Departures

I've always been the kind of girl whose life you can predict: nice house, three children, a quiet marriage, a successful professional life until the day she has kids. Why people could possibly find me to be predictable is no surprise to me. I have made myself look like I have everything planned and under control right from the start; but recently I have discovered that those were not really my plans. Maybe they were expectations; everyone's but mine. I wanted to make my parents proud, regardless of my constant use of the line, "I don't care what anyone thinks." Well, apparently, I do.
I think back, probably a good eighteen years, to when I was a little kid growing up in Cuba, promising my dad that one day I would run down the steps of Havana University and hand him my diploma, his diploma. Why? Honestly, I do not know why. My dad already went to college, twice. He doesn't need a third diploma.

Don't get me wrong: I love learning. If I could stay in school until I died, I would. I'd gladly be an educated corpse; but I have always tied myself down to expectations and certain standards that had to be met. My career choice was far from my passions in life, and the prospect of getting married, settling down, paying bills, having two weeks of vacation every year, raising kids to see them go off to college and get married, and having a miserable "rest of my life", does not sound very appealing to me. Actually, my entire life up to this point, or at least what I thought would have nicely played out as my "future life", turned out to be a lie and the epitome of everything I do not want to become.

I want to wake up in Madrid one morning and in Jakarta the next. I want to be free to travel, to experience life, to taste the flavors of the world, to not be tied down by anything or anyone. I want to go to bed at night, or maybe at noon, and still know that I am doing what I want to do and that I am where I want to be; no regrets, no "what ifs." I want to be that 87-year-old lady bungee jumping in India and dying on the back of an elephant while refusing to receive medical care because she knows better and she can dance it away. I want to dance in the rain and not worry about catching a cold and having to pay a medical bill the size of the Empire State. I want to be a personal trainer, a photographer, a marine biologist, a historian, a detective, a mother, a wife, a lover, a companion, a friend, a history professor, a Red Cross volunteer, an adventurer, a writer, and I want to do it without having to ask for permission, without having to give any reasons.

I want to know that my father is proud of the woman I am, not of what society has deemed as "accomplishments". I do not want him to be embarrassed to say that his daughter is a bohemian who makes a living out of random freelancing. I don't want him to be afraid to say that his daughter did not climb up the corporate ladder, that she was not a lawyer or a famous person, but that she refused to bow down to a boss, to have a miserable job doing something she hates and obeying a structure of oppression and rules that she doesn't believe in. I don't want my unborn babies to dictate the course of my life. I want to satisfy my wander lust and to feed my curiosity. I want to quench this insatiable thirst. I want to answer my call to serve.

I want to be myself without excuses, and that should be good enough; but there is a problem: I am a coward. I could walk away from this nightmare right now before it is too late to do so, before I get tangled up in a miserable existence that people choose to call "life." It's not too late yet to save the world, but I am a coward. I am afraid to hurt, to disappoint. I tell myself that two years down the road, when I finally have my blessed degree, I can walk away from all this and start over; but I know it's not true. If it were true I wouldn't have to wait. I would just do it now. If it were true I would be in Haiti building houses and feeding orphans; but I am here, in the comfort of a suburban home, just dreaming of that moment when I can finally depart.

Untangling life

Life is complicated. Life is not fair. How many times have I heard those same lines from all kinds of people? How many times have I said those lines myself? How many times until I stop hearing them play again and again in my head like a cheesy Mexican telenovela?
Indeed, life is complicated and not fair, at least for those who do not understand it; for those who do, life can play out to be quite simple. It is a matter of understanding that, whereas the expected relationship should be that of sowing what you have planted, the secret of good farming lies in being mindful of the possibility that sometimes the seeds can be good, the soil can be perfect and the care might be the best, but there might be no fruits. Factors that the farmer cannot control will inevitably affect his crops. All that there is to do is to work hard and to hope for the best.
We must recognize that sometimes our efforts are not enough. We must have faith. We must be diligent, tenacious and determined, but most of all, we must trust, not in the fruits of our work, but in our capacity to start over. Let us then reconsider our role and concentrate not in worldly success or status, nor in the collection of goods or the growth of fortunes, but in the only growth that should matter: that of our soul.