I lost my hat.
That really shouldn't be such a terrible loss, but that hat has been with me since I was 17. It has walked with me past high school and into college, perched perfectly on my head through two sets of graduations and out into the amorphous world outside of academia. To simply lose it somewhere here, to know I will leave it behind forever when I eventually return to the US, feels tragic.
But in my constant struggle to infuse everyday events with Deeper Meaning, I think perhaps it's appropriate to have my precious hat, weighted with so many memories, so many selves, detach from me on this year abroad. How much grander to set my hat, that metonymous symbol, free in the wilderness of New Zealand than to simply misplace it in the mundanity of everyday life? Surely I must see this as a metaphor for my own growth, a necessary step toward a new, improved me, without which my time away will have been a waste?
Equally possible is the idea that I am searching for literary poignancy to avoid facing my own disappointment. I've wrestled with various disappointments lately, which is why I haven't posted anything here in awhile. It seems embarrassing, indulgent, to write about disappointments. But it also feels disingenuous to ignore the parts of this year that aren't amazing. So here we have my disjointed attempts at making sense out of the not-so-fun and the not-so-straightforward.
That really shouldn't be such a terrible loss, but that hat has been with me since I was 17. It has walked with me past high school and into college, perched perfectly on my head through two sets of graduations and out into the amorphous world outside of academia. To simply lose it somewhere here, to know I will leave it behind forever when I eventually return to the US, feels tragic.
But in my constant struggle to infuse everyday events with Deeper Meaning, I think perhaps it's appropriate to have my precious hat, weighted with so many memories, so many selves, detach from me on this year abroad. How much grander to set my hat, that metonymous symbol, free in the wilderness of New Zealand than to simply misplace it in the mundanity of everyday life? Surely I must see this as a metaphor for my own growth, a necessary step toward a new, improved me, without which my time away will have been a waste?
Equally possible is the idea that I am searching for literary poignancy to avoid facing my own disappointment. I've wrestled with various disappointments lately, which is why I haven't posted anything here in awhile. It seems embarrassing, indulgent, to write about disappointments. But it also feels disingenuous to ignore the parts of this year that aren't amazing. So here we have my disjointed attempts at making sense out of the not-so-fun and the not-so-straightforward.
Some struggles have been trip-based. I spent two consecutive weekends attempting to indulge in the remote beauty of the East coast of NZ, only to be rained out on the first try and derailed by a(relatively minor, but nonetheless very stressful) car accident on the second. To be fair, I still saw some breathtaking sights, met some lovely people, and met my goal of discovering new parts of this country (although taking the exact same route two weekends in a row proved to be exhausting). These were temporary discomforts, not unlike my lost hat (a casualty of Car Wreck Weekend): unfortunate, irksome, but ultimately surmountable. There will be other adventures, of course, and to have encountered uncertainty and emerge unscathed is its own sort of thrill-part of the whole travel abroad experience.
There are other disappointments that are less concrete, more muddled by my own fears and selfishness and therefore resist my self-aware contemplations and explanations.
Realizing, feeling exactly how life goes on so easily without me occupying my usual space within it, facing my own insignificance (in a cosmic sense, not a heavy-eyeliner-sad-songs sense): these are more difficult disturbances to deal with. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities I have been given here. I would not wish them away for anything. But some hard, inflated part of me hurts to see how resilient my old life is, how the remaining bits of my comfort zone rearrange themselves automatically to absorb my absence.
I wonder how I will fit back into that world when I return-how to reclaim my place in a reformed world? Will I even be able to fit in the same way-or will I stick and struggle to slide back, like a water-logged puzzle piece: misshapen? And which would be more terrifying: to find myself too changed, or not changed enough? I fear for disappointment in a future me, returned to find my adventures leaking out of me like a punctured inner tube, dissipating little by little until I am exactly where I left off.
It's self-indulgent, really, to rattle off a list of all the ways I worry, to show myself disappointed at all in the face of so much excitement and luxury and and privilege. Who am I to feel anything other than astounding gratitude? And so I have avoided writing anything, because I wonder if any of it is worth saying. Or even if it's too dangerous to write: I worry my blathering makes me seem unhappy, which isn't it at all. I have experienced so much joy, laughter, awe, and contentment here. It's just that I somehow also have found room for anxiety, doubt and longing.
I suspect you understand, being, after all, a complex human yourself. We all contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said.
Still wish I could find my hat though!
Realizing, feeling exactly how life goes on so easily without me occupying my usual space within it, facing my own insignificance (in a cosmic sense, not a heavy-eyeliner-sad-songs sense): these are more difficult disturbances to deal with. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities I have been given here. I would not wish them away for anything. But some hard, inflated part of me hurts to see how resilient my old life is, how the remaining bits of my comfort zone rearrange themselves automatically to absorb my absence.
I wonder how I will fit back into that world when I return-how to reclaim my place in a reformed world? Will I even be able to fit in the same way-or will I stick and struggle to slide back, like a water-logged puzzle piece: misshapen? And which would be more terrifying: to find myself too changed, or not changed enough? I fear for disappointment in a future me, returned to find my adventures leaking out of me like a punctured inner tube, dissipating little by little until I am exactly where I left off.
It's self-indulgent, really, to rattle off a list of all the ways I worry, to show myself disappointed at all in the face of so much excitement and luxury and and privilege. Who am I to feel anything other than astounding gratitude? And so I have avoided writing anything, because I wonder if any of it is worth saying. Or even if it's too dangerous to write: I worry my blathering makes me seem unhappy, which isn't it at all. I have experienced so much joy, laughter, awe, and contentment here. It's just that I somehow also have found room for anxiety, doubt and longing.
I suspect you understand, being, after all, a complex human yourself. We all contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said.
Still wish I could find my hat though!