I really ought to be reading a
book. Specifically, I need to be reading the first hundred pages of Manuel
Castell’s book Networks of Outrage and
Hope. I’ve finished and turned in my thesis, so for the next four weeks, my
focus needs to be on securing A-s in two of my three classes so as not to
jeopardize the summa cum laude distinction I’ve been chasing somewhat
aggressively for a year and a half now. But instead I’m sitting on the porch of
my apartment which I share with my best friend while a thunderstorm begins what
it’s been threatening to do for most of the afternoon. Namely, drizzle a bit,
make a great deal of noise, and then go on its merry way until tomorrow
afternoon when we’ll be accosted by another storm that’ll make more noise than
actual fuss. Even though my lap top screen is suffering the occasional speckle
of moisture under our awning and the street is already black instead of the
normal muted grey, I can already see the edge of the clouds off at the horizon,
pinching the setting sun between themselves and the mountains. Of course,
having grown up here and lived here for all but 12 months of my life (9 in
Spokane, 3 in Prague), I know that what I’m seeing isn’t the mountains, but
rather the foothills. I can see the mountains from my balcony on a clear day,
but the clouds being what they are and the sun being where it is, only the
foothills are in sight.
And while I’m sitting here, four
pages into what is going to be a very dull night, I’m waxing pensive. As I do,
when I’m procrastinating something. Specifically my decision to move after I go
abroad. It’s a decision I made a while ago, and it’s gotten quite a bit of
couch time during my various forms of formal and informal therapy, but I
haven’t really ever sat down and written much about it. I don’t know why that
is, though that’s another subject to bring up next time I have a table full of
friends drinking my tea and telling me exactly why I need to stop worrying. I
want to talk about it now, I think, because I’ve finally made up my mind about
it.
We might as well start at the
beginning. I don’t know if you could say I lived in Prague because I didn’t
really do any of the things that really make up the mundane and simultaneously
frightening things that constitute being an independent adult, like paying
rent, or getting a job, or really dealing with the consequences of any of my
actions. I don’t want to invalidate the experience at all, but the Cydney who
spent time there was not the Cydney who’d spent 21 years prior trying to become
an adult. It was definitely a childish experience, and I don’t mean with any of
the negative connotations. But I want to emphasize that because it basically
rebooted my system far back enough that I was able to take a good hard look at
who I was, and which changes I really wanted to make. I think I’m still kind of
doing that, even now. But I decided at the end of my first month there that
instead of getting a real job, I would come back and teach English. How much of
that was influenced by having a local paramour is a matter of debate. On the
surface, at least, the decision survived two break-ups while there, and a third
once home.
During the month of January,
returning to Prague was something of a Holy Grail/Sorcerer’s Stone panacea I
was grasping towards to keep the paramour’s attention. “Just six months, baby,
it’s not that bad.” I could say all sorts of things about him and why the
relationship faded almost the instant I left the country, but I’ll leave that
for a different discussion. Suffice to say, it didn’t work, and most of
February I put the decision on the back burner, explaining “That’s hardly a
choice I can make now. I’ll wait till I’ve calmed down and my head’s cleared.”
March it felt like that had mostly happened, and halfway through the month I
sent in a deposit to secure my place at a language school in Prague to get my
TEFL after graduation. It didn’t feel like a decision, though. I guess part of
that is how I mentally conceptualize decisions. A decision is something I put a
lot of thought into, and takes will power, and if I’ve made the right one, I’ll
be excited about it. This didn’t feel like that. It felt like I’d taken the
easiest option, the one offered to me with the fewest obstacles and the least
amount of opposition from anyone around me. And as anyone close to me will tell
you, if someone tells me which decision I ought to make, I will 9 times out of
10 take the opposite choice. I just don’t like being told what to do. And I
wasn’t excited.
Most of April I spent trying – and
failing – not to think about it. How unsure I was that this was the right call.
And terror that I might be making it for the wrong reasons. My mother is still
convinced that I’m returning to Prague in an attempt to recapture something
that’s gone. She specifically means the relationship. I think it’s more than
that. Something happened in Prague, that system reboot I mentioned, and 3.5
months wasn’t enough time for it to finish. I’ve had a sensation (that’s mostly
gone by now) that something started in Prague that was put on hold when I got
home, and I needed to restart it, let it finish. Maybe the feeling’s gone
because the statute of limitations has worn out and I’ve lost my momentum.
Maybe I accidentally finished it here. But I know I can’t recreate the
experience the first time around, for a handful of reasons. The two best
friends I met there won’t be returning, they’ll be finishing school, so there
won’t be long walks discussing everything from porn to politics or tea in a
basement apartment at the top of Wenceslas. I’ll have to get a job, and deal
with those terrifying little adult things like rent and taxes, and the first
time I get sick, no one’s going to take me to the doctor and then show up with
soup and antibiotics. But most importantly, I’ve finally reached the point where
my bluster about not wanting anything to do with the former paramour has
stopped being bluster. It was a very important step for me, but I realized that
instead of “I want you in my life and can’t have you,” it’s become “I can have
you in my life, and don’t want you.” And that’s big for me. It means any
residual control he had over my thought process and decision making is gone.
It’s relieving.
But now, the month of May, two
months before I go, one month before I graduate, I’m finding a new thing needs
to be grappled with. All the reasons I had for going – relationship, it’s easy,
finishing something, reclamation – are all sounding hollow. I’ve been accused
of ruling by committee, not trusting myself enough to make my own decisions. I
choose to look at the panicked mass texts I send out to the (astoundingly
large) circle of friends who mostly act as bar stool therapists as crowd
sourcing. Everyone always comes back with a different iteration of the same
answer. “You can do it because______” Someone observed, though, that my terror
at the little things really just is me shooting holes in my own boat before it
leaves harbor. And I think she’s right.
So after long deliberation, I have
come up with this. I am going to write it on the inside of my eyelids if I have
to, so I remember this moment sitting on my porch in the rain, which is
profoundly reminiscent of the first time I sat down and wrote a blog post in
Prague. I described myself then as a “young lady of mostly sound mind and
healing heart in a foreign city.” Now, I think I’m a young lady of debatable
sanity, healed heart, and tenacious soul about to leave on a grand adventure.
I’m leaving the city where I am most comfortable, safest, with easy access to a
miraculously large group of infinitely loving people who care about my well
being to go have an adventure whose only goal will be to see how far I get.
That’s all. I’m going to go have an adventure and see how far I get. I can’t
fail with that goal, so it’s not scary any more. And for the first time since I
sent my deposit in, I am genuinely excited.
So very excited.
