It could be anything

Rio de Janiero, where I still hope to visit someday. (Image by Poswiecie)

I survived exactly one year of teaching public school. 

I liked the actual job, mostly — I was the music teacher at two schools. But it was a job for someone about twice as old as I was. 

And I needed to be paid about twice as much to make it work. 

When I shared the music of Brazil with the kids, they asked if I had been there. No, I hadn’t. I had hardly been anywhere. I went from being in school to teaching in school, more or less. 

And I still felt that same sense of being trapped that I had had as a teenager — that sense of waiting for life to start. I didn’t know how to get out of it. 

I didn’t have the Internet at home, and I didn’t have a cell phone (this was a million years ago). So during every planning period, I fired up the rickety old Macintosh tower in my classroom and researched other options. Teaching English in Asia? Busking in Europe? Moving to Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, or Boston? 

I did manage to take a trip to L.A. for a music conference. It was a sweet taste of what life could be like, but then I went back to my job and my daydreams. 

In the spring, I decided not to renew my contract. I went from tight constraints to none, and now I had no idea what to do with the freedom. I moved back in with my parents for the summer because my lease was up and I had nowhere to go.

Just as I was starting to formulate a plan, September 11 happened. Like many others, I sank into grief, anxiety, and bad habits. 

What changed to get me out of my funk? I booked a Thanksgiving trip to Atlanta to see family. I vowed that if I liked Atlanta, I’d move there. 

I did, and I did. And then I made another decision, and another, and built a life. 

While the lack of choices I’d had as a first-year teacher made me deeply unhappy, I was just as miserable with the infinite options I had once I quit. I didn’t know myself well enough to navigate that. I just drifted around in the open ocean — no danger of running into something, but no possibility of discovery, either. 

My next move could have been anything. Therefore, in a sense, it didn’t matter what I chose. Choosing something was a relief because it narrowed down the possibilities for my next choice, and so on and so on all the way up to this present moment. 

I’m once again faced with a significant amount of freedom, but now I know who I am. That knowledge creates constraints in itself. The reality of my age adds more. This time, with a confidence in myself and my values, I don’t feel adrift on an endless sea. I’m not overwhelmed and aimless like I was back in the early years of the century. In a sense, I’m just continuing along the path I’m on, enjoying the twists and turns and choosing my route based on the best information I’ve got.

What I learned at age twenty-three is that when the future could be anything, it feels a lot like nothing. I don’t think I can save anyone from that uncertainty, and and I wouldn’t want to. But if you’ve experienced it — or you’re in it right now — I hope it helps to know that you’re not alone.