The Adventure of a Lifetime

Life is hardly ever static. There’s moments of busyness as well as calmness, where everything is moving a thousand miles an hour and where everything slows down to a halt. There’s ups, there’s downs; there’s lefts, there’s rights. I think life would be quite boring if it were always the same. But, at the same time, that doesn’t always mean that its fun, especially transitioning from the highs into the lows. Coming back from fun filled holidays and having progress reports, new kids, sickness, and an existential crisis or two thrown at you, for example, is not fun (and partly why I haven’t updated this blog in so long). To say it doesn’t live up to December is an understatement; quite frankly, the new year kinda sucks. And I get the general feel that I’m not alone in that sentiment. Between bushfires, missile strikes, floods, viruses, and volcanoes, 2020’s been through a hell of a lot.

Perhaps the greatest piece of advice I’ve ever received was from my uncle, on the night of my mother’s death. He told me that life was full of ups and downs, and that life would push and pull you one way or another all the time. It was a confusing and bumpy roller coaster full of swerves and turns and ups and downs and lefts and rights. But he also told me, that when you’re in the downs, to look at how high up the ups would be, and how much more you had to look forward to when they came. Of course, losing your mother is about as far down as you can go. But I held onto this advice, this hope, ever since that moment, and although it was certainly difficult, I held onto that faith, the hope of seeing where the ups would take me throughout my journey dealing with losing Mom. It took a long, long time. But slowly, the ups came. I graduated high school, I graduated Columbia Greene, and I made my way to New Paltz. Slowly but surely, the ups were revealing themselves. And before I knew it, I reached what I thought was the absolute peak. I was on my way ten thousand miles away from home to Australia.

A Thousand Little Blessings

Australia wasn’t what I thought it would be. Honestly, I was a little disappointed when I first got there. I’d been awake for almost two days and on a number of planes for over a day’s worth of flying (for my first ever flight mind you). I thought it’d look exactly like 42 Wallaby Way from Finding Nemo, and I thought everybody I met would be Crocodile Dundee. Instead I was top bunk in a small flat not even properly in the city of Melbourne, with a flatmate I wasn’t sure I liked. I didn’t have any food, any cell service, any toilet paper, nothing. I had these great and grand expectations for Australia and here I was on my first day trying to find someone kind enough to let me borrow their phone to let my parents know I had landed safely.

Luckily, with a little sleep, food, and time, things got better. I settled into a new way of life on the other side of the world where everything was different. I’d expected that, to some extent, things would be different. But while I’d expected a few things to be massively different (driving, shopping, etc.), instead I found it was a thousand little things ever so slightly different from home. And it was weird at first to adjust: not including tip at a restaurant, walking towards the left side of the footpath, playing scissors-paper-rock instead of rock-paper-scissors, and always second guessing that spider in the corner. The call of the birds were different, the food tasted different, people acted different and talked different (getting used to Aussie slang for the first time is a lot of work). But in a way, it was these thousand little things that made Australia so special.

There were some pretty big and grand moments in Australia too. I got to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef and see hundred of fish and coral. I saw the Sydney Opera House and even walked inside. I rode a camel in the Outback with the grand backdrop of Uluru behind me (check out an in-depth story about that here!). I surfed on the Great Ocean Road, cuddled with kangaroos, hiked jungles and deserts, attended famous horse races, sailed the Tasman Sea, and stood in the Victorian Parliament. It was the most packed five months of my life. I did a lot. But in a way, it’s not all those major things that made my time in Australia memorable. It was the thousands of little things, thousands of little blessings, that made Australia special. It was the parakeets and magpies in the trees while walking to class. It was the tiny ice cream shop in the train station or fries down the road. A trip to the museum or the library, or the grocery store or Pizza Hut. Riding the tram in the city and listening to people talk or walking on the river at night, starring at the thousands of stars different from those back home.

I’d expected Australia to change me in much the same way I’d expected Australia to be. I thought I’d find a new home, an opening for a job or an opportunity to finish my studies in Melbourne. Maybe I’d finish my book, publish it, and retire somewhere on the coast. I’d find an Australian woman who’d love me and push for me to stay and start a new life with her. Maybe, somehow, I’d become an Australian hero. In some way or another, I’d find my destiny here. My purpose.

I expected it to be life changing. And it was. But not in the way I had imagined.

Two Years

Eventually, my time in the Land Down Under came to a close. I was disheartened, to think I’d have to return to a normal, boring life after an adventure as grand as this. I was just ‘this’ close to finding my destiny and having everything I ever wanted. My family was excited to have me coming home, and there were certain things I missed about home like my car and my town and my family. But I still didn’t necessarily want to come back, for everything from this great adventure to fade into obscurity. I didn’t know if I could deal with an ordinary life again.

But everything changed the moment the plane took off. The whole way home, I couldn’t stop smiling at the thought I’d have my sister, Dad, and step-mom waiting for me at the airport. I wasn’t sure what laid ahead, any more sure than I was taking that great leap of faith to come to this great country in the first place. But whatever it was, maybe it would still be special. It’d be different, but it’d be special.

Initially, it was packed. I got back into traditional American spirit immediately by celebrating Fourth of July, going to car races, and seeing baseball games. I had my birthday, went to Pennsylvania, applied for and got a job at the study abroad office, before finally making my way back to New Paltz. Once in college, senior year proved to be just as packed. I made new friendships and rekindled old ones, friendships that were different and unique from anything I’d experienced and the kind of friendships that last for life. Classes, papers, working on campus and struggling to find a job after college. And then finally, graduation. A new job after college, my first full-time and doing something I actually loved. I climbed mountains, traveled, spent time finding hobbies and doing things I loved and maintaining relationships with the people I love.

But overtime, you slowly realize that life is once again, ‘normal’. You get used to the American accent, and your use of the Aussie accent and slang fades. You realize eventually everyone you’ve met has heard your stories of Aussie adventure and doesn’t need to hear the same story three thousand times. You trade in your Aussie hat and boomerang for cargo pants stuffed with diapers or toys and shirts you’ve probably got paint on but can’t tell exactly where or how much. Even the adventures after Australia slowly start to slip away. Your exciting new job turns into a day to day thing you kinda have to do. You don’t see your friends, the people you lived with for a year, for six months or more, and when you do it’s only for half a day. Slowly, everything just becomes mundane. Ordinary.

The Adventure Continues

My entire life, I set myself up to believe I had a great and grand purpose. Some majestic plan laid out by God that would turn my ordinary life into one of extraordinary circumstances. Maybe it was the movies I watched. Maybe it was the books I read, the things I studied or people I admired. Maybe it was the people I talked to. Maybe it was Mom. Maybe it was just hope. Every step of my life, has been leading to something. From losing Mom, to high school, college, Australia, and preschool. One step closer to my destiny.

But lately, I feel like I haven’t made any steps. The hype and adventure has died down. I’m stuck, waiting for the next thing in life to come at me. In the meantime, life is ordinary. It’s slow, and dull, and sometimes downright depressing. Everything stands still.

There’s more. There has to be.

“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” -Jeremiah 29:11

Maybe that’s all true and maybe there’s a lot more out there in store for me than this. The ups I once experienced can come again. Not in the same way, perhaps, but in a different and new way. One that’s even better than I could have imagined it. I won’t be ‘stuck’ forever. Just in the same way as losing Mom, I won’t be in the pits forever. But maybe it’s okay to be at a more static, ‘normal’ point of life. It’s okay that I’m not 10,000 miles from home on a wild adventure. It’s okay that I don’t see old friends as often, and that I have a job which often tires me out from doing other things. It’s okay to go to bed early and have a weekend where I’m doing nothing.

Is it ordinary? Perhaps. Is it mundane, or boring? Only if I believe it to be. There’s thousands of things that make life worth living and thousands of tiny little blessings that make it special. I may not be riding camels in the Outback, but I get to ride the scooter in the gym and have kids push me. I’m not seeing my college friends every single day, but the rare occasion I do gets to be special. I may not be feeding kangaroos at a wildlife sanctuary, but I cook dinner once a week for my parents (and they’re a lot more grateful). Maybe it’s not grand, but maybe it doesn’t need to be. The ups and downs in life, they aren’t so much determined by what’s around you, but what you make of the life around you. Life is as epic or tedious as you wish it.

In that sense, the adventure continues. I still have a job I love. I still have friends that care about me. I still have opportunities to explore and grow, chances to try new things and find new methods of keeping myself entertained. I still have memories. Memories of a Land Down Under. Memories of New Paltz and my friends. Memories of Mom. And more than that, I have more than just the memories because all of those things are still just as much a part of my life now as they were in the flesh. I can mix the old and the new, and create a life that isn’t necessarily overt and grand but isn’t tedious and dull. Instead, it’s just life.

So while I’m waiting, waiting for where God takes me next, I need to be happy with where he’s put me now. I may not know the next step. That’s okay. It may come in a couple days, or couple years. It may be a giant leap to the other end of the world, or it may be a tip toe into something smaller. It could be momentous. Or it could be minuscule. In a sense, it doesn’t really matter. The ups I seek will come in their own timing. But why wait? If I look hard enough, maybe they’re also here right now. In this moment. In the form of thousands of little blessings that keep me going every day. Blessings that turn an ordinary life into one that is extraordinary. That, among other lessons, was perhaps the biggest lesson I learned in Australia. A thousand little blessings can make something ordinary into something extraordinary.