Monday, February 3, 2020

In Paradise and Lost

February 4th, 2020
12:54 A.M. Montevideo, Uruguay

(To begin, if you understand why the title is so clever, give yourself a gold star.)

Recently I’ve been feeling restless. It’s not anyone’s doing, (okay, maybe it’s my doing), but I’ve been struggling with my real purpose. I know that when you move to a different country, everyone expects you to have the time of your life, post the cool pictures of all the incredible sights, and talk about how you’re never coming back because who knew life could be this good?!

Part of that’s true.

 I’m already looking at schools in the U.K. for after my time here, and I am having the time of my life and seeing incredible views. But nothing is sunshine and rainbows all the time. I’ve been experiencing this lately, especially since it’s summer vacation. I’ve never seen a country so shut down after New Years. If I were home in the United States, school or work starts up again shortly after January 1st, and the new year hits you before you’re ready for it. In Uruguay, most of the shops shut down (or have minimal hours), few people go outside between 11am-4pm (due to the heat), and the people that aren’t in their houses have left the country to go on vacation. (Even my doctor told me she couldn’t see me because she was on holiday in Brazil.)

I’m not used to this. If I’m not busy, then I’m not being productive, and if I’m not being productive then I’m more stressed than if I were busy with hardly enough time to eat and sleep. I don’t want to go so far as to say that most jobs get the month of January off for summer vacation, but for the vast amount of people that do, I am a part of that group. Of course I could do some traveling, and I did do a week trip with some friends to another small city with a beach, but at some point, money runs out and smaller responsibilities keep me in Montevideo.

It’s moments like these when I tell myself staying up all night watching The Lord of the Rings is a perfectly acceptable use of my time because the only thing I have to do the following day is make breakfast and go to coffee with a friend. (Side-note: I found a fabulous coffee shop in a country taken over by yerba! HALLELUJAH.) Some of you might be reading this thinking, “Oh, give me a BREAK. Nothing to do but breakfast in bed and taking 3 hours to walk along the beach? SUCH a tough life.”

I think I would have thought the same thing if I were in the midst of studying for an upcoming exam or had finished a really tough work week. But now that I’m in it, I really miss that slight drama of not quite being sure if I’ll have enough time to finish everything. On some level, it’s completely unhealthy that I need so much stress to feel satisfied. (Don’t worry, I’m trying to work on that…emphasis on “trying”!) But recently I finished The Good Place on Netflix, (a series I highly recommend and am about to spoil for you, so if you want to watch it, stop reading this paragraph and pick up at the next one). The series tells the story of Eleanor Shellstrop (played by Kristen Bell) and her attempts to dodge any or all attention after accidently being sent to the “Good Place” when she should have been sent to the “Bad Place” after death. Eventually she finds other friends with similar problems, and through 4 seasons of intense excitement and suspense, they make it to the actual Good Place, only to find that the people there are tired of everything being perfect all the time. As Jason puts it after Michael asks him why his lifelong dream got boring so quickly, “Monkeys in go-karts was fun for a while. Then I was like, ‘You know what would be cool? Hippos in go-karts!’…I did like 50 combos and then I just kinda wanted to hang out with you guys again.”  

I must say, I’ve never had the dream to ride go-karts with monkeys or hippos (maybe dogs?), but I’m coming to the realization that I never really thought about my life once I got to Uruguay. Did I know ahead of time that I would change as a person? Did I know I would be really challenged?  Did I know that there would be days I would cry simply because I was tired?

Of course. I knew all of those things.

I think the frustrating part about growing is actually having to go through the difficult or frustrating moments to get to the better moments. Lately I just “want to hang out” with some people again; I want to do meaningful work again. Beaches and coffee dates are fun, but if there’s no end goal, even paradise can become boring. I think being present means enjoying the phase of life you’re at without worrying about the past or the future, but it also means using that present moment to help make it better for others that might not think it’s so great. I really hope that within these next couple months, I can help other people feel that paradise moment that they might be seeking, and if not forever, at least for a little while.

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