Don’t look back.
A little over a year ago the thirteen of us Greek ETA
Fulbrighters who were making our adventures and lives over in Athens received
an email. The email asked each of us to make our decision about whether or not
we intended or were interested in continuing the adventure for another year. If
so, we were to submit a letter of intent to our supervisor. If not, we should
leave the email be.
We had until February 19th to decide.
At the time of the email, I was in a good place. I was in
the budding stages of a new and exciting and ultimately wonderful relationship
(well, if I am to practice the vocabulary I am teaching my fourth graders, I should
say rather that we were in the "formative" days of our relationship ;) ). I was very
much in favor of not making plans, not jumping ahead in my mind to where we
might be even a week from that moment. I wanted to just enjoy each moment, take
it as it happened (or didn’t), and see where things led. We weren’t in a place
where it made sense to let our relationship status influence such a
life-changing decision. And even if we were a few months ahead along our path,
I still wouldn’t have wanted that to be the deciding factor. I needed (still
need) to make some decisions for me.
I was also in serious need of some sunshine. Long days of
work and sparse chances to soak up some sun and extra rest left me feeling a
little disenchanted with the whole teaching assistant gig. Things at school
were busy. Tough. Later in the year, I would think that they had gotten
remarkably better. Later in the year, I was in a place where I could have seen
continuing. But in February… Entaksi, in February, I wasn’t there.
There was also a voice in my head telling me “Come on
already. Get a move on. You have loans to pay, things to do, other places to
see. You wanted to be a teacher. Go. Teach. Enter the “real world” already,
will ya.” This was the same voice pushing me to go update my WECAN account and
resume, although I was resisting with almost every other fiber of my being, trying not to
think about next year...
I had three voices (voices I hold very dear and whose
opinions I count on) telling me they missed me. Telling me that I could “like
Greece” but that I “better not stay another year”. It wasn’t necessarily a comfortable
conversation the first time I mentioned the possibility of teaching a year in
Greece. I wasn’t looking forward to having a similar conversation about
negotiating another year abroad. So I avoided it. No one else’s fault or
decision but mine. I just did.
I was afraid. I’d been nervous about forming friendships the
first go around—that age old self-consciousness and fear about “fitting in” just
wouldn’t go away. I felt very fortunate with the relationships I’d formed that
year, the group we’d created, the people who’d helped to make a home away from home.
I feared I would be pressing my luck to try my odds at another year with
a new group of people.
Moreover, I firmly believe this was the adventure and opportunity of a
lifetime. And I also believed it was time to let someone else make theirs in Greece.
I still believe it. I hope the person who now calls that second floor room with
flimsy screens their sanctuary and the person who works with the little bunch
of third and fourth graders on little readers around that small circle table is
loving every minute of their adventure (er, well, almost every minute. If we are honest, not every
moment of even the best adventures can be all rainbows and butterflies…).
Thus I made my decision.
And I also heard echoing in my mind the words of my college professor and
advisor advising me my sophomore year about whether or not I should pursue a
degree path that was “practical” or one that would let me learn for the sake of
learning… She told me, whatever my decision : “Make it. And then don’t look
back. You could spend the rest of your life second guessing it if you let
yourself look back.” As a sophomore going on junior, I made the decision that I
believe paved a significant stone on the path that led me to Greece. I didn’t
look back. I don’t regret that decision for even a second.
I held those words in my mind. I hear them in my mind again.
I’ve heard them a thousand times in the last year.
I made my decision in good conscience and I told myself not
to look back.
I still believe and know I made that decision soundly and
rightly.
But I also can’t help but look back. I’m looking back. And
as I type these words now I have in my mind the image of Donkey above the
boiling lava screaming “Shrek! I’m looking down!”…
We all know we shouldn’t look down, shouldn’t look back…
Shouldn’t check the price of plane tickets after you buy them or search the ads
for a deal on that device you finally bought last week after weeks of research and consideration.
We all know that.
And yet...
And yet we are all, always (or at least often) in the same position as
Donkey – if not literally over the fire, at least in our own minds stuck on a
rickety bridge…
~
Can I be honest with you? I’ve struggled with my transition
coming back, coming home. I’m grieving the ending of a chapter I wasn’t ready
to close. I started to feel the impending loss even before I left. I started to
look back.
Can I be honest with you again? I’m still struggling.
Since July, I have been living simultaneously two realities.
The one I actually have now and the one I would have had had I decided to stay
and sent an email before February 19th 2016.
I am allowing to reside in my thoughts the possibility of at
least half a dozen different futures, and at any given moment, they all make
sense, all are good.
I can see being a teacher in the same district for the next
30 years. Having a family in a two story house in Wisconsin that we make our
own, remodeling and painting and loving and living in a way similar to the way I grew up.
I can see traveling the whole world. Teaching here and there. Going into
missions maybe. or something else.
I can see pursuing my own education further—to a masters, maybe even beyond.
I can see returning to Greece. Making it more decisively my home.
I can see writing and wandering and seeing just how far these winged words can lead.
I can see something totally different.
Maybe something I can’t even fathom. (likely, this is what will ultimately happen.
Doesn’t it always seem to tend that way? Your life turns out different – and
usually better – than you ever anticipated. That’s what’s happened in my life
so far. That’s what happened with Greece. That’s what I’m trusting is happening
now, even though I can’t quite feel it, am not able to fully embrace it...
yet.)
But I don’t know. I don’t know what the future holds. Even
tomorrow.
I find myself again in this place of not knowing where I will be in a year,
what zip code, which side of the ocean. I don’t know what I’ll do, what
curveballs life will throw my way…
I’m trying to trust it will work out as it will, as it
should. I know it will. I’ll say it and write it until I feel it.
And now, even saying all of this, can I tell you, too, that
there are some definite positives that show me that I am here, where I am right
now, for a reason? That make me glad for the path my life has followed these
last 7 months. I can list them : an
awesome school, supportive colleagues who are also just wonderful people, energetic
and challenging (in mostly good ways) kids. The chance to see the full measure
of what it means to be a teacher. The chance to prove to myself that I have
what it takes. The chance to be with my family. Space to think and process even
as we go. The time and discipline to make my yoga practice my own. The distance
that somehow allowed us to grow closer, hearts grow fonder. The opportunity to
share my home with someone I love—the chance to realize just how much I love
him. The courage to go and try that place downtown I’d always heard was good
but had never managed to go to. The time on Saturdays and Sundays to come to
that same place, a favorite now, and sit and sip a coffee. The chance to sit
here now and do so many things : share a meal and conversation with my father,
journal about things left on the backburner too long, have a virtual conversation
with someone dear, and now… now the space and time to reflect on this day and
what it means even now, a year later. The chance to write through it…
The compassion to accept these two seemingly opposite
sentiments in the same breath. I can be here and also miss there.
I can miss there and also be here.
I can wonder what I’d be doing there while also being
thankful for what I’m doing here.
I can do both, feel both, want both, be both.
I know, because that’s how it’s been for me for the last 7
months.
Huh, another significant mark of today. Officially 7 months
separate me from that season.
~
It’s not always easy, but it’s easier. I am still growing
and learning. I will be always. And that’s okay.
I heard on a podcast back in August or September the mantra
: “This is where I am right now”. I clung to it, stuck it in my back pocket to
use on a rainy day (well, actually, to use every day). I realized once that it
mirrors pretty closely something I would write and say to myself a lot last
year : “So, where am I right now?”.
So, what else can I tell you? This is a transition. For
everything there is a season.
I wake up every morning and try to walk my path and own my steps. I try to show
up and try. Give my best. That’s all any
of us can do. I do yoga and tell myself almost everyday “I am perfect exactly
as I am. I am exactly where I need to be”....
(I’m still trying to believe that…)
I know and can point to the steps along the path that led me
exactly where I needed to be. I can accept that they’ve led me here, too. And I
will trust that they will keep leading me where I need to be. I have faith they
will. I have faith.
Ti allo?
This is where I am right now.
