Yesterday, after a long but mostly good first week of school, my friend and I were working on lesson plans for next week when F suddenly appeared in the doorway. I haven't seen or heard from him in quite some time. I had assumed he was either frantically busy or that I perhaps no longer fit into his world. It shouldn't have been a surprise that if he was going to turn up this was the season, I guess. His orbit usually brings him near at the beginning or end of a semester.
Anyway.
By the time he arrived, I had a) missed eating real food for lunch because we'd been told something would be provided and there wasn't any left by the time the majority of us needed it, b) been fighting my school computer for two hours because it had inexplicably become almost useless, and c) tried to figure out how to get all the things we need for teaching into a tiny little non-adaptable grid so it could be submitted on time. Needless to say, I wasn't at anything like my best. The candy I'd eaten as a lunch substitute was trying to catch me up on sugar, but it wasn't doing a very good job. I felt sluggish and grumpy. I had planned to go home as soon as I could get something on paper for lesson plans, but I rarely see F, so I stayed and we talked. He's on his great adventure, about to start a new leg of his journey. I remember what it was like to be in a place similar (but not, of course, exactly the same) to his.
We talked a long time, as we always do, and we covered a wide variety of things. Nothing unusual. He asked me, as he almost always does, if I had thought of going somewhere else. For some reason, this time, I started to ask him why. (And F, if you read this, I guess you'll find out what was going on behind the mask....) I told him that I am planning on going back to Brazil on a Fulbright or some other program if I can, and he made a comment that started an disquieting range of questions tumbling over each other in my head. He reminded me that I don't have forever.
I felt several things. First, well, quite frankly, I felt old. And maybe I am. I rarely feel my age, though, which may be good or bad, depending. I felt every moment of it when he said that. Second, I felt a little paranoid. I know I have changed, especially in the last two years, but I wasn't aware that it was so.... visible. Am I in such poor condition, so ragged around the edges that I need to flee? (It's possible. It's entirely possible.) Finally, I felt that old discontent that is always present in my life but usually quiet wake up, shake a bit, and show its teeth.
I'm happiest when I am somewhere else. I've known that for a long, long time. I write better. I feel better. I think better. It has been so long, though, since I have been anywhere but here.
There are things that hold me here. Family duty. Mortgage payments. Health care and retirement. Sometimes, I feel like I will never be free again. Whenever that feeling comes on me, I feel my heart beat in my chest like a wild bird suddenly caged. I can't stand the thought that comes with it. I can't stand to think of retiring after 25 years and coming home to what I deeply fear will be an empty house, a life lived trying to serve others, a remnant used up and ready to be laid aside.
Somewhere along the way, you see, every life reaches a tipping point. Things become comfortable, or at least they so entangle you that to get free of them would be harder than whatever pain they might cause. Am I at that point? If I don't go soon, is it possible that I won't ever be able to? And what if I don't? Is that wrong? Is there no possibility of good that comes from staying?
Again, I come back to that empty house at the end of all those years. It is a very tangible thing, almost tactile in its reality. I know, more or less, that if I stay here I won't ever find anyone to share my life with. I might not ever, anyway, no matter where I may go. I'm aware of this. Whatever bloom might have been on the rose was gone long ago. Yet if I go, maybe that emptiness will be filled with other things even if love and companionship don't manage to be one of them. I often think of other teachers I've known who never married, never had lives outside of their profession and what happens to them when that profession moves on without them. It makes me more than a little sad to think of that as my fate.
I turned the matter over tonight as I was standing in a pasture full of tall grass with every star in the universe above it. I had gone out to see the Perseids, and staring up into a perfectly clear night sky with no other distractions does have a way of making one think. So do the little trailing flashes of light, the last hurrah of something burning itself out on its journey. I don't know what the right thing to do is anymore. I know what I want, but is there a point at which what you want isn't the important thing? Does everybody always want what is good for them? Should desire be the thing I follow? Do you have to wake up one day and say, "This is what it is. This is what I need to find contentment with and just lay aside the other"?
What I have is not bad by any means. I am fortunate compared to many. It's just that I don't feel like I used to sometimes. I feel like I'm becoming something, and I'm not sure what, just that it isn't who I was. And that little inner beast keeps waking up....
So am I growing up or am I dying inside? Is F right, and I need to get out? Or do I need to be satisfied with what I have?
I wish I knew.
