I Changed My Life

Six months ago I had a well-appointed though slightly pokey one bedroom apartment in a respectably dull area of Toronto, furniture (mostly Ikea, but also one rather nice mod-ish tweedy sofa paid for in blood from my ex-girlfriend), a motley collection of aspirational reading, a running routine in the hope I would ever start dating again, and one nice and tidy corporate job, thank you very much.

Every morning I took the subway to work for 10 a.m. It took 7 minutes to walk to the subway. Thirty or so minutes on the train. I would roll in at 10 a.m. Take a lunch break with my work girlfriends at 1 p.m. Gossip over the cubicle partition. Meetings. Cupcakes in the boardroom to boost morale. Yoga after work. Go home and research an article. Run in the dark to escape my thoughts. Hate running. Hate my thoughts. Nurse multiple romantic hangovers. Not sleep at night. Not dream. Wake early. Coffee. Repeat.

Now I'm living in a small room in downtown Mexico City, I teach English to businessmen, eat corn fungus quesadillas, make friends in convenience stores, coffee shops, on the street, at taco stands. I have no routine. I wander the city, dipping sporadically into illustration exhibits, tamale restaurants, endless public parks with their spectacular fountains, 80's nights at downtown clubs complete with dance offs. I drink coffee grown in Zapatista collectives in Chiapas. I eat tacos al pastor with an aggressive crew of hungry men and I read Dostoevsky's The Idiot at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday on Reforma, the DF's major thoroughfare and answer to Paris's Champs Élysées. I don't feel the crushing pressure to be upwardly mobile that I did in Toronto, though I suspect being a foreigner gives me a free pass.

In three short weeks I've acquired a totally new life. At first this seemed remarkable: new friends, new job, new place, new routine, magically complete and present in almost no time. People often comment that what I'm doing brave. A year ago I would have agreed, because then I had no idea how one just picked up and left a slightly dull but comfortable existence for something completely unknown.

But here's the deal: it's all too easy to start over. We like to think that our lives sit on bedrock, that our friends, job, loves, family, and hobbies form almost unbreakable ties that weave together a life. The scary truth is that at any moment that life, which is more like a tent loosely pegged into the earth, can spring free at one or every corner. Conversely, the tent can be sprung free as desired, even in the presence of deeper commitments than mine. Financial considerations cannot be denied (I count myself lucky that I could displace myself to favourable circumstances) but I could really go anywhere, be anyone. I could do it again tomorrow.

It's true that I'm the malleable sort. I take on the colour of wherever I am be it a bagpipe band, a fancy corporate Toronto cocktail party, a down-and-out Mexican barrio, or a collective of journalists. But the issue is not in the adaptation, it's in the fickleness and changeability of life amid our desire for constancy of identity, some sort of semblance of narrative in our lives. It's too easy to find ourselves in a far away hotel, staring in the mirror and for one moment feeling completely empty, our identity obliterated.

This is the dark side: the root of desire is immersion, the root of fear is submersion. Right now, I'm somewhere in between.

18 comments:

ZOE WHITTALL said...

I'm enjoying reading about your trip - wish I could be as adventurous.

Nav said...

"the root of desire is immersion, the root of fear is submersion. Right now, I'm somewhere in between"

What an excellent line. Jealous of your courage!

Kate said...

Great post - as someone who has started over several times both within Canada and in a village in the middle of Africa, I agree with what you say! It is easy to start over. You feel uprooted and transplanted for a while, but then you start putting down new roots that will be pulled up again next time you are transplanted (or next time you transplant yourself).
"This is the dark side: the root of desire is immersion, the root of fear is submersion." I'm going to have to ponder this one for a while...

a.g.lewis said...

I love this. A lot.
Good luck in the girl department; maybe start a Mexican business women's English class, too!
<3

Luanne said...

Wow - I agree with Zoe - I too wish I could be so adventurous (and had done it while I could)Enjoy!

Luanne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

this is really lovely. not what i was expecting when i stopped by your site (i've not visited for about a year)! thanks for writing.

saleema said...

I agree with Nav...I love that line.

But I do think you're being brave...even food-wise! Tell us more about the corn fungus.

Elisa said...

I have the same thoughts when people tell me how brave and adventurous I am about travelling. To them it is adventurous. To me it is running away to find something, but I'm not precisely sure what it is. Course I'm inside my brain thinking these things and they are just reading updates and seeing tropical pictures and living vicariously.

I guess one person's braveness is another person's fear.

Sarah Somewhere said...

Hmm, great exploration of an interesting idea. I've often pondered this myself, being the type who is almost addicted to the concept of immerson/ reinvention in new, strange lands. Particularly, why I feel more comfortable fumbling my way through a new culture rather than stagnating in my own! More questions than answers for that one...

Momekh said...

Thank you for making me utterly uncomfortable. :/

Kimberly Carter said...

So many things to say about this… I "picked up" last year and now I've been in VT for a year. Finally, I feel immersed. And I find that the lack of courage that everyone feels about doing something like this falls away once you take one step forward.

B.Kienapple said...

Thanks everyone for your comments! It's so lovely to hear that other people are taking the leap and trying something totally new. I find that location can be benign, it's your inner life that's the challenge. Sometimes it's harder to love someone, really, than to move to Alaska! But then again, to really experience a place, as I was alluding to, can be the same process of immersion/submersion. Keep your comments coming!

Jodi Henderson said...

The first thing I think about when I read posts like this is how do you do it from a legal perspective? I assume you have to get a certain kind of visa and whatnot depending on the country?

B.Kienapple said...

Hi Jodi, yes absolutely but this depends on the country. You can contact your consulate/embassy for more information about this.

Don Darkes said...

Choosing the path less travelled is less brave (but far more intelligent) than enduring a hell on earth or a life you detest. Go.! Do! squeeze every drop of joy from every day. I am lucky in that my amazing family chose to follow the path to nowhere in particular- together.

Bonjour Juliette said...

Thank you!
Merci*
I'm of the malleable and mobile sort too, life has made me so, and weirdly it's a weird -dazzling- thing to be, sometimes. Nonconventionnal they say. I'm happy i found your blog... Wishing you the best, and i'll definitely be back to read more... ***

Alix said...

"We like to think that our lives sit on bedrock...[it] is more like a tent loosely pegged into the earth [that] can spring free at one or every corner." What an eloquent way of putting this into words. Even though it usually takes some sort of painful loss to jolt us out of our false sense of security, in the end we have to thank that for happening when we can turn it into a transformation! And hopefully we can internalize the lesson and can carry it with us. That we learn to enjoy what we have and know that it can change (and we can also change it).

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