Sunday, July 14, 2013

Shifting Ground

Dear Readers

Yes, I am writing to you from this fabled platform once more. No, I am not in the dear Dominican Republic, a country which has quite brazenly stolen my heart and captured my dreams...as all those who read my facebook should know! I am in Minnesota, my travels on hiatus, and my brain spinning like tires in the mud, while my life struggles to find purchase and move forward.

I won't quit. One thing I've learned in life is that a person quits first in their mind, then in their behavior. I won't let my mind quit. I'm going abroad again as soon as I get the pieces in order. To decide anything else is, simply put, quitting.

I choose not to discuss here what happened to me, and that is a deliberate decision. It was dumb, it was thoughtless, it was cruel, it was a chain of mistakes which I couldn't see until they blew up in my face and sent me out of the country. Or maybe I saw them and chose to look away. Hindsight is 20/20, but the past is the very quagmire I am trying to escape from. See paragraph 1.

How do I plan on going abroad? Well, it dawned on me at the Miami airport that all I'd ever wanted was to write and travel, and I still have my hands, I still have my ambition to travel, and I still have as much writing skill as I have ever possessed, which only needs work to hone it into something money earning. Why not, I asked myself, just put the pieces together and patch a new life for myself out of what I have wanted most all along?

There was no reason not to. The funny thing about a dream being broken before your eyes is that if the despair doesn't break you, the anger makes you stronger. It is as if I can think clearly about what I need to do in order to achieve my dream of becoming a travel writer for the very first time. It's always been one of those dreams, floating at the back of my head, but I never was totally serious...oh wouldn't that be lovely, I thought.

Then came Los Patos. There were days there when I almost saw myself living there, writing, soaking in the sun, looking at the beautiful Caribbean sea. Then Los Patos was torn away from me, and I didn't know what to do. Two years of my life, pre-planned, worked towards, which I had been so eagerly embracing--GONE. Dead. Vanished. Stolen. Call it whatever word you like, that dream was no more.

So, as I picked up the pieces of that dream, nearly crying from the agony of my loss, I made up my mind. One, I was not going to let the loss overwhelm me. Two, I was not going to give up my dreams of travel, I would just have to rewrite them a bit. And three, I was going to throw myself headfirst into the current and become a travel writer. Even if first I have to do whatever form of work gets me paid. Ha. Not quite whatever, but I would sell my writing skills and keep food in the mouth and shelter over the head.

That's what I'm at right now. For the sake of the whole shelter and food thing, I am also planning on peddling my skills as an English teacher, possibly in Ecuador, but that is only a stepping stone on the broader road, which now I seek. It will be mine, if I have the courage to claim it.

Lobolius
Worldwide Wolf

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Quotes of the End

Not like this is the end. This blog is about my journey, and even though my journey through the Peace Corps will end prematurely, it is not the end of my road. Like all adventures where one does not see the end, the ending came unexpectedly, but I still am more than I was when i went into this, and I will be more after my next one and so on and so forth.

Failures are made only by those who fail to dare, not by those who dare to fail.Lester B. Pearson



The Highest Ambition

To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being.
John Lubbock

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person realize his dream.  Paulo Coelho

I bought the alchemist in Spanish yesterday. Of all the things I wished to take away, it was that book.

Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work. William Arthur Ward

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin

Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful. Mark Victor Hansen
and most importantly

Courage is as often the outcome of despair as hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other, all to gain. Diane DePoiters

I will not despair, but I will admit, at this moment, I am at the edge of the known, the edge of my dreams, and I do not know what my next will be. I had not anticipated this, but sometimes the most difficult decisions are also the right ones, and I made the right decision. I shall not say more. I have said more, perhaps, than I should, because despair is a dark feeling, and I have battled it like Gandolf and the Balrog. It shall not pass. I shall continue with my story.

At this point, I will pause in my journey, recooperate, and emerge stronger and more determined than ever to do what I must do. I just don't know what that will be yet. Part of my heart will always linger in Los Patos, but the past is the past, the future is the future, and I will prevail.

Thank you to everyone for your support through this difficult time. 

Dominican Wolf