“World travelers that seen it all and did enough
Only to return to learn the world wasn’t big enough”
–The OtherSide (the Roots)
I was looking at a map of the Pacific last night. It was only really half of the Pacific; east of Hawai’i was excluded. And there was that nice little arc: Australia, New Caldonia, Fiji, Samoa, Hawai’i. And northwest of that was Indonesia and Asia and Japan. And far south of that, in the middle of nowhere, is New Zealand.
All I could think about: “If I saved longer, I could’ve stayed for two years and avoided this day-to-day meaninglessness.”
***
This is hard to write because I generally feel uninterested in most everything right now. I am having a hell of a time finding work. I can’t save any money, but it is not like my student loans are going anywhere. I can’t hold out hope for the next thing, much less work for it.
What is the next thing? That is part of the problem- maybe it is the problem. I like the idea of working in Australia. I love the idea of somehow getting back to New Zealand. I also love the idea of working for this biking trip in Europe I want. Or maybe grad school. Or maybe a few years of hard work to pay down my student loans a bit. Or maybe going back to work on a mountain and learning to snowboard more. Or putting a lot of effort into running and biking. Or maybe spending some time and really, seriously, working on my writing skill, to see if I have anything.
Compound this lost feeling with most everybody else having a purpose, and I feel more lost. My friends here are all busy and elsewhere; my friends in NZ tend to be awake as I’m sleeping. But most everybody has a purpose right now, something they have to deal with daily. I suspect anybody who has spent time looking for work knows the following feeling – there are days when the utter hopelessness is too overwhelming.
I don’t wish I was back there. Sometimes, I wish I had not left – because once you do leave, that charm is broken. Going back and being able to pick up where one left off, is a rarity. I don’t crave the events I already went through.
But the people I met, and the beauty of the country, and the senses of purpose and excitement, and the sheer freedom of it all – these, I miss. And I feel disoriented without them.
So I come back and things are different. I knew it would be hard to deal with when I returned stateside, but I thought grabbing a job and working hard would alleviate it all. The possibility of that not happening never crossed my mind, and with all my free time I am left to rethink what I’ve already thought, to relive what I went through, and to miss that dream I had, the purpose I felt, and the desire to make the most of my time.
Instead I subsist on hope that I catch a break and can move to the next thing.
