Three days ago marked the end of my sixth month in Malaysia. Last night I lay awake counting the number of days I had left in my school; there are less than 80. I am officially on the other side of the hill in this experience. As is tradition when facing the end of a chapter in my life, I am not really sure what I want I want to do next. I have no plot, setting, or character list laid out for this new part of my story. Now, with more time behind me than ahead in Perlis, I have turned my senses toward home with increased urgency. I look forward to hugging my mom, laughing with my cousins, and catching up with friends and family. But the reunion with loved ones will only last so long and after the holiday season comes to a close I need a goal to pursue.
Like most people in my generation, I have moved from space to space looking for meaning and fulfillment in what I am focusing my time and energy into. And I hope that I will be more successful in my next choice than I was here in that aspect. Not that I believe my work here is meaningless, but I have not felt as fulfilled as I anticipated, and that has been extremely disappointing especially when dealing with so many other factors that have made this experience so challenging. The issues I have faced while doing this work have given me an intense anxiety when considering the next move I will make and next organization and community I will choose to be apart of. As I try to make a plan or try to think about my aspirations in a realistic way, I am plagued with unanswerable questions: What if I am disappointed again? What if I am never as content as I want to be? Should I try to rebuild the life I had for myself before moving to Malaysia? What if I can’t? Do I really want that if it is possible? Where will I live? What steps should I be taking to get to my end goal? What even is my end goal?
What. Is. Next?
I know from conversations with my fellow ETAs I am not the only one asking these questions and struggling to find the answers. I am having flashbacks to my final weeks as a college student, where the question “what happens next?” hung around our heads, constantly swinging into our line of sight like the tassels on our graduation caps. Once again, I am being ushered into the reality of moving, packing, evolving, and planning for the future (whatever that might be); a state of being that is synonymous with terms like twenty-something, millennial, and recent college graduate.
The end of this experience is coming faster than I expected and as of now I do not have a plan. But four months is a long time and, like trying to solidify a thesis in my writing, I tend to not realize I have discovered the path until I am already several strides down it. When my sister came to visit me she asked me to, “just tell me what to do next Naja, please”. She saw my life as a series of good first choices and wanted me to help her choose her next step since, from the outside looking in, it looked like I was pretty good at planning my life. I had to admit to her (and myself) that most of the major choices I have made have not really been my choices at all. My college counselor in high school told me to go to Loyola for undergrad, I accidentally discovered my love for Sociology after a mishap while registering for classes freshman year, I studied abroad because all my friends were doing it, I applied for the Fulbright because of the suggestion of a professor and chose Malaysia based on the opinions of a friend. The most I do to make these things happen is just to take an opportunity as it presents itself (normally in the form of someone smarter than me suggesting it). Up until this point I have just done what feels right and exciting and I have been happy. So, I guess my anxiety and fear is not that necessary, because so far this method of just stumbling upon the next thing has worked out really well.
But I have always liked the idea of having a longterm plan. Of seeing a finish line and planning carefully what I am going to do to get there. Like someone preparing for a marathon (though long distance running does not sound appealing to me at all). So many of the people in my cohort have a “big picture” they are painting with a fine haired brush. So many are able to tell me just how this experience fits into their 5 year plan. I cannot do that. I did not really know what I wanted out of coming to be an English Teaching Assistant in Malaysia beyond just having the experience itself and seeing a part of the world I was always too afraid to consider accessible. I do not feel embarrassed or ashamed of this because my reasons were genuine, though not necessarily goal-oriented. But now that I do not have someone to tell me what to do, and I am at a loss. So I am trying to look for a sign or a suggestion but as it stands I haven’t found anything and this does not necessarily feel productive. How do I trust my process if it isn’t really a process at all?
One of my best friends, Jacqueline, always says not to worry and that everything will work out. We met while studying abroad in Botswana and if you have ever spent time in Botswana you know what I mean when I say that things almost never go as planned. When this would happen I would feel like the world was crashing all around us and she would look me in my eyes completely calm and serious and tell me that she is never worried “because things have always worked out for the best in life and so why would things start to go wrong now?” Truth be told, when I was first getting to know her I thought she was crazy. But as our friendship grew I realized that Jacqueline simply has an unshakeable faith in the process of things. And honest, things normally do work out, sometimes not in ways I want or expect but in the aftermath I am always grateful for the experience. Jacqueline’s faith is rooted in a higher power and plan, in the path creating itself. So I guess I should stop trying to be someone I am not and give up on the idea of having a rigid plan and allow myself trust in the way the path illuminates itself instead of painstakingly searching for it.
Besides, if you are always looking down trying to figure out the right direction to go, you’re going to miss the magic that is happening all around you. So instead of looking down I will keep my head up, staying open to opportunities that might present themselves. Like my now-eight-year-old cousin said to me a few summers ago, “keep looking around because something amazing might happen”. And if my life up until this point is any proof, something amazing always does.
