I’m on a bus approximately 20 minutes out of Chalinze heading north en route to Arusha. We’re riding Scandanavia Line which I’ve been told isn’t what it used to be though it seems mighty fine to me and Laura. This thing has more white people on it than I’ve seen in a while. “How’s the bus” rings a new text from Ashley. So far, so good. We didn’t leave until maybe an hour after we were supposed to and we first got on, the same damn Celine Dion song wouldn’t stop playing. I thought it was coming from the bus speakers so I continued to trash talk it and make bad jokes/vows to lose it if it keeps playing (my dad’s ‘American Woman’ story comes to mind.) Laura had the decency to refrain from telling me that it was the woman next to us’s cell phone that was actually playing the song… not the bus driver who couldn’t hear me saying all of this. She had to have heard me trash talking that whole time… oops. Either way, the music stopped and we got on our way. Still, when the driver’s assistant (kind of acting like a flight attendant) put a cassette in the tape deck, I prayed it wasn’t Celine Dion. (Have I mentioned yet on this blog how her music is really popular here for some reason? Especially with the dudes and you can hear them playing it when you walk by their rooms. I’m just a little tired of it/never was a fan in the first place.) Now they’re playing “Baby’s Day Out” which I remember watching when it was kind of new back around 1995. It’s the one where the 3 guys steal the baby for ransom and it keeps getting away from them. Anyways, enough about now. Now is not the time for now. We’ll get to now later. This post is about reflecting back on the past year, evaluating the present, and then looking forward into the future.
THE YEAR IN REVIEW
Let’s start with where I was one year ago this time. Pretending there’s no time difference, on this day last year I was newly bald again, sitting/half-standing in a UPS truck disappointed to be spending my New Year’s Eve this way – tromping around in the snow for 13 hours a day after they told me our seasonal jobs would be finished. I got home to more disappointment – no invites to anything for that night. I ate dinner, brushed my teeth and tried just to get to sleep before midnight. Depressed, alone, disappointed in myself and my friends, I vowed to make the next New Year’s Eve better than the last.
So that was how 2009 began for me. I wish I could say that was the worst New Year’s Eve ever for me, but if you look back maybe one or two posts prior to this one, you can imagine that this has historically been a very difficult season in my life. I woke up the next day feeling slightly better and satisfied with my new resolutions. Of course, nobody ever really succeeds in their resolutions and I’m no different, but these ones were alright and pretty manageable. I typed them onto my sticky note application on my sidebar so that I would see them everyday. Three simple goals. One was to get an exercise routine – something pretty common. This sort of happened during spring term and I sometimes managed to go to the rec center in winter, but it never really lasted and I never got fully into something I would call a routine. My next resolution was to play more music. I was getting a concertina soon so I would learn that and I had aspirations to start a tree band though this never fully came to fruition (does this count as a pun?) I did play music throughout the year before I came here but I never quite got it to the extent I had envisioned. Last, I wanted to be a lucid dreamer. This… well this one just flat out didn’t happen. It was formed under the circumstances of my weather imprisonment during that winter break where we were snowed in for almost the entire break so I had nothing better to do. I was pretty close then, but never really got into it after I got back down to Eugene
January through February was mostly characterized by homework and mooching dorm food off of my sister. I was aware about this study abroad program I am doing now and hadn’t yet started the application though I knew it was coming up soon. There was one very notable exception to this time period though… a break in the monotony. One January night, I unexpectedly met someone who changed everything. That topic’s going to get it’s own segment later though so I’ll move on. I made it up to Vancouver California
That’s a pretty condensed summary of what happened in the last year and I’m sure I’m leaving out even more than I intended but this bus ride, baby movie, and everything else that’s been on my mind lately is just making this very difficult to write right now. I think I’ll just try to be brief for once and only really go into one topic before I move on.
ON LOVE
Falling love for the first time was not only quite the experience, but it also changed the way I perceive, think about and do a lot of things since it first started happening. If I’m being honest, it still is changing a lot of things for me everyday. Some days are just completely awesome and I couldn’t be happier. Other days are just the complete opposite where everything just sucks and I’m sad and it seems like I was just wrong about everything I believe. Ya know, I think about this a lot… all the time. It doesn’t seem to take much to throw this balance one way or the other though and I can go from having complete confidence to none at all because sometimes you just hear the complete opposite things you want or hoped to hear. It’s clear there’s a difference in values here and I’m really trying to grow up and be mature about these things. I think that I am too, but it’s just that there are so many ways to see things and just so many things to consider. What differences are manageable and which ones can’t be reconciled? Why are some things even problems to begin with? That’s what I’m trying to work on right now. Some things just bug me and I’m trying to understand why that is as well as if it can change. Still, I wonder why it’s gotta be me who changes and I’m often feeling alone in even perceiving problems. It’s a rollercoaster. It’s a merry-go-round. Some days I just want off. I wish I didn’t think about these things so much and I wish I just knew how it all turns out in the end. It’s just really difficult because I’m trying to be as honest and real as I’ve ever been with someone else and that involves making myself incredibly vulnerable. There’s so much trust involved and it’s really hard when the person you care for most is the one who can hurt you the most and the easiest. I’m still young and this is my first time around doing this so if anyone’s got some wisdom on this topic, I’d be more than glad to hear it. I may just be having a bad day or something [edit January 3: I’m typing this up now and I realize it’s more a product of certain circumstances than an objective review of the topic I wanted to write about, but I’m still keeping it in this post] so don’t take these words as definite, but I just wonder if someone on the outside knows something I don’t and can tell me if it’s really just all wrong.
ON MATURITY
Maturity has always been a confusing topic for me as I continue to get older. Age moves linearly, maturity does not. That’s what I’ve come to realize even though I feel like we grow up being told that they go hand-in-hand. I’ve got incredibly more mature in many respects in the past year; especially so since I came here. But in other ways I feel I’ve actually gotten less mature. I miss a lot of the playfulness with my friends at home and I don’t think I smile nearly as much now as I used to. Sometimes Dar just seems like a serious city and you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. It should be painfully obvious by now if you’ve read any of my other blog posts before that I’m in the middle of about 50 different processes that are occurring right now in my world and my mind. I’m thinking a lot more in these past weeks though than earlier in this journey and I feel like I’ve got a better grasp on things than before. My old thoughts are coming in again and I’m seeing the big picture more clearly. There’s been growth and it’s still going on (it always will) but I think we’ve arrived at the present now and it’s time to share my resolutions.
ONWARD INTO 2010
I’ve got high expectations for 2010, I will admit. They’re probably higher than they’ve ever been before and I think it’s because I’m very driven right now and also that I’ve never been in this position before either. I’m in Tanzania
[at this point, our bus is in Segera and I’ve kind of been writing for two very distracted, bumpy hours]
The rest of my resolutions are almost all about trying to be a better person. I’ve always believed in the philosophy that if I can do better, then I should be doing better. I don’t mind failure so long as I tried. But to lose when I know exactly how I could have tried harder and done better just leads to disappointment or regret and that’s what I want the least. I’ve had a lot of shortcomings in the past and I admit responsibility for these. Now is the time to leave those things in the past and put into practice what I preach. 2010 will be a new year and I’ve never planned on making the most of a fresh start like this as I am now. So, for this next year I am resolving to do the following things in order to become a better man:
- Be more patient
- Be less opinionated and judgmental (or at least save these for the right time and place)
- Give more
- Get more involved – actually do something!
- Be a better friend – be more supportive
- Stop complaining entirely (ambitious)
I really just want to regulate myself better and try to do more than I have been. I feel like people used to have such high expectations for me and everyday seemed like it was building towards something bigger and better, but these last few years I’ve strayed from that. It’s like when Siddhartha left the ascetics and just lived for worldly pleasures for a while. It’s been fun and I’ve enjoyed it, no doubt about that, but I think I can do better than this and it’s time to move on and move forward. I want my life to be a progression towards something better. If someone compliments me, I want to be able to say “…and I’m only getting better” in response. There’s more to this life and there’s more to come yet. I want this to be a turning point. There’s never been a better time than now. This is my year.
I’ve got an ideal plan for how this whole next phase works out and I really hope it all goes to plan or at least that I’m able to stay on my feet, adjust to changes and milk this experience for all it’s worth. I’m dropping this program at the semester. That much I know. I’ve got a million reasons but what’s most important is that I’m not getting what I need from this program and that’s just too much time and money to commit to something that isn’t how I need it to be. After exams in February, I’ll travel for a while and then, if everything works out, I’ll start my internship in Arusha. That will run for about 10-12 weeks or so and then I’ll finish up around mid-May or June. Then my dad can come and we’ll travel together for a while. Maybe I’ll trek around Europe for a while after that if the funds still exist before I come home. I haven’t planned anything after that and it would probably be pointless to plan too much for that far in advance, but you know me and know I’m always thinking a few years in advance. Maybe just drinking beers and playing music is in order. That would be nice. All I have right now is the dream and I’ll do what I can to make it happen. It would be ideal if it happens this way (I guess it would be ideal if it happens any way) but I’ll be honest and admit that I probably won’t get so lucky to have everything work out perfectly. Still, nothing’s going to stop me from trying my hardest to do the best I can…
… man… I just want to be a better person…
Well 2009, it’s time to say goodbye. It wouldn’t be so easy if there wasn’t so much I have to look forward to. You took care of me and showed me so many new things. I’ll never forget you for this and you’ll always have a special place in my heart…
But 2010 is my year.
Scott
XOXO
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