Destination Unknown

I stretch, I move, I fidget.

I can't stand being still.

I find waiting in line irksome and feel wrath toward the notion of stationary bikes. On a clear summer day, I will gladly choose running outside over keeping my pace with a sterile treadmill in an air-conditioned gym. I like to believe I am not just a thinker, but a doer. I refuse to watch the world pass by as my body melds into the cushions of the living room sofa. I will forever be adamant against adhering to strict rules. And why do I say all this? Because… I have already diagnosed my own prognosis. I have a fear of confinement; a fear of being boxed in, trapped. I don't like to be still.

I remember returning home after my 34-day adventure in Israel, the summer of 98. I was 16. It had been my first trip traveling beyond the boundaries of the United States. Of course, I was happy to be reunited with my parents and relieved for the safe journey home, but I cannot deny the rising level of frustration within me; the sense of a harsh reality clouding my fantasy. After a summer of constant motion, exotic sights and encounters with new friends and travelers, the thought of once again returning to the confines of my old room and the mundane routine of school was exasperating. To have experienced such rich and vivid sensation and watch it all fade away filled me with an utmost sadness.

Looking back, I am pretty sure that this trip symbolized a turning point for me and my vision of the world beyond my bedroom window. As someone who had trouble picturing people and places past the sky scrapers of Manhattan, I came home with a wet palate, a glorious slideshow of images and an enormous appetite to see more.

Abstractions aside, I feel like a jittery bride with a bad case of cold feet. I start graduate school on Tuesday. As in this Tuesday. As in five days from now. I am enrolled in a full-time two-year masters program. And from the information I have gathered, my lax part-time schedule life is about to disappear and be replaced with a much more rigorous schedule. At the moment, I feel confident in the decision I made to further my education and head down the graduate school path. However, the part of me that craves the aforementioned movement, vibrancy and change is suddenly gnawing away inside my head...in spurts. I pick up a book and I am immediately consumed with all out jealously toward the protagonist who is traveling to a distant country to embark on his studies. I envy the troupe of actors touring the country in a run down truck making stops in every town and village to perform for children under the shelter of a tent and pole. And I endlessly admire those who can cram their entire world into a U-haul and head cross country in search of the missing pieces of their life puzzle as they coast along day by day-new jobs, new loves, new experiences.

That being said, I can't say I am overwhelmingly ecstatic about the notion of spending the next two years holed up in the university library as other peers book plane trips all over the map. Why do I still feel the urge to jump on the back of the next train...destination unknown? When do these jitters stop? When do I stop questioning, stop wanting, stop wondering?

When will I learn how to be still without feeling stuck?

I'll have to get back to you on that one.

married people

Newly married people have things.

They have elegant dinnerware still tucked away in boxes from their registry, matching cloth napkins, a splendid array of various-sized dishes and salad bowls and adorably sheik napkin holders. They have cushy towels embroidered with their first names, joint bank accounts and answering machine messages, wine racks and dental insurance. They have brand new photo albums stocked with their first Thanksgiving, first New Years, first apartment, first everything…together.

They have private jokes and unfinished sentences and furtive glances and sudden spurts of conflict..like getting annoyed at the other for buying the wrong salad dressing or forgetting to pick up the other’s clothes at the cleaners. Little things. Silly things. Married people things.

Married people are a unit…where one goes, the other will follow. In order to spend time with one, the other will be there too, in some capacity. If not directly in the room, he or she will undoubtedly be referred to multiple times during the conversation. He or she will most likely call in between the conversation and by the end of your session together, you will most likely know the couple’s dinner plans, work day recaps and most up to date office gossip scandal.

Married people seem to suddenly develop a short term memory..as if their lives without one another never quite existed. Gone are the days of nerve-wracking blind dates, take-out for one and Valentines Day spent with Tom Cruise and the remote control. Married people seem to have miraculously forgotten the doldrums of singleton. And, once you make the mistake of confiding in them about your first good date in a while, they are already planning out your wedding, sharing their own autobiographies…”remember the first time we met..the first time we knew..” Etc. Those stories. And then when the second date is a failure, they whip out the classics…”there are other fish in the sea…there is someone special out there for you too..” .Etc. Those classics.

Now, I am not trying to construe any animosity toward my newly married friends. I may be envious that their personal search for their perfect mate has ended…but this is not grounds to sabotage my friendships with them. Not in the least. On the contrary, I find it refreshing actually to be in the company of two people who so obviously care intensely for each other. Their feelings are reflected in their eyes, their voices, their touch. So what if they have found love at 23...there is still hope for the rest of us, right? I mean, surely the average age of married people nowadays, especially in NYC, exceeds far beyond the mere age of 23..(Nod in agreement to back me up here.)

I guess I find it strange to go from playing truth or dare in junior high and chomping down on Cup of Noodles in your friend’s dorm to sitting across from them at their perfectly arranged dinner table discussing wedding proofs and mortgages. Where does the time go?

As for me, I realize that getting married is not exactly the most simple of activities..It requires the right person and the right time. Two elements that need to go hand in hand. In fact, getting married seems to be like a rite of passage. The formal acceptance into a new sophisticated club that is colossally unnerving to become a member of but happens to offer very awesome benefits. Now, I do realize that marriage is not a piece of cake..It is work, just like anything else and I’m sure even my newly married friends could describe frequent quibbles since the honeymoon phase..Yet, the idea of marriage in the most glorifying terms I can think of sounds something like this: A never ending date that involves sleeping and waking up together. As bitter or cynical as this entry may have sounded at times, that definition of marriage is too alluring for my sarcasm.

Simply put, I may cringe at the dinner table as my married people friends make puppy dog faces at one another as I try to carry on conversation, but, in the long run, I’m just as much a traitor to my single readership as my married friends. And, to prove my point…do I intend to wait patiently for the right person and right time to come around in order to join the club of my newly married friends and have lots of married people things of my own?

I do.

new years

The truth is..there are so many moments when I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin. Heh. How is that for a dramatic opening. Ok so, this may be bordering on the personal level. I guess it’s pretty hard to keep everything so neutral..eventually your writing does tend to reveal something a little more intimate. So, here goes. To a year of more attempted honesty, especially to myself..

I just go through a lot of self-doubt. Often. Maybe everyone does, but they just don’t admit it. I have a bad habit of looking at others and inferring that they are much happier or much more secure with their past choices and their future prospects. They don’t wonder as much as I do, they don’t begrudge themselves for things out of their control. I want to be able to actually make real new years resolutions that matter this year. I can always say I will stop biting my nails and do a better job at exercising and eating well..but those are always my pseudo resolutions. They don’t stretch beyond the surface.

I am so tired of doubting where I have ended up. I want to believe that things have a way of working themselves out and that all things have happened for a reason or that one day the fogginess will be lifted and each turn I made so far will make crystal clear sense.…I want to believe all that. But, I seem to end up in a doldrum zone where nothing feels right..times when I doubt all my choices..the college I went to..the classes I chose…living back in my home town..going to a graduate school so close..past relationships and the outcomes..The truth is..there are no positives of constantly re-evaluating the past..rethinking decisions that were clearly made for a reason..this is only destructive behavior.

The key is to accept. I can stop biting my nails at any moment. I can go running when I choose. But, I can’t change the past. I can’t relive another time in my life. And I can’t prevent the sun from rising tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

It isn’t easy to accept. But, it sure is worth a shot.

So, every new year must at least start with one resolution. So, I want to make this one count. Here's to a year of more tests of will and emotional growth. A new year to live in the present and not always fall captive to memories in the past or an urgency to plan forward. A new year of experience, friendship and love. A new year for a renewal. I’m ready.