rLunar; Solar; Academic; Pol Pot’s; Norman; Nordic; Native American; Aztec; Olmec; Many different Hindu versions; China’s history owns dozens; Islam and the Middle East their own renditions. In the course of time there have been countless inventions to measure its passing, attempts at demarcating the passing of the days, the settings of the suns, the revolutions of the earth, the birth of saviors and dictators, or the first day of class.
My new life and the calendar it rests on don’t match my mind and the weather. In a meeting this morning I wrote the date across the top of the page: October 6. With the sweat of my palm smudging the ink, it felt wrong, too hot to be October. I don’t know what I am going to be for Halloween and I don’t know not because I am trying to think of something phenomenal for Franklin Street, but because Halloween isn’t celebrated in Ahmedabad.
Other holidays yes, but not the ones on my calendar. Newspaper headlines are buzzing with consumer forecasts, travel advice, and one-day shopping events in preparation of the holiday season, bonuses are being doled out for Navrati and Diwali – massive festivals, one in October the other in November, lasting a week each -- not Christmas, Hanukah, New Years, or Thanksgiving. My mind’s paradigm for understanding the world I occupy, for knowing what to look forward to, what clothes to ready, days off to expect, joyous occasions to anticipate, is disharmonious with reality.
It felt wrong not just because it is too warm for October – we ought to be cozying into sweater weather – but also because it is Saturday, and thus the duality of my mindfuck reveals itself. Living in a new city in a new country poses challenges. Finding my identity out of college does too. Here, across the world and just out of college, these challenges are dialectical, exacerbating each other all the time.
For the first time in my life I am on my own, the exact path before me is not clear and the responsibility for deciding how I want to lead my life, what I want to be, how to go forward into young adulthood, is solely mine. Everyone goes through this process of questioning and introspection at some point or many points in their life, and emails tell me that my friends and most of the class of ’07 are too. Knowing that others are also grappling is comforting, but still, for me, it feels like a very important time. Without being too dramatic and self righteous, I do worry about happiness, love, career, a family, balance, good health, health insurance, money, real estate – all on some levels reflective of deeper questions about life choices, morals, and the constitution of my life and my self.
With these questions in my mind, I’ve landed on the other side of the world where I don’t know the language, look like anyone, and have yet to really land with my feet confidently on the ground, uncertainty pervasive in all that I do. Exploring these things at this time in my life is tough. Sitting in work, I question if I want to work in the non profit world. I also question if I want to work overseas. These seem like different questions, but they are so closely related that I am having a tough time finding myself, making sense of my work, exploring parts of India, and processing it all in a way that is not wholly confusing. All the time, this dichotomy exists and looking forward, I just don’t know what holds life lessons, and what holds India lessons, and when I can and cannot make such distinctions. Right now I am just trying to match the calendar and the weather.
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