Emotional Motion Sickness
I was informed by social media today that it has now been five years since I left Moscow. Five years! It feels rather abstract, if I’m being honest. What does five years mean? By my count, those five years include:
- Six residences in four cities
- Six countries visited
- Two tattoos
- One graduate degree
- Five jobs
It’s so many new friends – like, so many, from all over the world. I joined a book club (still going!). Five years ago, I didn’t know what Selah was or that The Weekend could be capitalized. It’s been five years of triumphs and heartbreak. My parents split up. I’ve been to a whole bunch of weddings. My friends have started having kids! I dated a lot of folks who turned out to be the wrong person, and started dating the right one. I went from feeling 22 to not being able to come to the phone right now, because I’m dead*. I’ve driven a LOT of miles to just about every corner of the PNW and parts beyond. I’ve done a few things pretty well and made many more mistakes.
*In retrospect, this may have been Taylor Swift. It’s hard to tell.
If you had given me a crystal ball on that last morning in Moscow and given me a glimpse five years ahead, I’m not sure I would have believed you. I never would have imagined myself living alone in a tiny studio apartment (with a cat!) in New Hampshire*. I might have been less surprised if you told me I was doing policy analysis work at a university. I’m looking around at my apartment for things that would have existed with me back then, and there aren’t many. A couple bracelets, some blue pajama pants, maybe a couple fridge magnets. Not much. I think that’s OK. I can pretty unequivocally say that I’m a better person than I was five years ago. Better than I was two years ago. Better than a year ago! I have a long way to go – there’s so much to learn and unlearn. I feel like that’s possible, though. It’s easy to pay lip service to the idea that the journey is the destination – I know it’s something I’ve said for a long time. More and more, though, I think I’m starting to really believe it.
*Technically I don’t live alone, but with Sarah in Guatemala it’s a rather subtle distinction until April.
I’ve been in New Hampshire almost three months now. Sometimes people say “I can’t believe it’s been that long” but for once I actually feel like time is moving at a “normal” pace. Three months feels about right. Enough time to start settling in, but not quite enough time to have made many friends or be totally comfortable outside the normal bubble of routine I usually occupy. Work is fabulous, and I love what I do. I get to do interesting research, and I’m working on a couple of projects that I think are really meaningful. I float between confidence in my abilities and being terrified that everyone will find out that I don’t know what I’m doing. I tell myself that’s normal. My life outside work is still under construction, I would say. There is a fair amount of loneliness. I’m thousands of miles and several time zones away from almost everyone I know and who knows me. Fortunately the internet makes it easy to connect…but it is a different dynamic, no question. The space feels tangible. I now know firsthand the thousands of miles of hills and corn and open sky that separate us. There’s a lot of joy, though – the knowledge that I’m out here chasing a dream, that I’m working toward my goals. That I’ve come so far in the last five years and in another five years I’ll still only be 32. There’s time.
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