Writing from Vacation
Dear Readers,
I recently took a much-needed vacation away from the lumberyard to visit a friend I made in the Peace Corps. We hadn't seen each other in almost 3 years but had kept in touch via snail-mail letters.
Recently she invited me up to visit her in Colorado and participate in a 5K race she had helped organize.
The vacation has marked the first time I've been able to travel away from home for more than a day or so, and it has been like a breath of fresh air.
Since I last wrote in January I have been busy with work and I started studying for the GRE to go to grad school and study library science. However, in the course of contacting librarians I started to see that librarianship might not be what I had originally imagined it to be. Over time and with consideration, I have decided to not pursue this path. I am currently looking for a more international or language-related profession, and while I have some ideas, I am not prepared to write about them here just yet.
I have also been making plans to move. The fact is, as I've stated before, I cannot stay in my small hometown and find what I am looking for in life. I need to move, I need to be in a city around people and opportunities who can help me point me in a direction, and quite frankly, I need to be around people my own age who I can have a social life with. It is as simple as that.
To stay sane, however, I have continued with classes from the local community college, and am just on the point of finishing an intro to ASL (American Sign Language) course. I have found ASL to be a beautifully expressive language, and when I move I hope to find a community I can practice it with and learn much more. I doubt I'd want to be an ASL interpreter professionally, but I don't rule that out, and besides, it's a culture I'd like to learn more about.
Things are going well at the lumberyard, although it has been one of the most difficult jobs I've ever had in terms of work culture. I have great respect for people who work in construction or hold blue-collar jobs. They do the work that is dirty, uncomfortable, heavy, hard, and so forth. But they are really the ones who make the world go around, at least in a very significant way.
I've also learned something by being around them (and others, it's not just work related) on days when things are exceptionally challenging. I feel that this is an important lesson and one that so many people miss:
If someone has upset you, it is more your problem than theirs, if you want to call it a problem even. Often, people - be it coworkers, friends, family or whomever, will say or do something that hurts your feelings.
The pain is natural and I don't think it should be fought against. However, if you hold onto it, that is your problem. And moreover, we are never exactly in the other person's shoes and so don't know why they said or did what they did to hurt us. Often, I suspect, they didn't intend that way or even realize they had said something. But even if they did, whatever caused them to be a pain in the bum is something they'll have to live with.
I think this is quite liberating because it helps one to not dwell on why someone did what they did, and also, if you are not holding onto resentment, the energy feels like it flows more naturally and more healthily, to help heal any wounds that might have formed.
In any case, that's my wisdom for the night.
I wanted to add one more thing: Some readers (maybe even you) have left me messages. If I don't get to them for a long time, I apologize. I often write when I feel I have something to say, and lately that hasn't been very often. :-P But as a result, I usually don't know when I get a message. When I see one, I try to respond as soon as I read it. I just found a way to get notifications when someone leaves a comment, so hopefully this will no longer be an issue.
Peace,
Tristan
I recently took a much-needed vacation away from the lumberyard to visit a friend I made in the Peace Corps. We hadn't seen each other in almost 3 years but had kept in touch via snail-mail letters.
Recently she invited me up to visit her in Colorado and participate in a 5K race she had helped organize.
The vacation has marked the first time I've been able to travel away from home for more than a day or so, and it has been like a breath of fresh air.
Since I last wrote in January I have been busy with work and I started studying for the GRE to go to grad school and study library science. However, in the course of contacting librarians I started to see that librarianship might not be what I had originally imagined it to be. Over time and with consideration, I have decided to not pursue this path. I am currently looking for a more international or language-related profession, and while I have some ideas, I am not prepared to write about them here just yet.
I have also been making plans to move. The fact is, as I've stated before, I cannot stay in my small hometown and find what I am looking for in life. I need to move, I need to be in a city around people and opportunities who can help me point me in a direction, and quite frankly, I need to be around people my own age who I can have a social life with. It is as simple as that.
To stay sane, however, I have continued with classes from the local community college, and am just on the point of finishing an intro to ASL (American Sign Language) course. I have found ASL to be a beautifully expressive language, and when I move I hope to find a community I can practice it with and learn much more. I doubt I'd want to be an ASL interpreter professionally, but I don't rule that out, and besides, it's a culture I'd like to learn more about.
Things are going well at the lumberyard, although it has been one of the most difficult jobs I've ever had in terms of work culture. I have great respect for people who work in construction or hold blue-collar jobs. They do the work that is dirty, uncomfortable, heavy, hard, and so forth. But they are really the ones who make the world go around, at least in a very significant way.
I've also learned something by being around them (and others, it's not just work related) on days when things are exceptionally challenging. I feel that this is an important lesson and one that so many people miss:
If someone has upset you, it is more your problem than theirs, if you want to call it a problem even. Often, people - be it coworkers, friends, family or whomever, will say or do something that hurts your feelings.
The pain is natural and I don't think it should be fought against. However, if you hold onto it, that is your problem. And moreover, we are never exactly in the other person's shoes and so don't know why they said or did what they did to hurt us. Often, I suspect, they didn't intend that way or even realize they had said something. But even if they did, whatever caused them to be a pain in the bum is something they'll have to live with.
I think this is quite liberating because it helps one to not dwell on why someone did what they did, and also, if you are not holding onto resentment, the energy feels like it flows more naturally and more healthily, to help heal any wounds that might have formed.
In any case, that's my wisdom for the night.
I wanted to add one more thing: Some readers (maybe even you) have left me messages. If I don't get to them for a long time, I apologize. I often write when I feel I have something to say, and lately that hasn't been very often. :-P But as a result, I usually don't know when I get a message. When I see one, I try to respond as soon as I read it. I just found a way to get notifications when someone leaves a comment, so hopefully this will no longer be an issue.
Peace,
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 2:26 PM
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