There are occasions where I look at what I write and realize just how very poetic or profound it is not. My midnight surfing has landed me on an old friend's blog and I marvel at how she puts words together. It is not a coincidence that she seems to adore the quite insane Sylvia Plath, and indeed, our lack of correspondence stems from her penchant for telling stories full of fabricated lies about anything and everything. Still, write she can. I envy her ability to poeticize things I would say in the corniest fashion known to bloggers.
I’m living a very mundane life these days, but that is precisely why I am so filled with emotion. The times when my existence is not worth discussing are generally the exact moments the boulder has rolled down the hill. My lazy ass is sitting on the ground for a second, poking the massive stone with a finger and contemplating which peak to aim for and the perfect way to get to the top.
The part of me that is at peace, the part of me that is not reeling out of control, knows that this is a phase in my life, that it is a valley that must be crossed to reach the amazing peaks I continue to scale. At this second, I’m in a very similar situation as I was exactly one year ago. I am once again, an insomniac in my parents’ basement, reassuring myself that I will find some organization who wants me to do something worth doing. Eventually. I am poorer, perhaps, but up a Master’s degree (and up all the debt that comes along with that). Up also is the number of places I have traversed on this planet. It has been more than a rollercoaster.
For seven months, I saw a glimpse of what I wanted my life to look like. I was incredibly happy the majority of my stay in Chile. Even working in the deepest, most real crap I had ever seen, I still, somehow, walked out the door everyday and soaked in the reggaetone, appreciating its beauty more than its pain.
And I guess that’s why, aside from the inevitable random moments of despair, and the very real loneliness I face as my friends are continents away all over again, I can look at my life and laugh. At the new manager who petitions me to buy beer for his 20 year old butt, but mostly at myself, for learning the same lessons every single year.
I read, recently, a New York Times article by a teacher in Alaska, who said, “One of my challenges as a writing teacher is to show my students that their writing can be a celebration of the ordinary.” I hope to succeed at celebrating the ordinary as much as possible in the near future. It’s really the only way to survive in this era of my life.
