Moving beyond the idea of who you are
and eating banana pancakes
I'm nomadic again. I didn't mean to be nomadic. I tried very hard to put down roots, but they all came undone.
Being comfortable with being nomadic entails being ok with not knowing where you will be once your plans run out. I'm not good at that. I have the next four months planned but after that, I'm not sure. My mind picks at this uncertainty as if it were an itchy, scab-covered wound.
Every time my inner planner starts planning I bring myself back to the present moment. In the present moment I am on a Thai island, drinking iced coffee and eating crispy-soft banana pancakes in a poolside garden, breathing incense-perfumed air, feeling the warmth of the morning sun on my back, and listening to the happy chatter of birds and yogis.
"Fleeing this present moment to make plans that will inevitably change seems borderline criminal, don't you think?" I ask my inner planner. She bites her lip, tugs at the pencil behind her ear, and starts planning when to next capture my attention.
This inner argument is indicative of my efforts to move beyond my ideas of who I am and can be. Just because I like plans doesn't mean I can't learn to feel at ease without them. Just because I have been afraid of motorbikes doesn't mean I can't learn how to ride one.
People are adaptive. I am adaptive. I am adapting to eating banana pancakes every day just fine, thank you.
The large, hairy spider in my room has been harder to adapt to. I don't think he's poisonous. He just wants to hunt flies (and lizards? dude is huge) in peace. The first night, I try to sleep with the lights on. Every few minutes I look to see if he's moved from his spot on the ceiling. By 3am I give in and turn the lights off. The next night the process repeats, but I go to sleep a little sooner. I think this is called phobia exposure therapy.
Another idea I've had about myself is that I am not adventurous. And maybe it's true, in some sense. My friend Blake is an actual adventurer. He does things like don a shark costume and bike the Camino de Santiago to have epic interactions with strangers.
I'm adventurous in the way a frightened cat might be adventurous. If you put a cat in a new environment, the cat will hide under the bed for the first few days, but eventually its curiosity will win and it will start poking about. So I keep picking myself up and putting myself in new environments. I give myself time to hide in my room. I don't force myself to go see the temple or the waterfall or the beach. But eventually I do get curious and go.
Like exposure therapy, the more I travel and try new things, the faster I adjust. Gazing at the forested mountains, I flash a grin at my inner judge: "Hey, look at this! Maybe I am adventurous after all."
What ideas about yourself do you feel called to move beyond?