Knock Knock

I meant to write this post about my group trip this weekend to the Jezereel Valley, where at the antroposophy espousing Kibbutz Harduf I heard for the second time in my entire life (the first being from my mother throughout my childhood) that a child chooses their parents to force their spirit to grow; and how I thought that maybe I was just really out of shape and biking was simply harder than I remembered on our two hour bike trek through vineyards before I realized, with ten minutes to go, that I had an exceptionally flat front tire.

I meant to write this post about my goals and expectations now that I’m halfway through the program, and how I’ve finally found a place at Peace Players now that one of the (chubby) twelve-year-old girls finally opened up enough to lay bare her low feelings of self-worth and the bullying she receives from friends and teammates.

I meant to write this post about how I’ve been sick since I got back from Egypt, and my less-than-twin bed feels especially confining when I am forced to spend Israel’s Independence Day inside it’s covers for the sake of a body that can’t seem to keep up with my aspirations of national beach barbecues, musicians in Rabin Square and fireworks across Tel-Aviv.

Instead, what I find myself wanting to write about is my future, once I return to the states in July. Two of my good friends from college are writing a blog about unemployment: liberalart.us. I’ve been reading their posts and acutely feeling their pain, which with the program half over, has brought the future slamming into my present mind. Before I left the states, I had sort of pigeon-holed myself into this idea of working my way up the shitty-job ladder until I got to the golden goal of being an editor. I’d done some networking, turned down some offers of internships, and made many promises to contact people when I returned to the country. I was relieved that everything was pretty much settled. One small adventure in Israel later, I could return and pick up my job hunt where I’d left off. I was motivated, over-qualified, and probably would get to work jobs I hated for three years before I got anywhere I’d have a chance a being happy.

I didn’t count on my time here changing this plan much. Which was stupid of me. Because, of course, it has.

I never expected to be this happy in Israel. Now family, don’t freak out. I’m not about to hop the Jew train to Aliah-ville and leave the states an ocean behind–no matter how happy it would make my grandparents. I simply mean that I gambled on a program that would get me out of the country (my ultimate goal) without really thinking through what a life of language study and volunteering would mean on a day-to-day level. If college student me had seriously considered the life I lead here, she would have had a good laugh and left the program, because she KNEW beyond a doubt that language study was the devil incarnate and volunteering was fine and all, but not her path to enlightenment/happiness/fulfillment.

I guess present me gets to have the last laugh. Past me was, in the college way, so cocky and sure about herself: her likes, limitations, and ways to happiness. Present me is completely happy (well, except for the whole two week cold thing) living a life that past me would never have really considered. Which makes present me wonder at the surety with which past me chose a career path.

This weekend I had an epiphany that had been building for a while. Past me was intensely worried about the end game. Where did I want to be in five-ten-fifteen years, and what were the steps that others before me had taken to get there? My college friends seem to be displaying the same sort of attitude in their blog–and who can blame them? This is what college trains us for. Networking, resume building, internships: all are concentrated on what can be gained towards that end goal of the corner office, or the self-built business, or the perfect job.

Present me is much more concerned with the process. Life is not some game where the ambitious you must agonize over every strategic move so that you can “win.” If I can be happy in this life, wiping the snotty noses of immigrant children, there must be a whole world out there of possible next steps that would make me equally happy. Why should I pursue a path that will make me unhappy now, and perhaps lead to something wonderful … but perhaps not? A family friend once told me (on her way to a foreign country to be an English camp counselor) that she was “Pursuing happiness, not life.” I don’t understand why these things must be mutually exclusive. If I take a step that makes me happy, then another that makes me happier still, eventually I’m sure I’ll end up with some semblance of that life my contemporaries are so concerned with manufacturing. Maybe a stint at patisserie school will end up with me working for the food network.

But if not, who knows? I’ve noticed that I haven’t felt that pull to pick up the video camera my industry networking contacts so urged me to bring to Israel. I’ve had trouble keeping up my film blog beyond the two posts I really enjoyed writing. And I haven’t been able to bring myself to write that application to submit my senior thesis screenplay to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Perhaps my newfound urge to be happy will lead away from college-me’s passions. But I’m not sure that’s such a horrible thing. As long as I’m feeling fulfilled, and, well, to be a broken record about it, happy, I think it’s okay if my dreams evolve a bit. As someone once told me, I wouldn’t have a heart if I didn’t have a change of one.

Maybe I’ll feel differently when I’m actually in the midst of the hunt for the next step that so depresses my unemployed friends. But now (despite the phlegm filling half my lungs from this dang cold) I do feel I can breathe a bit easier. Where before there was a stressful set of paths from which I had to choose one, now I feel like my future is a sort of web of possibilities that I can wander until I find something … or not. By focusing on the process, I hope I’ll never have to wake up one day and wonder why opportunity hasn’t knocked yet.

So like my plans for this post, my designs for my life must be reconsidered, and, perhaps, discarded. There is no set formula for life, and it was silly of me to think that by following in the footsteps of the professionals before me, I could achieve their same end. All I have to do is find one thing, just one thing, in the whole world, that will make me happy come July. And just how hard can that be?