An Epilogue of Sorts

I’ve been home for just over a month now, and it’s been a bit strange adjusting back to life here. I wanted to wait awhile before writing this last post because I thought writing it just a week after arriving back home wouldn’t be an accurate picture of my life. This will be the last entry in this blog about my time in Russia, and while there are a million things I could write about, I’m going to try and keep it focused on the goals I had before leaving, and how I feel I reached, or missed them. To everyone that has been following me through this journey, thank you. Your love and support helped me more than you know, and more than words could ever express.

            Before taking off for Moscow back in September I had two main goals: first, to find some affirmation that the career path I was working towards was really what I wanted, and second, to find myself, as cliché as I know that sounds. I feel like I succeeded in both, but in ways I had not expected. In regards to first goal, I suppose the complete opposite happened, really. I had wanted to help prevent human and weapons trafficking in Russia, and thought that I would enjoy living in Russia, and working with the Russian government to help stamp out two problems I honestly believe will be some of the largest international concerns of the future. What I found instead was that I couldn’t stand the bureaucratic bullshit that is chocking the Russian system, and that the work wasn’t rewarding for me. This has left me in a place where I’m not even sure how interested I am in pursuing a career related to my degrees. In some ways that realization is extremely liberating, because I feel like I’m no longer forcing myself to swallow the bitter pill of “you should want this!” but on the other hand it leaves me without a clue of what I would like to do professionally. I met people in Moscow who had enough money to do as they pleased, and the more of them I saw, the more I realized that I couldn’t stand trying to become like them. Some people measure their worth in money, but I don’t want my life to become the contents of my wallet.

            It’s so easy for me to say that though. I’ve never really been uncomfortable, I’ve never had to worry where my next meal would come from, and I’ve always know that my parents had my back, so of course money means less to me since I’ve always had as much as I would need to be comfortable. It’s frustrating to deal with these hypocrisies in my personality.  I say that money means so little to me, but I’ve never lived a life without it, so how accurate is that statement, really? I still don’t know.

The second point has been more interesting for me though. When I thought of what it would mean to find myself, I figured that the traits that I had always held in high regard about myself would become strengthened. I had an image of myself, and how that person should grow, and what that grown person would be like. I considered myself to be a basically good person who didn’t want to hurt anyone, only wanted to make the world better, and would always be a rock for those in need. I didn’t find that man in Moscow. Instead I found someone who is capable of hurting others, neglecting those he cares about, and could be selfish and vindictive. I struggled for a long time dealing with that when I was in Moscow. I thought that I was a bad person. I thought that maybe there was something wrong with me, but eventually I came to realize that it doesn’t make me bad, it just makes me human. I saw that I was capable of apathy, bordering on a total disregard for the value of a stranger’s life, anger that was totally out of sync with what I considered to be the core of my personality, and a level of selfishness that damaged personal relationships.

I don’t want to sound like all I found in myself was bad, but I’ve already spent time talking about the strength I found in myself abroad, and I think that the other side of this coin deserves some inspection as well. I by no means think I’m a bad person; I just came to see that I was as capable of harming the world around me as I was of helping it.

There was a morning, about a week before leaving Moscow, when I was looking through photos from before I left, and even some when I first arrived in Russia, and I wanted to see how much I resembled the guy standing in those pictures. I went into the bathroom to inspect my face in the mirror and in that moment felt I was staring at a different man. The principle features were the same, of course, but something else was there too. I still don’t think I can put words to what that something was, but it felt almost like déjà vu in reverse. In those odd moments you know you’ve never stood in that spot, and never seen those images, or heard those sounds before, but it’s so familiar that you swear you have lived that exact same experience somewhere else, maybe just in the back of your mind. In that moment, staring at myself in a mirror in a Moscow apartment, I knew I had seen that face a million times before, I had inspected every line of that face, and felt every cut of my razors blade, but I felt like the eyes staring back at me where totally unknown to me.

For so long I thought that finding yourself was empowering the traits that were strongest in ourselves, and finding ways to work with our weaknesses. I thought it meant having an idea of who you are and flushing it out through trial and error. Maybe for some people that is the case, I don’t know. For me, finding myself was like taking off a mask, and seeing the face underneath for the first time. What I found there was new and strange, but unmistakably me. I felt rather than growing into the person I had always hoped to be, I had chiseled away all the excuses I hid behind, dropped all the crap people tell you should think and want, and found the bust of a man I had never expected to see.

I feel like I can’t go back to that old person anymore though, and now that I’m home I feel like a stranger. I feel I’ve grown out of the skin I used to wear here, and all I want to do is stretch this new personality to its limits, and see how far I can take it before I look in the mirror to find another strange pair of eyes starting back at me. The problem is that life moves so slowly here that I feel I can’t do that. I’m left at a standstill, and instead of being able to focus this new found fire into something incredible, it’s just burning in my gut, slowly torching away my patience and focus.

The main issue I’ve had since getting home is that life feels a bit like a dream right now, but not in the sense of everything is awesome, and I can fly. It’s like time doesn’t work the way it should. It’s that haziness; the sense of uncertainty that time exists at all. Am I walking forward through time, or is it like quicksand, slipping out from under me a grain at a time? Passing so slowly I don’t feel it swallowing me. I miss the madness some days. I miss not being able to think further than what my plans for the night were. Now I feel like all I have is time to think, and it’s driving me mad. I am trying to throw myself into as many new things as possible to keep myself busy, but my brain starts running rampant through “what if’s” at night, and it makes it hard to sleep at times.

            That’s where it ends though. Moscow is done, and although I plan to return, it will be under different terms, and I will be a different person when I face that city again.

In a strange way this epilogue is a prologue too.

            Everything I finished in Moscow is the beginning of something new at home. All the new experiences are fuel for a fire to try something new every day. Earlier today I completed the first item in the list of things I dream of doing, a list I started at one of the most confusing moments of my life to give myself some direction, and I can’t describe how awesome it felt. I feel free to follow my path wherever the curves may turn, and I’m not afraid to step into the unknown.

            I’m living my life by a new mantra now that was born in one of the darker moments of my time in Moscow. I watched a man get knocked out cold, and stomped on by another man, while I sat watching coldly, drinking a beer, and with no intention of helping this stranger. I walked away from that realizing how callous I can be, and when I thought about if that stranger had been a friend, I realized why I didn’t help him: I felt weak. In the moment that I considered helping him I decided against it because his attacker probably would have beat me senseless too. Considering a friend in this same position, and realizing I was too weak, physically and morally, to stand up to this man made me realize I needed to change something drastically. Now I’m working every day to be stronger so that I can always stand up and help those who need assistance in any capacity, not just in a fight.

            I stepped as far out of my comfort zone as I could manage, and I came back a very different person. I’m struggling to fit back into life here as that person, but I think that given time things will work out for the best. I’m not sure what I’m going to do after finishing school, but I know it will be something I’m passionate about, not something I think I should want to do. I didn’t find who I thought I would in Moscow, but I have no doubt that I did find myself.

If you would like to continue following me as i write about my thoughts on life, this is my new blog: http://inthepursuitofawilddream.blogspot.com/

I would like to write in it about once a week, like I did for this blog, but I know I'll just end up doing whatever I feel like doing, so no promises.

To everyone who has helped support me while I was abroad, thank you. I can't tell you how much your love and support helped me, and I will be forever grateful.