Granted, I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. I've been anxious to move on, but looking back, I've really loved my time here. I mean, who doesn't like sharing gloriously awkward moments with co-workers on a daily basis or accidentally mixing 2-4 languages in one conversation? But seriously, I've made some really great friends here. I realize today just how close I've gotten to people at the embassy. As I sat in my adopted office, several people dropped by, as they usually do, just to chat or talk business. The others in my section have really trusted me with some difficult work and told me time and time again that I have been their best intern by far (apparently, they've had some real screw-ups).
I've come in 5 days a week for the last three months and worked full days. I've worked hard. This has been my life and I've grown to find comfort in it. I had to prove myself to all these people and now I have to leave and do it once again. I have to start over somewhere else. I've had some incredible experiences, met some incredible people and seen some incredible things.
That being said, however, I have been anxious to move on and finally settle down a bit (this makes my mother very happy). After all, I've lived in over 14 different places, in 4 different countries, within the last 7 years, and I've spent the entire year of 2008, thus far, crashing at other people's homes. Essentially, I've been living out of a suitcase for five months now. Over the years, I have purposely kept my possessions to a minimum because I know full well that everything I own needs to be able to fit into my '99 Honda Civic, Ruby.
I daydream and fantasize about one day owning a coffee table (or any furniture, really), having a complete matching set of silverware, and having a magazine subscription. This signifies several things:
a) to own furniture, especially a coffee table, you clearly have to have money to buy the furniture and live somewhere where your furniture is necessary (e.i. living in your own place) b) you can afford a year's worth of National Geographic Adventure or The New Yorker and
c) you live at one residence for 12 straight months
These traits have eluded me completely, but mark my words, these things will one day change as I finally get a big-girl job in that mystical place known as "the real world." And hopefully, this day comes soon because I feel like such a nomad. I keep having flashbacks from elementary school when I learned about the nomadic hunter-gatherers, the primitive peoples that gave way to more stationary agriculturally-dependent peoples. As a child learning about these things, I imagined hairy cavemen walking around picking grass and berries and hitting animals over the heads with clubs. I then imagined the pilgrims, cute, clean and picturesque, building their little homes and planting their fields with the bright future of modernity shining upon their cheery faces like a rising sun.
It seems that now, my childhood imagination has resurrected into disturbing visions with me as the oafish caveman, wandering clumsily through the wilderness, club in tow. I then see my contemporaries as adorably precious little pilgrims, primly-dressed and bright as they toil on their land.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to be a pilgrim. I'm done with being a caveman-hunter-gatherer. I want to start farming. Okay, not farming literally, but figuratively. I want to settle down. And by settle down, I mean, get a real job with a salary, stay in one place for a year and maybe, just maybe, get a magazine subscription to National Geographic Adventure to sit upon my second-hand coffee table.
And so tomorrow, as I finish my internship, I'm going to metaphorically throw out my club and hairy toga, don my crisp clean pilgrim's bonnet, grab my land cultivating tools and build up my life.
That is, after I run buck-wild throughout Israel and Jordan for the next three weeks. Come to think of it, maybe the pilgrim Erin is just going to have to wait a few months. Maybe September.
4 comments:
oh the single mid-20s lifestyle. i'm with you on the switch, though this sort of lifestyle, where one has a duffel bag and a few boxes of books, is delightful in an aimless kind of way!
I can't believe its over...i'm so proud of you, and i can't wait to see you!
I'm in love with National Geographic Adventure, though I opted out of subscribing after my mission because it makes it's almost impossible for me to concentrate on school and stuff like that. We have so much to talk about. I see a major slumber party in our future.
And when you do settle down in that nice place in DC for a year, I will come and visit you. I will rest my feet on your coffee table and read your National Geographic and talk about life. Have fun traveling around like crazy. Miss you.
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