T-4: An Adventure on the Horizon

Listening: I remember me, and all the little things that make up a memory. Like she said, she loved to watch me sleep. Like she said, "It's the breathing. It's the breathing in and out and in and... Have you seen me lately?"

What's my problem? Nerves... and a cold.

When I was a child, I said that I never wanted to be a person with a job that required me to be behind a desk. I saw my father going in on weekends to do work in an empty office as I sat and played with model airplanes listening to the dot matrix printer hum and buzz. I saw the stacks of paper on his desk and I knew that I didn't want that for me. I saw all he was doing as intangibility.

It's not that I think or thought that his job and his profession is unimportant or unrewarding. It very much is/could be. I just know it is not for me.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a marine biologist, an astronaut, a writer, a DJ, and an advertising creative director. And then I woke up in the morning sometime in 2001 and found myself to be a corporate accountant. I found myself surrounded by stacks of paper, waiting for sheets of it to be spit out of laser printers. I found myself wearing khakis and being very unhappy.

Three years later, after some unfortunate events in the office and some other people's knives plunged firmly into my back, I turned to working in kitchens. For two years, I worked both jobs. And then I switched over to being a full time fine dining cook.

I no longer want to be a marine biologist, an astronaut, a DJ, an advertising creative director (sometimes I still want to be a writer, which is why this place exists). I am no longer wearing khakis or find myself surrounded by stacks of paper, waiting for more paper to be spit out of laser printers. I am a cook. I am a cook with a stretch of time to use as I please and the money saved to do such.

I am a free man.

When I was a child, my parents found out through what teachers told them that I was a child that needed structure to thrive. I have found that it's kind of true. I have found that I work much better with structure than with the free will to do as I please. I sometimes say to myself, "Holy fuck! What am I supposed to do?" The problem with that question is that it implies a specific destiny and goal. It implies a status quo that I should be aiming for. The word "supposed" I feel like means that it's what everyone else wants from me and what I should want for myself.

But I am a free man.

I want to see the world. I want to taste the tastes of other cultures. I want to see. I don't just want to do for the sake of a future or for the sake of the ending. I want to have constant moments of enlightenment, not just the nirvana at the end.

It's tough though. It's tough to not just focus on the end goal. It's tough to live in the now, but still keep yourself safe for the next two steps.

I always had a theory that most people are brought up thinking that either the next step will be the best, or that a time in their past is the best time in their lives. Just like kids in kindergarten think that the first graders are so cool because they get to have a whole day of school, and first graders look up to the sixth graders because they are almost out of grammar school. Sixth graders look up to seventh graders because they get to go to school dances and go to a new school, while the seventh graders look up to the eighth graders, because they're top dogs of junior high. The cycle goes on and on until you're an adult making your living, and even then, you're compelled to look forward to retirement. Most people have such strange lives filled with consistent want and envy.

What I want is for right now to be great, and I'm doing everything I can to insure that.

I'm on the edge of starting an incredible journey. Five countries in two and a half months. The flights are booked. I have no hotel booked as of yet, but I will have the first four nights booked before I leave. After that, my life is moment to moment. My life is what I feel right now. My life isn't about what happens when I get back to the States. It's not about how I want my career to go. It's not about opening up my own restaurant someday. It's not about buying a car, house, or anything. It's certainly not about retirement. It's about what am I seeing in front of me. It's about right now.

It's both exciting and nerve racking to not know what's around the bend. It's tough not knowing what's going to be happening in a week.

What I do know is that I'll see things that most Americans only dream of or think of as alien. I know that I'm not going to be one of those freedom fries Americans who is trapped in the bubble of American culture, thinking that our culture is the best and only way to be. I am one of those Americans who loves the possibilities of his own culture, but acknowledges that there are other ways of life that aren't better or worse, just different. I'll be seeing those differences and living those differences first hand. Maybe I'll incorporate some of the differences into my own, personal culture.

I know that all of this sounds preachy. It sounds selfish and ego-maniacal. But it is my life. Why shouldn't everyone be selfish about their own life? I don't pretend to tell people how to live their life. All I can do is tell people how I feel my life should be led, or how I would deal with things if I were in someone else's position.

But anyways, the bottom line is that all of this uncertainty is very scary. Life is very scary. But, really... would I really want it any other way? The stakes are what makes something valuable. I could have a very safe, secure life, but what would it be worth? It would have monetary value, that's for sure. I would have a net worth at least into six figures. With the way I'm living now, each day, to quote the cliche, is priceless. And as scared and nervous as I am, I wouldn't have it any other way.