s right?
I don’t know. It’s like they say with love: you just know. I also imagine
it’s like those people who think they are fine but they visit the chiropractor anyway
because they think it might be cool, but when they leave they realize that so
many things are fixed that they never knew were wrong. It’s like you suddenly
feel reset, repaired, like all those things that you didn’t realize were
bothering you are solved.
Isn’t it scary? What about planning for the future?
Yeah, it’s scary changing plans so much, but it’s a pretty consistent
plan. I am trying to move in a general forward direction toward a general goal.
I just never know what all the near future holds so I keep having to adjust to
keep going in that forward direction. We have very little control over our
overall lives, so I just keep making the small decisions that take me from one
phase of life to the next and hope the rest falls into place as well. When it
doesn’t, I adjust. It’s scary, but it’s no more scary than I imagine getting
married is, or buying a house for the first time must be. They are all
decisions that propel us forward into who we are and who we will eventually be.
Isn’t it lonely?
Yes, right now moving so much is lonely. But that’s what the internet
is for: ) It’s also what social skills are for. I don’t have great ones, but I am
learning to use them more and more each day to talk to people that I probably
wouldn’t have talked to before. One day, after all this whirlwind is over, I
will have a job and live in one place for a year, maybe more and I will make
friends and make my friends come visit me and I will visit them too. One of my
dearest friends said to me today that home isn’t so much a matter of where you
are, but who you are with. Thank you. It’s true. And I think I have known it
all along. I may not be with my friends now for a long time, but I can look
forward to it and work toward a time in my life when I can see them again. In the
meantime, I can also work on developing new friendships and enriching the life
I am living now.
So that’s it. I’m still changing and taking each step as it comes my
way.
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