Sydney: Take 2.

I'm not even sure where to begin here. I think the feeling most prevalent in my heart is one of thankfulness. Two months ago, upon arriving here in Australia, things were just not as I had hoped. The only thing keeping us from being out on the streets was the graciousness of Rebecca's sister and her husband allowing us to stay in their house, and it was a huge sacrifice for them to do that. They gave us a car to use, asked us to have dinner with them, and gave us support and help for longer than they needed to. They helped us find work, gave us encouragement, Susie had her friends at work give me tips on finding work, Jean spoke French with me, and their kids were such a blast to be around. It was really a wonderful start to our trip here, and we really would not have made it in Sydney without them. Two months into it, we were ITCHING to find work! These last two weeks have been such a whirlwind... I went from café to café for hours on end trying to find work, submitting my application to each one, hoping for a call, and finally I found a café in Balmain that hired me, (yay!) My first shift, I worked for 10 hours by myself, 12 tables, seating customers, delivering food and drinks, taking orders, bussing tables, everything.. I think it was the hardest work of my life, but at the end, I just felt amazing. At the start, I thought to myself "No, I have a college degree! I worked hard for this, I'm not going back to waiting tables!" But in the end, not only did I find that I really enjoy the job, that it's wonderful exercise, that I am naturally good at it, but also that it's not so bad to let my sense of pride down and accept a job that I don't need a degree for. I can't let a degree define who I am, seeing as how I don't even LIKE what I got a degree in, and have no real desire to pursue a career in the business world. If I had an MD or something and was passionate about medicine, then sure, I could see not wanting to wait tables, but even though i worked really hard in college, I don't like my degree - a Bachelor of Science in High Technology Management. It's boring. It's managing computer programmers, and the part of me that was really interested in that died about 5 years ago. So waiting tables? Bring it on.

I think with each new country I visit, I find new things that I love about each one. I remember France being so difficult when I first got there... I went back and read some of my posts from when I first arrived, and I wanted nothing more than to just go home, back to my friends, because I had none, back to my language, because I couldn't communicate, back to my family because I had no one to watch over me, and back to Rebecca, because I missed her. It feels different this time though. The entire cultural appeal of Europe does not exist for me here. I'm not saying Australia is a bad place, but one of the things that entranced me about Europe, the age of the buildings, the monuments, the new cities I could visit - none of that exists here. I enjoy my job, Rebecca is enjoying hers, we're making a better life for ourselves right now than we were making or could have made in the States, so financially it's a big plus, but I guess I miss the rest of life. When work is over, after I've caught up with friends on facebook and played some games and watched some LOST, there doesn't seem like there's much else to do. In France, I was in an environment that made is easy for me to make friends, living with younger people, and teaching in a school where I was unique, where people wanted to get to know me. I think both Rebecca and I would like to make friends here, but we're not sure how. We want to find a church here in Balmain that we can go to. Maybe we can meet some people there, but to be honest, I really miss that school environment. I keep wondering "what am I supposed to do with my life?" It took me from San Jose to San Diego to Calais to Sydney, and I still have not figured it out. With each leap my life takes, I find myself being interested in more and more things. First it was being a professional hockey player, then Asian culture, then technology, then international relations, then French, then teaching, then wine making, and now, as I am getting older and thinking about the next stage of my life, I feel pressured to choose something.

I guess in some ways I feel jipped. Not jaded, just jipped. You're told as a kid that you can do whatever you want in life, that the doors are wide open, that you can do anything as long as you work hard, but... that never happened to me. From as early an age as I can remember I was always interested in so many things, TOO many things I guess. I could never decide which path I wanted to take - I guess that's why when I play RPGs I always choose characters that are jack of all trades. I have ideas that are more solid now than they used to be, by my life keeps getting turned upside down. I feel that my personality is too paradoxical to make any type of decision that will lead me to stability. I want change, travel, new cities, new experiences, but at the same time I dream of a stable home, in a community of people I know and love and trust, I dream of a home I can call my own, a family, a dog, a 9-5 job. For the last two years now I have felt very strongly that Europe was the place I could have those things, because it offered, if I were able to get a job, stability and the possibility of owning a home and having a life that did not change from day to day, but also allowed for the opportunity to travel, experience new cultures and languages and foods and histories, things which.. absolutely invigorate me. I'm finding that while that dream is still very much alive in my head, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that Rebecca and I will end up back there. We want to, both of us... but the language barrier is a huge thing to overcome. I'm doing alright with my French, I'm studying it on my own, I'm reading books and talking to friends from France when I get a chance, but I don't feel like I'm growing any closer to fluency. I don't feel that my actual level of French is improving, it's just staying the same with a slightly larger vocabulary of words I'll never use, (thanks books.) Even if we get back to France, there is still a huge question of WHAT we would do once we got there. I guess the question I am trying to answer at this stage in life is "how do I balance all the things i want?" Do I keep trying for ALL of them? Do I settle for a few? If I settle for a few will I regret it later? I see so many people around me, and have for years, who have settled into a life that they don't want, because they were too scared to push for their goals. They took a life, entered a career path, had children when they weren't ready, or whatever, and now they're in their 40s or 50s and they feel it's too late for them to change, then they have a mid-life crisis and buy a porche. I don't want that to be me, ever. At the same time, my logic says "but Brian, you can't do every single thing you want..." And I'm not sure which one to listen to.

As I am thinking, really for the first time in my life, about life for TWO people, instead of just for myself, life takes on a whole new meaning, an entirely new dimension of "but." Sure I could move to France, but, I also want to raise a family and take care of Rebecca. Sure I could stay here in Australia and find some job and Rebecca could work because we're making good money, but, I think both of us would regret forever not moving back to Europe. Sure I could go back to France and get a Masters degree, there's even a scholarship that might pay for ALL of my studies, but, what would Rebecca do during those 2 years? Sit at home and twiddle her thumbs? It is possible that I am entering into the "holy-crap-my-life-isn't-just-about-me-anymore-and-I'm-not-sure-what-to-do-about-it" phase of my life, but.. it's hard. I am so fortunate that both Rebecca and I have many of the same goals. We both want to get married, we both want children, we both want Masters degrees, we both want to live in France, we both want to be bi-lingual, we both love travel, yet at the same time stability, and the list goes on and on, it's just a question of "well if we do this, does it mean we can't do that?" I don't want to stop short of my goals in life because I was too afraid to accept the risk, but at the same time I don't want to blindly engage myself in so many things that I fail all of them and achieve none of my goals.

I feel that I am battling this question around in my head back and forth and back and forth again, but I can't find any solution to the problem. It's interesting, and humbling, to have the range of friends that I have. I take Ken, for example - probably my favorite person to contrast myself to, because we are such close friends, but we are so, so different. He envies my ability follow my heart, to move countries, to go blindly somewhere and really try not to have too many close material attachments to the world. He says in that regard he wishes he could be more like me. Yet I envy him so much for his dedication and perseverance, his intelligence, his ability to have a stable job for the last... 5 or 6 years or something, one where he has gotten several promotions and makes a lot of money - not just because, but because he has worked REALLY hard for it. I wish my life was more stable, he wishes his was more free, and I think it brings me at least some peace to this whole issue, that my solution is not freedom nor stability, but a mixture of both. I know I would not be happy in Ken's life, trapped in the same office for six years programming computers, and Ken would not be happy in mine, sleeping on park benches in France and eating plain, steamed rice, twice a day, for 9 days straight because I had no money, yet we both envy each other for qualities we wish we had, and aspects of the other's life that we wish were ours.

So during this year here in Australia, I guess my goal is to find balance, or find a better balance than the one I have now. I don't want to make it sound like I am dying to get out of Australia and I hate it here - I don't. I am enjoying it a lot. I'm working, (something I haven't done since France), and I feel good about my job, (something that, before my job in France, I can't remember doing in YEARS,) and Rebecca and I are really able to pay off some of our debts, save for the future, and prepare for whatever is next. We don't have a year to stress out about what's next, but a year to plan for it! Maybe that is what I have been missing. Now that we have jobs, a place to live, pillows under our heads, and money coming in, now we can actually focus on what's next. A year is a lot of time... hopefully enough to make a big dent in what to do next.