Sunday, January 31, 2010

Homecoming and Humble Pie

I told myself that I would continue to write when I got back to America, even if I didn’t update the blog online. Of course I haven’t and I have totally felt the absence.

It has been stressful.

Exciting, but stressful.

My world could go in a million (very good) directions right now and that’s wonderful. These are the moments we pray for: opportunity-filled and limitless.

But what I actually pray for: easy decision-making. When it comes down to it, I don’t ask for opportunity. I have opportunity; I just need help taking advantage of it.

But these great moments of change and life are shadowed by other stresses, and so I haven’t really had the chance to sit and ponder my Moldovan experience. In fact, I find myself trying to avoid thinking about it – for reasons I’m still unsure of.

Perhaps I find it too difficult to focus on what “needs” to be done here when simultaneously thinking of what has already been done there?

I also find myself so overwhelmed with hypothetical situations, constantly reorganizing the matrix of possibilities in my mind. (It is this ever-changing matrix that normally helps keep me calm…it gives me faith that there are a million “right” ways for a situation to work out because everything else can shift accordingly. But here, where I was once again responsible to people...)

I had prepared myself mentally for a lot of the realities I knew I would face in America, and when I first returned I handled them almost effortlessly. But then I went away for Thanksgiving, had an excellent time, and returned to LA only to be met by the memories I had run away from in the first place. Smack. They materialized in the freeway exits that reminded me of events, the restaurants we passed, markets, street names, everything.

And so December and January found me wanting to leave again. But seeing as I have been in California for over two months and haven’t seen all of my dearest friends, I’m not ready yet…but I do need to acknowledge that inkling. When it comes time for graduate school, I will be ready to try out a new city, to explore it on my own terms, to get a feel for its culture, restaurants, people, and for what it has to offer me, too.

Perhaps that’s why I have been so preoccupied thinking about the hypothetical balance between all my varied choices: because I didn’t want to think about anything else.

Arriving in America had me finishing applications, patient as a nun, lighthearted and excited over simple things like green lawns, brick houses, and customer service.

Returning, then, to California, reminded me to slow down a little, that I didn’t need to finish all applications by my birthday, and that a little humility would do me some good (a theme that would reoccur shortly).

So we come to the stress: I was so worried about making the “right” decision in a matter that was not yet mine to direct. And as I’ve said multiple times now: I pray for easy decision-making, for help in listening. And so God gave me a big ol’ helping of humble pie, eliminating one of the “options” by telling me one school was saying “no” to me so I didn’t have to worry about saying “no” to it.

I chuckled, and I felt relief. Great relief. The truth is that not all of my emotion is caused by graduate school issues, but I had merely chosen to focus on those. And this reality (that the cards had not been laid for me yet, that it wasn’t time for me to worry about making a decision, and that it would be clear to me if I stopped worrying so much) helped to minimize my worry about the other issues too.

…What I believe most of all is that there will come a time when I am able to make a choice and if I can listen…truly listen…I will know which way I am supposed to go.

And so now I am learning how to trust that not only in theory, but at the present moment, rather than just in retrospect when I can say “ah, now I see how it has all pieced together.” If, when looking back, you see that there is a harmony, and, when looking forward, we trust that the harmony will prevail, then the only option is to trust each decision, each situation, and each moment right here.

So where does all of this take me? Well right now I am waiting to hear back from 8 more graduate schools. The circular conversation you may have followed brought me right back where I started with a more established interest in programs that range in name from Child Development, Human Development, Educational Psychology, and Interdisciplinary Studies in Development.

I have to constant remind myself that the mannerisms, attitudes, and habits I see around me are the same that were here in LA before I left. America, on the whole, has not changed much since I left. Even though I think I had the same frustrations before leaving (like when people honk at you while you are letting a pedestrian cross) I have to remind myself that I have indeed changed and that as universally correct as I may think I am, the world hasn't necessarily changed with me. (And, then of course, there is always the possibility that I am wrong...but we're not talking about that right now...)

1 comment:

MathildeHayward said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.