Moving On
I moved twice during my childhood that I remember. At the time it felt traumatic and then later, for college applications, I was able to spin the experience of moving as “making me flexible” and I began to believe my own story. The year I went to college my parents moved away and I haven’t lived at “home” since. I planted myself in three serial programs with defined start and end points and went through the motions. Change became the norm… until now. Now the story doesn’t have an end point. It doesn’t even have an evolution. Next month I’ll be renewing the lease on my apartment. A year will have gone by and I’ll be signing on for… another year of the same? I feel uncomfortable to be at a certain point and see no potential for change or advancement. Do I just keep doing the same thing forever?
There are certainly changes in my life that I’d like to see happen, but feel like I can’t necessarily control or plan for (social life, marriage, family). So do I take the things I can control (career, location) and change them just for the sheer value of change? I have to admit that were I to change either some element of my career or my location, those changes would be the less preferred of the two sets. For example, if I experienced some evolution of my personal life, I don’t think I’d feel the same compulsion to change either my career or my location. So do you make the changes that you can even if you’re not necessarily doing it for the right reason? Move to a new city just because I can? Do a residency because I’m lonely? I have no doubt that I would be interested in and capable of doing a residency, but would I rather spend that time with heretofore undiscovered friends or being part of someone else’s life? Certainly. Conversely, do you make the changes that you can (for whatever justification or reason) and hope that those decisions open the doors to new experiences that can change other elements of your life? I know I can’t just sit around and wait.
It also strikes me as strange that I have such a desire for change, and yet, at the same time, I have a complete and total inability to move on from some events that have happened in the past. I can’t quite get completely in the present, but I also have to keep looking at the future. It’s so much easier to romanticize the past and try to plan to change the future than it is to accept the reality of the present.
This was your life. This could be your life. This is your life.
From my perch, the Somerville, MA-inspired declaration “I don’t want to be a product of my environment; I want my environment to be a product of me” sets aside the default question uttered by Stockdale, “Who am I–Why am I here?”. The default is for the old, the confused, the average: not you.