I’m getting a better idea of my future, I think.
Or I’m letting go of having a better idea of my Future, and getting on with thinking about what’s next.
Here’s the plan so far: wrap things up in Toulouse, spend the summer studying Arabic in either the Maghreb or the Middle East (I’m still trying to decide which program I want to try), read lots of books in the meantime, then come home and find employment while I prepare for the Foreign Service exam. Hopefully everything will fall into place for me to take it in November and then see what happens next! I’m not going to put all my eggs in that basket since I can’t really predict how it will turn out, but I am going to stay optimistic and keep that goal in my sights.
So that’s that, and it feels good to live and work and think about who I am and how I want my life to play out.
I have been paying more attention to conversations I overhear in the bus and cafés, and the things my coworkers in the schools say about their lives. This is it, I’m an adult now, and it’s up to me to take myself where I want to go. That sounds so obvious when I say it to myself, but I don’t think I understood it before this year.
The other day, Stew and I were making dinner, and he said, “This is what the Unbearable lightness of being feels like.” Complete freedom of choice doesn’t always feel like liberty; sometimes it feels like a crushing weight. That’s how I feel sometimes when I try to think about what I’m going to do with myself now that school is over and it’s up to me to decide what’s next… I feel so much safer now that I’ve made a choice and have an objective.