Home, what is it, and where is it? Going on five months in Saskatoon and I can safely say this is home. I say that with confidence, even as I am realizing how much of a work in progress it is. Realizing how Millissa and I planned a wedding and my move to Canada, in a matter of a few months, with little thought of what would happen next. I believe in the end it will only make us stronger, but this summer has had it's challenging moments as we grappled with the reality of being fully, lovingly committed to each other, while not knowing our relationship through and through. Basically, we are doing everything backwards, making our commitment and then getting to know each other and finding our groove as a team. I became an old man when I was 18 though and I'll do anything that helps me be a child again.
Millissa and I have new experiences all the time thanks to our newness to each other. After spending the summer crashing in a friends spareroom we got our own house! But we don't have any furniture.... Yesterday a friend of ours, who has a garage full of furniture not being used, let us paruse and take what we wanted. Which was great...then Mil and I had to move a giant couch and a dresser. Mil is shorter than me and the whole robot leg thing doesn't make moving larger furniture the easiest task, but us being us, we just said "go for it!" There was lots of grunting, but nobody got crushed so that is a plus. I'm pretty proud of us actually, not just for our physical strength but for our mental fortitude, when you are stressing your body it is very easy to start pointing fingers, but we kept it playful even when Mil was halfway up the stairs and under the couch so we could get it flipped, turned, and jumblebumbled into the living-room.
Saskatoon felt like home very quickly after arriving here, but Mil and I didn't really have a home of our own until now. So that part of home is done, minus the furniture part, still going to have to move a couple things. The other thing that weighs on my mind is career, work etc. I keep pretty busy here, but there is a part of me that really misses having a job that involves helping people. At its most basic level that is my sole passion in life, and even as my job in Portland wasn't the most fulfilling, it gave me an outlet to help people improve their lives. Now, as the summer has passed and the novelty of being in love in a new place wears off, a part of me is starting to wonder what I am doing with the the personal career side of my life.
For a home to be a truly all encompassing home it must have meaning on many levels. My father once put it to me like this, "vocation, relation, location", that pretty much sums it up. I don't know if I would put them in any certain order, as they are all needed and sometimes take precedent over each other. As I've made clear, I'm good with location, and relation, but vocation is where I feel a bit lost.
This part of my life was starting to take shape in Portland, but I gave it up for relations, well worth it and no regrets, but that doesn't mean vocation is abdonned for life. I'm a helper, that's what I've found myself to be, but there are different satisfactions in life. It is great to do a bunch of hardwork helping friends or family out, but that doesn't give you the same satisfaction that being able to provide for you and yours, through making the world a better place does. Then there is the ego's part in it too; I want to be out doing my own thing, in my own way, even as opportunities to help others do their thing are readily available. You can call it selfish or you can call it finding your path. It's human nature, to find your path and you can't hold back when searching for it, you have to go to the edge, make yourself not just available but vulnerable and let life come to you even as you chase it down. Sometimes the chase is wild and full of ups and downs, and sometimes it comes to a standstill, but it never stops. And that's where human nature bites, we want to go to the edge even as we are afraid to walk there, we want it all but we'll hold back even when our destiny is hanging in our face.
Cancer made me grow up and learn things about life at a much earlier stage than is typical. This held me back for a time as I pursued objectives that were necessary, but didn't mesh well with the compressed evolution of my mind. A big struggle during college was the fact that it could teach me all the book knowledge in the world, but rarely did it teach me about life, I had trouble staying interested to say the least. It took time, but after finishing college I began to realize there was no more room for growth if I stayed in Wisconsin. I love Wisconsin and miss countless people there...leaving home is hard (topic for another blog at some point) but I had to leave. So I left, went to South Korea, and maybe that was too close to the edge or it wasn't something I wanted bad enough, but I ultimately didn't stay there either.
What I'm getting at is if you are not happy in your life you are likely not pushing yourself. Which you must do to be satisfied. First you do it on your own, you keep pushing till you find a way to exist in stability, yet fluctuate and grow as life progresses. Change is constant. Than you find that someone who can hold you when the cliff is too high or you are too close to the edge, but will keep helping you grow while you do the same for them.
Millissa and I both like to live on the edge, that is who we are and one of the things that drew us together. Look at how we got married and my move to Canada, it's exciting, feels like how life should be, if only it was as easy as making life what it should be. As the seasons change I'm gaining a hint of perspective on the recent past of my life.
It's like this, you are walking towards the edge of a cliff and you can't stop walking, that's life happening, which it does, whether you do or not. Are you happening? Back to the cliff you're about to walk off..if you don't do anything you'll walk off the edge and that's it. You're not dead and maybe you'll even do some hardwork and climb back up the cliff, but chances are you are not very happy or fulfilled in life. But you don't just walk off the cliff, you do something! You hire a crew of workers to keep extending the length of the cliff so you don't walk off the edge. Those workers are all the things in life you have to deal with, forget about, be with, love and forgive, some will be massive and some will be minuscule. Some people will have the best crew of workers and life will look flawless and effortless, others will not have the greatest workers but they will learn patience, perseverance and gain strength while learning how to work with their crew. And for some it won't matter who their crew is, they'll go so fast the crew has no chance to build and they will fly off the edge, not coping with life. Others will go slow and before they know it their life is almost over, but they've only made it halfway down their road. Life is a balancing act, there are times when you will build and times when you will move, and times when you will build as you move. Life is a contradiction, it is straightening and bending at the same time. Change is constant. You can have your opinions and beliefs etc. but life doesn't care what they are, life will not happen according to your beliefs. You have to be ready for anything, you have to be dynamic like elastic when trying times hit, even as you have to be stronger and more static at these times. Again, change is constant, don't be shocked if you fall as you stand.
