Look back...

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 19^th 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 19^th 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.