Have I lost it?

Life can change in such sudden ways that it can be difficult to bear, happening so quickly and so drastically that it challenges our sense of control and reminds us just how little we have. 

In the last month, and particularly the last three weeks, my life has shifted around so much I can barely keep up:

First, I got the news that I was selected as an alternate for the Fulbright, which I decided to take for the sake of my sanity as meaning I didn't get it, which, a week later, was followed by being told that I had been chosen after all. Then my boyfriend and I broke up, and related to that incident, I lost my apartment. Not too much later, I decided to leave New York a month earlier than I had planned, and on the same day, my mom called to tell me that they had induced my step father into a coma. Next, I got my apartment back and my step father woke up. But he ended back in the intensive care unit a few days later. Today I learned that he will be going home under hospice care.

To be very plain: I feel like I'm going crazy right now. I feel absolutely crazy. Not in any big way. In little ways. In the words I hear myself use and what I talk about these days. In the little decisions I make: to eat that Snickers bar when I normally would say no, to have that extra drink after my friends say they're going homes, to not be able to sleep when it's time to turn out the light and then not be able to get up the next day to do some errand I thought was important. Afterward, I try to beat myself up over these things. I try to harangue and lecture myself: “Why can’t you get it together?? You’re doing well enough. You’re almost going along as if nothing’s wrong. Just keep going, keep living, and you’ll be fine. You’re so close to fine, why can’t you just be it?” And I stop almost before I’ve really begun, realizing it’s not worth the energy, realizing I don’t even really have the energy.

I know this sounds a bit morose, and I can tell you, it's definitely not enjoyable. But I'm getting through it. Things are going to get better. And I don’t mean this in the way people often tell themselves and each other. I know this for a fact. I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. Soon, I will be in a new land with so many people to meet and things to see and do. I'll be doing things I love for a livable wage for the first time ever in my life! For the first time ever, I won’t be working some sort of day job in order to do what I really care about. No proofreading financial documents, no waiting tables, no working retail.

Did you think I could resist?

Because, you see, you can’t decide to make a big change in your life without it having consequences. These decisions we make—to change a career, to move to another country, to leave behind everyone you know, to trade roots for wings—come in like wrecking balls. They smash everything to bits because things have to fall apart so they can be reshaped into something new. It entails pain. And confusion. And fear. These are the things that come when you let go of everything that came before. Being stripped of what you used to tell yourself who you are and having to see what is actually there. Who is Adam if he no longer lives in New York? Who is Adam if he actually enjoys his job? Who is Adam if he has to start all over again in a new place? And then do that over and over for the next couple years?  These questions have answers not in words but in movement, in action. It's time to be brave.

(Videos = hard)(Restarting blog = good)

So, welcome back for some of you, and welcome for the first time to others. As you may or may not remember, this blog used to be a chronicle of my six months studying abroad in Spain. It consisted mostly of videos I would make talking about my experiences and recording some things I would see around Madrid. I abandoned the blog before leaving Madrid because, well, as it turns out videos are really, really hard. Not just for me to conceptualize and execute but apparently also on my computer, which started emitting a sound that could be called nothing other than a death rattle and was destined to survive only about four more months.

Photo of me at work editing a video

Videos are also time consuming. It started to become obvious to me that all the time I spent compiling shots, editing them together, and rendering the video into formats that could be used by your average internet voyager, I could really be out making the most of the time abroad. I actually hated taking as many pictures and videos as I did back in Europe because I think they destroy the beauty of—hold on a second while a take a picture—What was I saying? Oh right, the beauty of the moment. But I desperately wanted to share everything with friends and family back home who I knew would never get the time or opportunity to leave the country. I think one of the biggest problems with the culture of the United States today is that no one is leaving it. I don't mean permanently, but the globalization of our planet is inescapable and it's much better having at least a vague idea of what's out there than growing to fear it as the unknown, a fear which others will often use to manipulate to their own ends. But I digress.

You, or we, should probably get used to that though. The whole digression thing. This unfortunately won't be the last time.

I'm writing this on a train. It's a pretty magical thing. Not only do all the workers seem like happy and pleasant people, you can look out the windows to see something interesting at any point, and I can only feel like this is a wonderful cosmic moment: to be writing about traveling while traveling, to be in motion while writing about being in motion.

See I did it again.

 In any case, I'm reviving this blog again because I found out (after a long and tortuous wait that I'll talk about next post) that I was selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant to Colombia. I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog about linguistics and multi-multiculturalism for some time, and this seemed like a good excuse to do it. I plan to be a bit nomadic for the next couple years (with any luck I'll be able to write some interesting stories about being in France, Japan, and hopefully back in Spain over the next couple years), so you can expect all sorts of global tidbits and misadventures. And though I may not be doing too much in the way of videos anymore, I do plan to write and add a few pictures to make up for whatever boring moments come along in a post because everyone likes pictures. 

Beautiful