The temperature outside is hovering around zero (Celsius
that is). The already thickly frozen layers of ice and snow on the streets have
begun to melt in the past 48 hours of indecisive temperature, making for
everyone’s favorite messy mix of slush, ice and water.
This morning as I carefully navigated my way around the
puddles that hid layers of ice as I made my way to buy produce at the bazaar, I
began to think about this temperature hovering. “Come on!” I seemed to beg of
the weather. “Pick a side, do you want to freeze and snow, or not and rain?” I found
I wasn’t appreciating the ice below, rain above, slippery puddles. I wanted
decisions. And appropriately so, this brought about the thoughts of where I am
in my own life, also wanting clear and deliberate decisions. No one like
fence-sitters- but why?
I have a little over 5 months of time left here in Moldova,
as a Peace Corps volunteer. I have loved my time here. Things were hard,
terrifying, enlightening, sad, joyful…things were the stuff life is made of.
But now I know I need to think ahead of what to do next; where to go, with whom
to be, work or school, domestic or foreign. As we all know this kind of
thinking, when thought on too much, brings about anxiety. I am a slippery
puddle. I am not warm and melted-flowing, but I am not fully frozen- stuck.
Sometimes we start out wet and warm and in time start to freeze up. This is me
now. I had been loving my life in Moldova-making my own schedule, working on multiple
projects at once with many partners, meeting new and interesting people and experiences
at every turn. It’s a rather perfect lifestyle for me. And the idea of going into something that
boxes me in (getting colder) and makes me ask how high when they say jump (and
colder) and chains me to one desk in one place for the rest of my life (OMG
almost frozen!!!)…ok you can see I am not being rationale. And other times we
start out frozen. “I am NOT EVER going to do THAT”. And in time, we warm up to
an idea, a place, a person. But life is not black and white, warm or frozen.
So why do we tend to be so uncomfortable in the middle. To
be moving from one major life decision to the next, having not yet grabbed onto
something “permanent” is probably the scariest thing in life. (And to note, permanency
is a joke, as Shakyamuni Buddha explained, there are four inescapable
realities: 1) we will all become old and frail. 2) It is absolutely certain
that everything will constantly change.
3) Everything we achieve or accumulate will eventually fall apart and scatter. 4)
We are all bound to die).
We’re all slippery puddles at times. Sometimes we’re warm
pools or dry as a bone, sometimes we’re slush, sometimes we’re ice. But we’re
always changing and choices will always need to be made. I don’t know how to
embrace this zero degrees myself yet. Each time it happens, I KNOW I am in the
middle of a huge life choice and lesson, and yet I still get worked up and just
want to swim or slide, you know?! Sometimes you just want to have fun and see
what happens. One thing I know to do, is as best I can, be light. “LIGHTEN UP
JULIE, IT’S ALL GOING TO CHANGE ANYWAY”, a familiar voice echoes. The laughable
part is that I am not even sure it’s what we choose or do or make that matters
the most. I think it’s more important HOW we do it. Or at least equally
important Do we listen, do we flow, do we trust? Or do we move with our head in
the sand, making the choices out of fear?
Listen. Lighten. Flow.
Om shanti. Om peace.
