A Getaway, A Refusal, The Present, And Happiness

Hey everyone!

Well, around the time of that last post back at the beginning of the month I decided I just needed to go somewhere to get a bit of that wanderlust out of my system. On a whim I called up my best friend Gabriel and asked him if he felt like road tripping it to Nashville with me. He said he was absolutely down, so the next step was to call my lovely step-sister Jessi and ask if we could crash on her floor for a couple of days. One week later Gabe and I were rolling down the river road, following the Mississippi, windows down and hearts full of music.

It felt great to get back on the road again, and I enjoyed every minute of our trip down there and back almost as much as I enjoyed actually experiencing Nashville. On the way down we camped in Hannibal, Missouri, which is Mark Twain's home town, and I got a chance to geek out about seeing places like Jackson's Island that I've been dreaming about since I was about seven years old. Huck Finn IS my second favorite book, after all, trumped only by Peter Pan. Gabe didn't really understand my excitement, but he played along when we found Tom Sawyer's fence, which stands next to Twain's boyhood home.

Anyway, Nashville was great, and we spend the time there hearing as much music as possible. We checked out famous guitars stores, spent WAY too much money at the record stores, heard live music at a couple of different places, ate grits and drank sweet tea, toured Andrew Jackson's plantation, and spent a little time with Jessi and her husband Chris, which I was really glad about since I wasn't able to go to their wedding (because of being halfway around the world, ya know). And I got to feel like I was getting in touch with my Southern roots, even though my family's from South Carolina. All in all, a very successful adventure.

Then, back to Northfield, where I reveled in my new vinyl collection and got back into the swing of desk work. Still not my favorite thing. But at least, I thought to myself, I have a chance at getting the Americorps job I went out for in June.

So this job (I'm not sure if I'm mentioned it before) is to help teaching and tutoring in the elementary schools in Northfield, and it included such benefits as, you know, paying, and giving experience, and putting one's loans on hold. A good deal, really. Interviews were in June, but with the government shutdown they weren't able to confirm anything until just this week, and it turns out that even though the program was promised funding for ten different positions in the school district, they were only given enough for three in the end.

And the long and short of it is that today I found out I didn't get one of those positions. This bummed me out quite a bit at first, as it was the only solid lead I've had on ANYTHING in what seems like ages. Jobs are hard to come by when you don't want to flip burgers or work at Target. But I'm choosing to look at this as just another shove along my path. Clearly this job wasn't something I was meant for, but I did my best, and now I'm moving on.

Moving on to what, I'm not sure, but I'll get there.

And in the meantime I've thrown all extra energy into getting in shape. I've been doing it in sort of a leisurely way up until two weeks before I left for Nashville when I got a pass up at the Lakeville Lifetime Fitness and got serious. I've been building and building and making progress, and at this point I'm running four miles every other day with 15 minutes of strength training, and on days when I'm not doing that I do 30 minutes of crosstraining/conditioning and run a mile and a half. I allow myself one day off per week for that day when I just have no motivation whatsoever. Other than that, I lace up and go out whether I feel like it or not.

And I can feel the changes already. Not in numbers on a scale (those things are freakin' stubborn!) but in the way I walk, in the strength and confidence I have, in my optimism, and in the way I treat myself.

So things are good, even though they're not the way I would have planned them. I read something the other day that really sums up how I'm feeling about Right Now:

"I'm clearing my heart of ghosts lately; I think I need room for something else. I don't know what it is yet, but it's going to be unfathomably beautiful. I wake up every morning and smile because I know I'll get to see it. It's going to be that beautiful."

Wanderlust/Frustration

I’ve got the itch again. I have to get out of here. Every time I leave, I see the things that I miss, and I come home, vowing to remember that all the things I need I already have. Flash forward four to six months and I’m packing my bags in a cold sweat, filling up the tank or standing in line at customs, because as long as I keep moving I’m in the current with time and I can quantify my achievements each day in miles traveled or countries crossed off my bucket list. When people ask “what have you been doing since graduation?” I can tell them I’ve lived in other places, seen things most people dream of seeing, done things most people don’t end up doing, and I feel like I can be proud of that.

But inevitably I get footsore and stumble back into my small town, grateful for the lilac smell in the spring, the days in the river in summer, the crispness of the air in fall, or the snow at Christmas. But being here means standing still. It means looking at what people have accomplished while I’ve been gone, and seeing their hard-won stability next to my head-strong resistance to monotony. My heart is equal parts lust for change and love for consistency.

I forget who said it, Emerson, possibly, or C.S. Lewis; that humans require a consistency in life in order to not be overwhelmed by the universe and go completely insane, but we also abhor boredom, and so we require change to stimulate our minds. Luckily, be it by divine providence or only by chance, we have the seasons. We know more or less what to expect depending on the month, and are comforted by that knowledge, but we also welcome spring each year with as much joy as if we hadn’t seen it before. Perfection.

And these are my seasons; leave, remember, return, ache.

Ache for a plan, a purpose, a reason to do this over that. Ache for the road, until I find these things. I leave with open eyes and hope of finding them, end up miles away wondering if I just forgot to pack them and become convinced they’re sitting on my bed at home, waiting for me. Only to return to find that they’ve left minutes before my reentry. It’s the least Zen thing about me, this always running off to catch something that feels just out of reach.

But what else can I do?

Really, Alison, what else can you do?

I could sit on my hands and ignore my wanderlust. Keep working this job, get another one to pick up the slack time and make some more money. Make enough to move permanently out of my parent’s house and into a place of my own. Hope that time will reveal this purpose I swear I must have. But the meantime is lonely; the way things are now, I spend a lot of time by myself.

I could go to graduate school, but to study what? Things that truly interest me, like classics or composition? Or something that may help me get a less boring job, like journalism or wildlife management? (The fact that those two possibilities seem leagues apart highlights my general indecision.) In the end, though, there’s no guarantee of a job, but there would certainly be more debt. And this would be my way of postponing making a decision. Only a placeholder in time.

Or I could take that road again. Without a plan, without enough money to last me any great length of time. I got good at trusting to faith and luck while I was away last time, and even though I missed a few meals I was never without a bed and some interesting new people.

All I know is that time is moving, and I’m standing in the middle of the stream feeling it wash past me, taking seconds of my life away with every ripple and splash of the current. Either I will be washed away somewhere with it, or I will charge upstream until I exhaust myself. But I can’t stand anymore.