The months of May and June have often been a bittersweet time in my life. For the past three years I have found myself at a crossroads to which direction I would go in the following academic year. The year I graduated from high school I had to decide whether I would go to university or hold out on the chance that I would be accepted into a student ballet company in the south of France. By July I had been accepted and unlike most of my peers who were headed off for their freshman year of college, I was packing my bags for Cannes.
The following year, after living and breathing only ballet and the sea air for nine months, I had to decide whether I would continue living and breathing only ballet or make the more practical choice and begin pursuing a degree while still working on a ballet career at Indiana University; I chose the latter. And last year after ending my pursuit as a professional dancer, I found myself yet again at a crossroads. Would I stay in Indiana or move on to something different? Once again I chose to move, here to AUP.
This year, however, I do not find myself at any crossroads and in some ways that is scarier than any of the challenges I have faced in the last three years. What I have begun to realize is that I am more afraid of not going anywhere than going somewhere. So the question that I am forced to ask myself is why am I so afraid to stay in one place where I have begun to develop relationships, learn and understand my environment and plant some roots for myself?
Although moving to a new place seems to be the extreme of my fear of not going anywhere, it is often reflected in many of my day-to-day ventures. In this year alone I have changed my major twice, I have had a few unsuccessful relationships with men and I have even found my group of friends vary since I arrived in Paris. There are very few things that have not changed since I arrived in Paris; I still cannot cook, my metro route to school and my apartment.
Most people would find this relieving; there is not the anxiety of being forced to make new friends, find a new apartment and learn a new route to wherever they find themselves headed every day. But for me I find this fact slightly daunting. It is not because I don’t enjoy living in Paris, nor my great group of friends or even the school that I find myself privy to everyday. Perhaps it is more the idea of being stuck in the same place once again while the “newness” of it all has faded away, like the smell of a new car.
I think we all can attest to the excitement of change. Yes, change is hard and sometimes not for the better, but often it opens us up, forces us to look a situation in a different light and allows us to grow in our own way. For me the idea of somewhere new is like looking at the brochures to a place you are considering. The glossy print and pictures promises the up most opportunity and discovery, as if the institution is just waiting to add your name in somewhere between the lines about what is being offered to the prospective applicant. You begin to imagine yourself among the pictures and place yourself among all the happy, smiling people. It is all so refreshing.
Somehow I can’t get beyond the pictures in the brochure and after all the trials and tribulations of a year in that once new place, I begin to long for new pictures and a new brochure. Yet what I have started to realize is that it is not the smiling pictures that I am so attracted to, it is the fear of being lost amongst all those pictures if I continue where I am. It is my fear that what those pictures and brochures offered will never truly satisfy me.
I found myself as somewhat of a nomad and I have found the fact that I am moving to be a great excuse over the past few years. I have been able to keep from getting too deep into relationships, which has kept me from getting hurt. I have been able to avoid any real romantic relationship because I have never been sure of where I was going and I have not been obligated to decide what I really want to do with my life because conveniently I have to start over again every place I have gone to.
What is this really saying? Do I fear commitment and making any long lasting decisions because I am more scared of that kind of change in my life than any other kind? I am beginning to understand that moving is the easiest thing to do; anyone is capable of doing it. It does not take a mature and rational person to move locations, only a little courage and loads of independence. However, it does take someone rational and mature to look at the situation that they are in and stay because they can recognize that there is more good in staying than throwing up their hands as soon as they are frustrated.
I don’t think I would have every begun to realize this if it hadn’t been for a relationship I recently got out of. While most of the details to the relationship are irrelevant, there is one fact that sticks out clearly for me- for the first time in my life I heard my own excuse used against me. Why wouldn’t the relationship work, I remember asking. Because, he said, his job kept him from having a proper relationship and he wasn’t sure where he would be in the next few months, which forced him to keep his distance. And that’s when I finally understood why I was staying; I have begun a life long romance with Paris and it has begun in a community of people whom I wouldn’t have chosen to be any different. AUP may merely be a launching ground into a still hazy future and my friends may continue to change in shape and size but I know that I am returning to a city that will not force me to find some distance but force me to dig a little deeper below its surface.
No comments:
Post a Comment