Inspirations from my cluttered fridge
“A year from now, what will you wish you had done today?” The magnet itself is plain, kind of boring, easy to miss due to the dozens of other… well, there is no other word for them but ugly: the ugly, tacky, cheap little tchotchke magnets that I cannot stop collecting, much to the chagrin of my dear mother and sister. Why don’t I collect cute Christmas ornaments during my travels? Shot glasses, maybe? Or even… dare I suggest them… practical, useful gifts? Nope, sorry. The ugly magnets have stolen my heart, and our fridge bears the proof. It is due to these little souvenirs of my travels—the hastily painted and slightly chipped Eiffel Tower and baguette from Paris, the twisted cuckoo clock from Germany, the tiny bottle of Aperol from Italy, and on and on and on—that my other magnet is often overlooked or ignored completely, yet today it catches my eye.
This magnet again asks me: “A year from now, what will you wish you had done today?” And honestly, magnet, great question. What the hell am I doing? I often feel like I’m wasting my life, but even that is a fleeting thought, entirely dependent on my mood at the time of asking.
If you were to ask me during the day, when the sky is a bright, cloudless blue, and my music is up up up, and my car windows are down down down, I would say I think anything is possible. I would say I couldn’t be happier if I tried. How many people can say they’ve achieved what I have in these last couple of years? How many people have been as fortunate as I have been to see so much of the world in such a short span of time? How many people never will? In those moments, it’s easy to convince myself that I am endlessly capable, that I have accomplished so much and will continue to surprise myself by accomplishing even more—but my ambition and pride often leave with the sun. In the dark, my thoughts start to get tangled up.
So if you were to ask me again as the sun sets, I might say I feel like it’s dragging my spirits down with it. Lower and lower they drop, until eventually they slip fully out of sight. That’s about when I start to wonder, what the hell am I doing? My friends, they’re growing up and moving on, without me. They have a whole extra degree than I do, they have full-time jobs and paid time off and 401(k) plans and a set schedule, and what do I have? The same job I had in high school? Up and down I go, back and forth, between these two drastically different states of mind. Both patterns of thought somehow manage to hold true, simultaneously, and that often turns my brain into what I picture as a very narrow room with twenty different ping-pong balls bouncing all over the place, my thoughts slamming into the walls and each other, which makes for a wonderful—and constant—clatter. Or maybe that’s just life in general for those who have been blessed with anxiety.
To make things even better…
To top it all off, do you know what has been decidedly unhelpful in my own journey towards self-confidence and contentment with the direction my life has been heading in? Other people. Other people frequently, blatantly, meanly inserting their unsolicited opinions on it! Why do people only do that when something is different? Why do we crave sameness? This is how it always goes—this is the only thing people know how to ask twenty-somethings:
Them: “So are you done with school?”
Me: “Yes!”
Them: “What did you study?”
Me: “I was an English major with minors in psychology and linguistics.” (Cue subtle expression change #1)
Them: “Oh! So what do you want to do with that?”
Me: *Summarized backstory on my deep love for writing, traveling, photography, media, etc., and brief explanation of The Travel Year and my slightly toxic love-hate (mostly love? I think?) relationship with the service industry—the friendships, the quick flow of cash, and the flexibility to work sixty hours one week and jet-set off to Europe the next.* (Cue subtle expression change #2, #3, #50, #300).
I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say I once got a full up-and-down (this is women-speak. For men, I’m talking about a very obvious and belittling once-over) and an “okay, so… what are you actually doing?” Thanks, judgmental customer who I don’t even know personally! Your unkind words are cherished!
I do know what I’m “actually” doing. I’m working crazy, ever-changing hours. I’m jumping from one odd job to the next—pet-sitting, dog-walking, nannying, serving, bartending—and I’m loving every second of it (well, maybe not every single second, because I’m only human, but many seconds! A pretty high amount of seconds!) because these jobs are my means for seeing the world. And I am seeing the world, bit by bit; where I can, when I can. Forty, fifty, sixty hour weeks? I’ll gladly take them on.
I know there is privilege here, in the fact that I can do this, in the fact that part of my income can get set away for airfare and hostels and to-do’s, rather than having to funnel it all into a pile of bills or necessary expenses for a family. I also know that sometimes when people are being mean or judgmental, it might be because they wish they could be doing the same. I do not lose sight of that privilege; I remain grateful for it, on every airplane ride and every stroll through a new city. But the life I am shaping is not just the byproduct of my circumstances; it’s hard work, too. Those fifty, sixty hour weeks take their toll from time to time (again, only human), but I always try to grin and bear them because I know what they are for. Because they push me, drive me. Because I think that that work ethic is a part of who I am regardless. And don’t get me twisted, here; I’m not wealthy by any means. I have never and will never be the girl whose European summers are expensed by their parents (and no shade to those people, either. I love you guys. I’d love to be you guys, but I’m just not). And that’s okay. All it means is that if I want to see the world, I need to work to fund it myself, to earn it myself. And I do.
Back to the point, please!
So at the end of the day, when the the judgment and doubt and uncertainty creep back in, all I need to remind myself is that when I look at that magnet again next year, after seeing even more places and unlocking new countries and making new memories, I will thank the version of me standing here right now. A year from now, I will wish that she said yes, booked the trip, took the risk, dove headfirst into each and every adventure. So today, I will.
Thanks for reading! For more posts discussing identity, click here.