I was in an airplane somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. My body and cell phone—both of them going off old information—told me it was one time and day, while the flight information screen in front of me told me a very different time and day.
Okay, I thought, Okay, I’m in a different place now.
A word akin to surrender—okay—kept popping into my mind. It did so in a lot of ways, and continues to in many others.
Birds sing sweet songs in celebration, buds bloom open and fresh green leaves make their way out into the unknown. Okay, it’s springtime here.
Nine p.m. fills my body with fatigue as my eyelids droop and my mental faculties recede. Okay, jetlag hits harder than I anticipated.
An email from my program director about a full-time job in the department I did my summer internship sends me into a frenzy. Should I drop it all and rush back into the arms of a city that never did hold me quite right? Okay, I’m questioning my choices and seeking security.
Okay, I’ll walk to the market and get some food. I’ll send out emails and drop-by backpacker communities and edge my way into a life here.
Okay, so I’m wondering just what it is I want to experience in the southern hemisphere. And I haven’t even looked at the stars yet.
“It is worse to stay where one does not belong at all than to wander about lost for a while and looking for the psychic and soulful kinship one requires.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés
I came across that quotation recently and immediately felt I could relate. Yet the thing is, I don’t feel lost. I never feel lost anymore because I feel at ease with who I am. Yet I still wander all over the place looking for something. I think it’s life experience I seek. Not in the same way I did in my early twenties when I felt more experience would mean I had more worth and value as a human. Now, I just want to experience life, and putting myself in new situations to challenge me is part of that.
Already I’m clear I want to engage in community, I want to engage in life and build hobbies and, as I’ve been telling dear friends who then respond with confusion, I want to make myself more interesting. Yes, I know I already am interesting, but I don’t feel very interested in life lately and I’d like to rectify that.
Also, I’m already being hard on myself for not “doing more,” for having stayed indoors on this rainy day and for not having been to downtown Auckland yet. *Sigh* Old habits die hard.
Ways to make life more interesting:
- Focus on community
- Learn about the constellations in the southern Hemisphere
- Learn to surf
Guenevere Neufeld 