I have SO much reflecting to do I'm not even sure where to begin, but I'll start with two themes and see how this post ends up. I just returned from the City after a seminario and residency with the Simon Bolivar musicians. Everything everyone says about how amazing they are is SO true!!!!!!! AND I met Dr. Abreu and Dudamel themselves and worked with a percussionist! But it was at my own will that I met Dr. Abreu. I seize opportunities. That's what makes me "me". And I recently had an intense conversation about balancing this with sacrifice. I suppose I'm just not quite at that point and a good reason why I have no children b/c I will certainly sacrifice for them. But if an opportunity is there and is time-sensitive, nothing in my head could possibly make sense to wait and turn it down. That doesn't mean I won't share, I will and I do. But on average, I would say my speed of living life is faster than most people, causing me to become impatient, antsy, frustrated, easily. But why I value time so much to the point that I become this way, I don't know. Only that it is one resource one can never gain back and life is short so I want to make the most of it. SO I guess I'm at that point.. Will I sacrifice my sense of adventure for the children so I can build solid relationships and a community? Or rather will it be possible for me to truly still feel like I'm living life to the fullest in one place and not fulfilling this with just my job?
This idea of building a life somewhere terrifies me. Just like it may terrify some to go live in another country for a year, for me knowing it's only a year makes anything doable and inviting. Potentially, setting up camp somewhere semi-permanently...I'm trying to imagine that and I just don't know,,,that notion scares me greatly! It also makes thinking about next year quite difficult. I know I"m only 3.5 months in and I should enjoy the present and not worry, but I'm human and we don't like the unknown. I still greatly want to do a stint in SE Asia, and I still feel I'm at the stage of life where doing that is not only possible, but preferred. When someone asks me the question of where WOULD I be happy next year, I just shutter. I don't have a one place mind. That's the issue.
Staying with my dad's best friend from kindergarten, I learned a lot about him and thus myself. She said he was the same person then that he is today and is always asking three questions: What can I do? What can I learn? Where can I go? And I think he instilled these into me, with the addition of one: Who can I meet? I certainly do not mean in the starstruck, drooling, and venerated celebrities, but rather who can enter my life long enough to have a meaningful conversation with him/her that will impact the way I see the world, how big or how small. And usually those people tend to be from other cultures, expanding my own paradigm to new paths I've never trod. In addition to the people, it's these experiences where there is a challenge where I grow the most. I've been terrified of complacency for a long time and now is no exception. Living in America is so easy and I can't understand full gratitude without its absence. That probably makes no sense, but so be it. Perhaps a better way of articulating that is my true fear is a complacent and unfulfilled life.
I wrote about this earlier in the year, but as the year continues, I'm realizing two things: I'm my dad's daughter and because my environment constantly changes, I build relationships quickly and trust not only easily, but quickly. If I answer this from a Darwinian standpoint, it makes sense. With a dynamic environment and no constant, it is essential to build relationships with people when I know no one in order to survive (sorry if that sounds overly dramatic). Because I've lived me, myself and I, it doesn't phase me to talk to someone nor to do it at the pace I'm used to experiencing life. But how do I adapt while still feeling fulfilled? This is where the word compromise comes in. Perhaps I can enter that next stage of life...but perhaps just not yet.
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