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Whoops, I Lost My identity

08/16/2018 by John 4 Comments

Mary got to bring a big part of her identity with her to New Zealand. I had to leave a large portion of mine behind. This is having more of an effect on me than I thought it would. Or maybe, I never thought that much about it until we got here.

Without the connections I have back in the States, I knew that coming here meant that I would not be able to do the work that I was doing back home. What I did not realize was how deeply entrenched my sense of self was tied into working for Outward Bound and being a bicycle tour guide. Even though for years now I’ve felt that I wanted to move away from those things, I had no idea how much importance I had placed in them to help me define who I am. These roles I played provided me with a sense of self-worth. It’s easy to feel good about yourself when you can tell people you work for the North Carolina Outward Bound School and that you “help people discover more about themselves, others, and the world around them through challenging experiences in unfamiliar settings”.

I am stripped down and now wonder who I am supposed to be now that my costume is gone. I scan through the want ads, questioning what I see. Can I be a personal assistant? A baker? A deckhand for the ferry? How about a customer service representative, a university admissions counselor, or a real estate agent assistant? Could any of these things be me? I think I would like working with computers making beautiful web pages, but I look at the qualifications for those jobs and know that I would never be called for an interview. And after all the cups I have drunk, I don’t even have enough experience to make coffee in this caffeine-crazed town.

I know that a job is not all that defines a person. I call myself a runner, a writer, a husband, and a friend. These things are all well and good so why can’t I just be satisfied with that? Today, I’ll go to work taking orders and making tacos. There will be moments when I will enjoy it and there will be times when I will be wondering why I’m there. But underlying it all will be the question “is this it?” With nearly fifty years of life experience here I am working a barely more than minimum wage job.

I know I will reach the other side of this. I don’t know what I’ll find there or who I will be when I get there. That’s part of the adventure I guess. I know this is one of those times in life when growth will occur, perhaps even a metamorphosis. I am curious to see how it all turns out and what I will be doing a year from now. But in the meantime, the growing pains are difficult as I walk around this new world and wonder who I’m going to be.

There Is Only This Moment

08/09/2018 by John 1 Comment

This is not New Zealand. This is the Deschutes River in Oregon.

I was walking down the street on a summer day, with the heat of the sun radiating off the broken concrete street. I noticed the feel of my feet contacting the pavement and the waves of sensation created by that encounter radiating up through my body. I felt each breath of air entering and leaving my nostrils, and noticed that I was noticing these things. For a few minutes, possibly only seconds, I lived in the awareness that there is only this moment. All else past and future was only an illusion.

I had recently returned from a trip to the Pacific Northwest with friends and family. I was in the readjustment period following a nice vacation and the transition back into the routine of home. I was reminiscing about the trip, trying to make it real again when it hit me that it was truly over and could never be experienced again. I felt as if it had never really happened at all.

Of course, it had occurred. I had felt the cold waters of the Deschutes River as I drifted down it on my inflatable sleeping pad. I had kayaked Puget Sound, watching seals poke their heads out from the dark blue-grey waters to have a peek at us awkward skinny armed and big flippered creatures. But I knew that all that had passed. It was no more real any more than adventure I could conjurer in my imagination.

There is no sadness in this, only freedom. There is little value in revisiting the past other than to remember the lessons we learned and appreciate the opportunities we have experienced. It is so easy to become lost in our past, whether it be reliving good times or obsessing over the wrongs we feel have been perpetrated against us or the mistakes we have made. But this is a form of prison. We cannot change what has already occurred, only grow from it and move forward. We are the accumulation of our past experiences but we don’t get to decide which parts to embrace and which to ignore; we must embrace them all.

Realizing that the present is all we have provides us the freedom to do whatever we choose, unshackled by what has occurred before. We do not have to be what we have been. That person no longer exists. Each breath we take, each morsel of food we ingest, each thought we have and action we take changes us. We are never the same person we once were and this is a beautiful thing.

Based on a journal entry from 7.22.14

Anywhere is Everywhere

08/03/2018 by John 5 Comments

From the window of our apartment overlooking the hills and the sea, I can watch the planes take off from the airport and hear the deep rumble of their engines as they gain altitude. In the morning, before the sun has risen, I watch their flashing lights grow smaller and smaller as they climb into the still dark sky. In the evening, I marvel as the late afternoon sun lights them up like comets shooting upward from the earth. Some people would not want to live near an airport, but I find it to be a comfort.

After a month in New Zealand, the novelty is starting to wear off and the weight of the reality of life here is beginning to bear down on me. I am still intoxicated by the beauty of this country, the friendliness of its people, and the more relaxed way of life that seems to be a part of the culture here. But I don’t know anyone, and nobody knows me. I feel so far away from everyone and everything I’ve ever known.

But then I look up again from my loneliness and watch another plane climb into the sky and I know that everything is closer than it seems. All I have to do is walk down the road, pay my fare, and I can be anywhere I want to be. And then I remember that it is even simpler than that. If I close my eyes and listen to my heart, I know that I am never alone and that anywhere is everywhere.