When I read Lupine’s post last week it really resonated with me. At first I wasn’t sure why- as I am not currently looking for a job or trying to make the types of choice Lupine is making. But at a fundamental level, I think I am also struggling with choices. Like Lupine, I know what I want. It is just hard for me to own it. It seems non-obvious. Selfish.
Guys. I don’t want to leave Europe.
I have been saying for a long time, oh we will probably move back to the states sometime. I am very open to working in the states. Maybe the next job. Et cetera.
But more and more I have come to realize that I don’t want to live there. I don’t want this to be a political post, but I don’t want to work at a university where I am afraid that any day one of my students could show up with a gun, I don’t want to worry about the cost when I go see a doctor, or spend hours in traffic because there is no quality public transportation.
At a deeper level, I don’t really feel like an American any more. I see the American political divide as bizarre and nonsensical. I no longer really identify with the types of protestantism popular in the US. Even my field, medieval studies, is embroiled in a huge wave of controversy and tension in the US that does not characterise it abroad.
Now this could sound like a list of criticisms and I really don’t mean it that way. There are great things about America. Freedom of speech, assembly, and religion are championed there much more than in any other place I have been. In my experience, American people are particularly friendly, warm, and generous hearted. And the US has natural beauty of a scale very few other countries can claim.
It is not a bad place, and for many people it is probably the very best place to be. I just don’t feel like I belong there any more.
But it is hard. My mom lives in the US. And many of my closest friends and family members. Somehow it is hard to say to them (particularly my mom) that maybe I won’t come back. Even harder to say that I just don’t share their identity as American or some of their basic cultural world-views. It feels like betrayal and even selfishness. But it comes down to something similar to what Lupine is fighting with. Do you do what you want even if it seems entitled and stupid? How do you make choices when all the options are good?
Of course, the situation is not black and white. Perhaps I am even overdramatising a bit (but what else is blogging for?!). Someday a job may come up in a lovely little place in the US and we will take it and love it. Maybe I will even slowly become more American again. Things change, and I am open to that. But when I read Lupine’s post this is what came to my mind: that I too know what I want, silly as it may seem, and that is to stay abroad.
Maybe the last year of the 20s is when we finally figure out what we want in life? That could be over-stating it, but I’m digging the self-awareness that you and Lupine are feeling these days. And if you change your mind in the future, that’s perfectly great too. I’m glad you’ve found a new home in Europe, even though as a fellow expat I don’t necessarily feel the same way about the Middle East…hmm, perhaps that’s something I will explore in a future post.
I totally understand, and I wish you luck in communicating your thoughts with your mother. She loves you, so hopefully she will understand in the end. Also, as someone currently living in America, I wish I could say I was from somewhere else a lot of the time. I yearn to travel again and to distance myself from the mess that is our country.
I feel like a lot of us struggle with prioritizing what we want over family/society
expectations. We’ve really been conditioned to take everything and everyone else into account before we make a choice, and even when we do we still feel pressure to consider again, to feel some sort of guilt for not finding that one way to make everyone proud and happy all at once.
But exhausting as it is, I also think it is a strength to be able to see your choices the way someone else will. And an even greater power when you decide to make a tough choice anyway. We’ll come out better for it, because even if a few people aren’t convinced we’re doing what is right – at least we are.
And I know from the last few months that for the people that are most important to us, whether we choose what they want or not, they’ll find comfort when they see that certainty within us. They trust us when they see that we trust ourselves.
The other thing that I’ve been repeating to myself over and over for the last few months is, you can always change your mind, but first you have to choose.
Love that mantra!