Guest Blog: Change
by Evy
Landed late in Minneapolis. Missed my original flight because of stormy weather in both Brussels and Amsterdam. The view of Minnesota from the aircraft just after you land causes my stomach to bubble over with excitement.
"You've changed" said Dad. "There is a sense of calm about you that wasn't there before". He was right.
At the same time I felt overwhelmed with joy from being with my family and good friends again after nearly a year without them, there was a serene presence within me.
I realized at that moment all the hard work I had done over the past years, especially since graduating from university, had amounted to something tangible. Hours of solitude, meditation and discussion, put into practice in daily life combined with fighting through the challenges of living and working in the two disparate countries had changed me.
I am still the same in essence but I feel purified.
The mental drama that played out in my mind while seemingly trapped in a frustrating job and unbearable relationship mixed with pure enthusiasm and drive for a future where my dreams were no longer a figment of my imagination has disappeared.
Of course, immediately a new fear brews to the surface of my consciousness; can this state of bliss last?
As I shared my experiences with Kata, Megan and Dad, really anyone that will listen, I am empowered. I have what I want. It is more than being happy. I am confident. I ride the lows and the highs with a healthy detachment that leaves me still inside.
In April 2005 I experienced a real life nightmare. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of seven months who had wanted to get married but failed to realize we were both in such unhealthy states of mind that all that could come out of a relationship together was disaster. Instead of accepting this, we both tried to maintain something between each other which ended in violence and rage. In a way, I am thankful. His violence gave me the necessary confidence to walk away and never look back.
It was in the same moment that I also decided to walk away from my job and life (which were really the same thing) in Washington DC. I had been working for nearly two years for an environmental organization. It really should have been a dream job for me, someone who studied natural resource management in university and had a short working history in international development. However, all I found was frustration. I was unhappy with the lack of professional growth opportunities. I felt as if everyone around me was prospering and I was wasting away getting farther from my dreams than ever before. Bizarre, really, because I was in the seemingly most ideal location for a young graduate.
My frustration was both justified and self-induced.
Justified because you could say I was cheated out of opportunities; self-induced because I stayed, remained overly optimistic and put up with it.
Sometimes I look back on my two years in the capital and think it was a disaster. Other times I look back and know that it was a necessary evil. Despite the negativity dripping from my writing, I feel good about my time there.
I gained exactly what I needed – impressive professional experience and a start in the working world. For that, I am eternally grateful to those that helped me get there.
I also learned a great deal from being stuck in a huge rut both professionally and personally. I am sure that a person sometimes needs to get deeply into the depths of despair to see the light that was always present.
A table in a chain coffee shop in Washington DC a year and a half ago
"I’ve reached a plateau. I look back and see the mountains of personal growth I have climbed but I can't see a future. It is the most depressing feeling I can imagine. How will I get over this if I can't even see a way out?" I said to the unsympathetic ears across from me.
Upon resigning from my post, I immediately found an outlet for my energy in the form of a six week photography program unfortunately situated in the heart of Mid-Coast, tourist ridden, Maine. The ambiance was less than ideal but the emphasis on photography every waking moment of my life was exactly what I needed to draw the line between my old life and the one to come. Three thousand and six hundred photographs later, after what I am sure became the beginning of a life long fight to close the gap between me and my art, I set off on an intrepid journey into the heart of Africa, into the heart of an old dream, leaving behind the remnants of a new life incomplete.
Change takes time.
Even though potentially drastic and abrupt, true change rarely happens over night. I would spend the next year of my life in Freetown, Sierra Leone – the second poorest country in the world. The job was a dream one, at least for the Evy of the past. I had creative control, power, and a whole lot of responsibility. But in the freedom of photography and time surrounded by fellow artists also searching the summer before, a truer dream materialized within me.
I no longer wanted to be Director of Programs for an environmental organization or even Secretary-General of the United Nations. Instead I discovered that I am happiest, I am me, I am free of the anxiety of questing after something false when I am drenched in the more subjective disciplines such as photography and writing.
In Minnesota, visiting family and friends one year later, I could see the whole picture, which I failed to fully grasp in Sierra Leone. I needed to go live through another round of environmental work. I needed to live the dream I craved so much in Washington to realize that it wasn’t what I truly desired. The environmental work was perhaps a misplaced passion. I think that I went out and succeed professionally because of two reasons: a need to prove myself to myself and because I thought that happiness would come from being professionally successful.
It is more than my professional outlook that has changed. Some of the crazy fears I had about identity loss while in a relationship, my role as a woman (specifically being afraid to accept what it means to be a woman), the fear of having children and living a somewhat more domestic life than I thought possible are beginning to disintegrate.
Don’t get me wrong.
I am still searching. I still have passion. But I find myself in a more permanent state of calm. I am beginning to be at ease in my own body for the first time.
Landed late in Minneapolis. Missed my original flight because of stormy weather in both Brussels and Amsterdam. The view of Minnesota from the aircraft just after you land causes my stomach to bubble over with excitement.
"You've changed" said Dad. "There is a sense of calm about you that wasn't there before". He was right.
At the same time I felt overwhelmed with joy from being with my family and good friends again after nearly a year without them, there was a serene presence within me.
I realized at that moment all the hard work I had done over the past years, especially since graduating from university, had amounted to something tangible. Hours of solitude, meditation and discussion, put into practice in daily life combined with fighting through the challenges of living and working in the two disparate countries had changed me.
I am still the same in essence but I feel purified.
The mental drama that played out in my mind while seemingly trapped in a frustrating job and unbearable relationship mixed with pure enthusiasm and drive for a future where my dreams were no longer a figment of my imagination has disappeared.
Of course, immediately a new fear brews to the surface of my consciousness; can this state of bliss last?
As I shared my experiences with Kata, Megan and Dad, really anyone that will listen, I am empowered. I have what I want. It is more than being happy. I am confident. I ride the lows and the highs with a healthy detachment that leaves me still inside.
In April 2005 I experienced a real life nightmare. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of seven months who had wanted to get married but failed to realize we were both in such unhealthy states of mind that all that could come out of a relationship together was disaster. Instead of accepting this, we both tried to maintain something between each other which ended in violence and rage. In a way, I am thankful. His violence gave me the necessary confidence to walk away and never look back.
It was in the same moment that I also decided to walk away from my job and life (which were really the same thing) in Washington DC. I had been working for nearly two years for an environmental organization. It really should have been a dream job for me, someone who studied natural resource management in university and had a short working history in international development. However, all I found was frustration. I was unhappy with the lack of professional growth opportunities. I felt as if everyone around me was prospering and I was wasting away getting farther from my dreams than ever before. Bizarre, really, because I was in the seemingly most ideal location for a young graduate.
My frustration was both justified and self-induced.
Justified because you could say I was cheated out of opportunities; self-induced because I stayed, remained overly optimistic and put up with it.
Sometimes I look back on my two years in the capital and think it was a disaster. Other times I look back and know that it was a necessary evil. Despite the negativity dripping from my writing, I feel good about my time there.
I gained exactly what I needed – impressive professional experience and a start in the working world. For that, I am eternally grateful to those that helped me get there.
I also learned a great deal from being stuck in a huge rut both professionally and personally. I am sure that a person sometimes needs to get deeply into the depths of despair to see the light that was always present.
A table in a chain coffee shop in Washington DC a year and a half ago
"I’ve reached a plateau. I look back and see the mountains of personal growth I have climbed but I can't see a future. It is the most depressing feeling I can imagine. How will I get over this if I can't even see a way out?" I said to the unsympathetic ears across from me.
Upon resigning from my post, I immediately found an outlet for my energy in the form of a six week photography program unfortunately situated in the heart of Mid-Coast, tourist ridden, Maine. The ambiance was less than ideal but the emphasis on photography every waking moment of my life was exactly what I needed to draw the line between my old life and the one to come. Three thousand and six hundred photographs later, after what I am sure became the beginning of a life long fight to close the gap between me and my art, I set off on an intrepid journey into the heart of Africa, into the heart of an old dream, leaving behind the remnants of a new life incomplete.
Change takes time.
Even though potentially drastic and abrupt, true change rarely happens over night. I would spend the next year of my life in Freetown, Sierra Leone – the second poorest country in the world. The job was a dream one, at least for the Evy of the past. I had creative control, power, and a whole lot of responsibility. But in the freedom of photography and time surrounded by fellow artists also searching the summer before, a truer dream materialized within me.
I no longer wanted to be Director of Programs for an environmental organization or even Secretary-General of the United Nations. Instead I discovered that I am happiest, I am me, I am free of the anxiety of questing after something false when I am drenched in the more subjective disciplines such as photography and writing.
In Minnesota, visiting family and friends one year later, I could see the whole picture, which I failed to fully grasp in Sierra Leone. I needed to go live through another round of environmental work. I needed to live the dream I craved so much in Washington to realize that it wasn’t what I truly desired. The environmental work was perhaps a misplaced passion. I think that I went out and succeed professionally because of two reasons: a need to prove myself to myself and because I thought that happiness would come from being professionally successful.
It is more than my professional outlook that has changed. Some of the crazy fears I had about identity loss while in a relationship, my role as a woman (specifically being afraid to accept what it means to be a woman), the fear of having children and living a somewhat more domestic life than I thought possible are beginning to disintegrate.
Don’t get me wrong.
I am still searching. I still have passion. But I find myself in a more permanent state of calm. I am beginning to be at ease in my own body for the first time.
at
11:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home