-8 days
So. Here I am. Right back where these blog posts all began. Sitting on my bed in my room in Kelso, Washington. It seems as though all roads lead back here for me. I wonder if I’ll always feel this sensation when I come home, this tension between youth and maturity.
I’ve been home for eight days now. I’ve had eight whole days to think and reflect on my experience as a Global Fellow, to share my pictures and my stories.
I also leave for Belgium to study abroad in two days.
As per usual, I struggle to look back on the past when I have so much ahead of me in the future. I’m going to be living and working in Europe for five months! I’ll get to celebrate my 21st birthday in a place straight out of a fairytale and eat more Belgian waffles than I can count.
Just two weeks ago, I slept under the Sahara’s uninhibited night sky. An experience afforded to very few and one I actively awaited upon the writing of my first blog post.
Now? A souvenir, lived and done.
Does anyone else feel that way? Like their fantasies are more real than their memories?
Not to say that I’m any less awestruck by the act itself, just that it fades so quickly that I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I’ve never been a sentimental person but I see the purpose behind sentimentality; I bought dates and walnuts (my favorite Moroccan snack) the first day I came home though, so maybe I’m on the right track.
As much as I can be, anyway.
After Morocco, I somehow feel both motivated and hopelessly lost. I loved the work we did, the work I did: I loved meeting the female artisans and brainstorming ways to make ASILA stronger, I loved writing their stories and sharpening the company’s online presence. Most of all, I loved branding ASILA and feeling like I had a stake in the life of this organization.
That being said, it was exhausting. We were lucky if we worked a six hour day, sitting at the table in our rented conference room, staring at computer screens and talking circles around ourselves. I would become restless and distracted, sometimes even bored.
For how long I’ve been in school, I felt woefully unprepared to be productive in such an environment. I detested working in that office and often accomplished more in less than half the time on the couch in our apartment.
Has college spoiled me? Is this what the working world is really like?
I’ve had various jobs over the years but nothing like this. I’m used to being on my feet, moving and constantly stimulated. ASILA, often times, felt stagnant.
I have hope that I’ll be able to find meaningful work that does not resemble the stereotypical 9–5 but I don’t really even know what I want that work to be.
I’m so tired of my future riding on some vague set of ideals that I decided on in high school — not because I have outgrown these ideals but because I have nothing real to give them. I want to pursue public relations and business but what does that actually mean? I have no clue what kind of company I want to work for or even where I want to be, even the fields of public relations and business are extremely open-ended and could take me anywhere depending on a multitude of variables.
This flexibility is beautiful to me and, admittedly, a part of what drew me to the industry in the first place. I just wish I knew more about these variables.
As I continue to make my way through college, there only seem to be more added along the way. Is there ever a point where I’ll receive answers? Or is the secret to being an adult learning that there are none?
There are so many things I want out of this life. If nothing else, my time in Morocco was a reminder of the fact that I’m doing them. I am finding my way. My difficulty in appreciating my accomplishments is a key component of my anxiety regarding the future. It is because I struggle to look back that I put so much pressure on what is to come.
That doesn’t mean it won’t still happen.
Though all the moving pieces of my future make my head spin, not a single one is bad. At times, I can be overwhelmed by how much I simply do not know but I have never once stopped being grateful for all the opportunities they offer.
I smile even writing this because I know this uneasiness means I’m growing up, a strange realization for someone who hasn’t grown physically since 8th grade. However, with adulthood fast approaching, I still can’t manage to shake my childlike belief that anything is possible; what’s more is that I wouldn’t want to.
جميلة تنتظر بعد كل الصبر ، أشياء
“After all patience, beautiful things await”
- Islamic proverb
