A
few days back I was on the phone with my Dad, and I mentioned how I only had 1
year left in my Peace Corps Service. 1
year is equivalent to 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, about 8,760 hours, you get
the point. 1 year may seem like a long
time to some, especially if you start to measure it in hours, minutes, and
seconds, but it really is not that long.
It’s a drop in the proverbial bucket.
Heck, the past 14 months have gone by in a blur. When I pointed out the time I have left in
South Africa, my Dad reminded me of something very important, advising me not
to wish the time by, something I did not even realize that I might subconsciously
be doing. Again, I was taken aback. Parents always prove to be so wise, beyond their
years (or maybe not so beyond their years), something that you really struggle
to come to terms with in your adolescent years.
This piece of advice got me to thinking.
It got me to thinking about time.
It
seems that as a society, and when I speak of this society I am referring to
Americans in general, the American culture that is so obsessed with time. We are always wishing time by, willing it to
go faster. Time runs our lives. I am not just pointing fingers. I myself am guilty of this on a daily
basis. Since getting to South Africa, I
have realized that this is not something that all people do. In South Africa, time is much, much slower. Time comes last. Relationships come first. Food comes first. Ironing comes first. Time is not on the agenda. Maybe that’s why meetings never start on
time. They start when everyone is ready,
not when the clock dictates. In the
states, we are always rushing, trying to meet times, deadlines,
appointments. We are obsessed with being
on time, and it seems that the clock has us wound up more than anything else.
I
try to speed up the clock in many aspects of my daily life. Again, I remind you that I am still an American
trying to learn to be in a culture where time is not much of an issue. I can’t change completely, but I am still
trying to adapt. As a runner, every run
I go on, every race I compete in, I am up against the clock, quite literally. It is the clock and me. These are my only competitors. I try not to worry about the other runners in
the race as we toe the line. To be
honest, that gets me too nervous. Even
if it is a mere 5 seconds, I push myself to my body’s limits, in the hopes that
I will finish this race faster than I completed the last one. It is a sense of accomplishment, a bettering
of myself as an athlete in the one sport that I love with every ounce of who I
am. But, why must I do this on every
run? Why is it that I need to remind
myself to take some easy days, to slow down and enjoy the scenery? Why is it so hard for me to actually relish
the run, to enjoy being outside, and to take pleasure in the run itself? On the days that I succeed in doing so, I am
reminded of why I love running…the simple sound of my feet hitting the ground,
the feel of my sweat dripping down my back, the sound of my breathing as I
crest a hill.
In
every stage of my life, no matter how much I enjoyed it, I looked to the
future. I am very lucky – a few of my
best friends and family members have invested in communicating with me while I
am here, in a little calling system known as Skype. (For those of you who don’t have it, the
calls are cheap and there aren’t too many dropped calls.) The other week I got to talk to my best
friend, Lauren (Chibby as we call each other).
Whenever I talk to Chibs, I feel like I am teleported back to high
school, back into our grade 11 Chemistry classroom where we were constantly
reminded to be quiet and no matter how hard we tried could not light our Bunsen
burner, back to our lunch period where we swapped stories over which teachers
we loved and which ones drove us crazy, back to our weekends of pizza and movie
marathons (my favorite still being Team
America with Mrs. Talone). High
school was great. My biggest stress in
high school was making sure I never wore the same outfit in a 2 week
period. I mean that would be
terrible! Despite my stress-free days of
high school, my weekly trips to the mall, and my even more frequent trips to
Dunks (they had my car’s order memorized), my mind was always moving forward,
thinking to the future. I had to do well
in school so that I could get into a good university and eventually get a good
job. I couldn’t wait to spread my wings,
and be on my own, a real college student.
Fast-forward
to college – Boston University, School of Education graduate, May 2011. Last week, as we were in our crowded, sweaty,
and bumpy taxi on our way to my village, Nick and I reminisced about life in
college. We talked about everything in
college – from our freshman roommates, to living in a dorm, to the circles of
friends we made, to the activities we partook in, to crazy parties, to our
graduation caps and gowns. Again, college
was an instance in which 4 years of my life, some of the very best years of my
life, went by in the blink of an eye. I
can still remember strolling Bay State Road with my Mom upon first visiting
Boston University, and the embrace that we shared when we realized this was the
right fit for me. (I’m not sure whether
the college search was more stressful for me or for my parents. Guess we’d have to ask them…) We reenacted
one of our favorite movie scenes of all time (when Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost struggles to let go of the hefty
check to the nuns) as we made the first deposit for my University
Education. I can still remember signing
up for BU’s Rugby Team since, at the time, there was still no running
club. Conversely, I can still remember
jumping for joy when I could leave the scariness (and the 5:30 am practices) of
the Rugby field since BU finally formed a running club. I can still remember going on my first run
with Katie, who would become my best friend and running partner. I can still remember my first margarita at
Sunset, the first of many I would enjoy.
I can still remember starting my job at JCrew, and expanding my circle
of friends from only those at university to those in Boston. The list of wonderful times I had at BU is
truly endless. Being in university was
amazing. I made memories and friends
that will last a lifetime. It was the
one time in my life where I was not yet an adult, but no longer a child. I could do what I wanted on my own
watch. Time was truly mine for the
taking. Yet, for some reason, I always
found myself looking to the future. What
would I do after university? Where would
I go? Who would I work for? As my best friends began accepting job offers
and going on interviews, I stressed that my seemingly never-ending Peace Corps
Application/status continued to elude me.
What did the future hold? I
couldn’t help but ask myself this question, over and over again.
Here
I find myself, yet again. I am in the
Peace Corps, a 26 month voluntary commitment (oxymoron? Big shrimp?).
Looking at this time comparatively to other milestones in my life, it is
very short; it is basically half of my time in high school, half of my time in
university, and less than 10% of my life thus far. The time I have here is brief, and it is
going quickly. I have less than one year
left, a very scary thought. I am very
happy. I have a village full of
wonderful people, 2 schools where I feel rather effective and useful, and a
Peace Corps family who I have grown to love more than I ever thought
possible. I work with teachers and
learners everyday who are eager to learn and who somehow teach me something new
every day, whether it be about life, South Africa, or myself. Despite all I have going on in my present,
once again, I look to the future. I
stress about how much I want to accomplish prior to COSing (Close of
Service). I worry that I won’t have done
quite enough during my time here. I try
to think about all of the places that I still want to see during my
holidays. I have started thinking about
what life after the Peace Corps holds for me.
While it is about a year away, my Type A personality does not like leaving
questions unanswered. Do I want to go
back to school while teaching? (Peace
Corps has a great fellows program, a partnership with many graduate programs
that I am looking into.) Do I want to
substitute teach and then find a teaching job the following year, putting grad
school on hold for a little while? Do I
want to find a writing job? I worry
about what they call reverse culture shock, and finding myself back in the states.
Someone
very wise, and thinking along the same lines as my Dad once wrote that “Yesterday
is History, Tomorrow a Mystery, Today is a Gift, That’s why it’s called the
Present.” We have lived our past. We are
living our present. We look forward to
our futures. I think many people’s
problem, at least mine, is that I’m often not
living in my present as I should.
Instead, I’m worrying about a silly mistake I made last week, or, as the
above paragraphs can attest to, I’ve got my head all wrapped around what will
happen next. This is not to say that the
past and the future aren’t important.
They are. You learn from your
past. You grow from mistakes you have
made. Your past shapes who you are in
your present. And without goals and
vision for your future, you are lost.
You need to know where you are going to have a sense of direction for
where you are now. While we need to
recognize the importance of all three – past, present, and future – in our
lives, we need to do a better job of focusing our energy on the present. Rather than being so wrapped up in the past
or future, enjoy where you are currently.
Enjoy the “gift” of the present.
It is only for so long that the present lasts. You need to slow down and smell the roses, or
in my case, slow down and smell the cow dung.
Slow down and enjoy the present, because in the end, when reflecting
back on whatever the experience might be, you’ll wish it hadn’t gone so damn fast.
Le Rata,
Meg :)
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