Drifter-with-a-Mission*

*term cited to Nicholas Barry, March 5, 2007


Written sometime in 2003, remembered today:

I was talking in a guesthouse room in Pokhara, Nepal. Arif, a British man I’d met, looked over at me after I had finished and asked, “Have you always had direction?”

I didn’t even pause. I replied, “It never occurred to me not to.” What an easy summation and explanation for the first 27 years of my life. It was a simple statement to describe an achiever’s life. As I said the words, I wondered for the first time what would happen if I didn’t have such clear direction. I reveled in the idea it isn’t decreed, or forced. It’s my choice.

I’d been traveling for almost 5 months when the above happened. I’d quit my excellent job as a program coordinator for student activities at a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles. I’d earned a Master’s degree to qualify me for such a position – worked for two academic years, written a thesis, lived on very little money and waited tables on the weekends to make ends meet. Before that, I’d attended a private 4-year college in Boston, first as a journalism major and then added sociology for a double major once student services lured me. Direction, all of it. Most things I did were out of interest, but also a means to an end. Taking the assistant-to-the-editor position (one nobody wanted) on the paper first year of college to prepare me for the managing editorship later on. Making certain to only study things that were relevant to potential jobs.

Of course, I was encouraged. My parents were always thrilled. Their daughter was goal-orientated. I showed all kinds of promise in lots of areas. My teachers loved it. I was so easy to advise. I already knew the next step, the planned outcome before I came in to discuss it. All they had to do was sign. I encouraged myself. Nothing is scary when you know what comes next. Nothing is risky when you are certain you can succeed. Direction, in my case, was a way to keep me safe.

So what led me to decide to leave? To do what so many young Europeans do but so few Americans choose: travel the world to unknown places, developing countries, and places I knew little about? I’d never left North American soil. Sure, I’d left home and moved first to Maryland and then to California, but this had begun to feel only so adventuresome. One day, I woke up thinking, “Is this it? I just work and work and work?” and that thought led to this one, “I’ve got to go see the world. Two week vacations aren’t going to do it for me.” Way back then, I requested Peace Corps and Semester at Sea Staff applications. I began to fill them out and slowly realized this wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to travel independently, without organization or restriction.

I read and read and read. I began to talk about the idea. I looked around for a travel partner. Amazingly easily, I found her in a friend from college who was discontented with her job and ready for something new. We met at Christmastime 1998, committed to the trip and began to save every precious penny.

As the 18 months before our August 2000 departure date disappeared with swiftness, I became more and more excited and anxious. “Yes,” I told people, “I’m really going.” And “No,” I said, “I’m not worried about what happens after the trip or if I’ll have enough money.” And the biggest of all, “No, I’m not scared of China, or Vietnam, or any other country I’m planning on visiting.” Lies. All of it. I’ve always been able to talk a good game. The truth was I had even convinced myself I wasn’t scared. But I was.

And we did it, that friend and I. We traveled for four months together through China, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand. We parted ways then, empowered after time together to set out on our own; she to Cambodia and Laos, and I to Nepal and back to Thailand.

I wound up living on Koh Tao, a seven-kilometer-long island with no mainland power, a 3-hour ferry ride from the East coast of Thailand in the Gulf. I taught scuba diving, a passion I’d found along the way. As well as native people from Thailand and Burma, I also lived with Australians, South Africans, Canadians, and Europeans of countless nationalities. I spent 20 months there in all, and finally returned to the States in October of 2002.

And here I am, after having experienced a three-year detour in my life. A lot happened during those 26 months abroad, and I’m still struggling with the story I have to tell and how to tell it. I went back to college administration and began to settle into what those around me call real life and what for so long I believed was the only life. The most significant lesson learned: there are other choices I can make. I see choices now that too much direction caused me to overlook for far too many years.

I’m a different person. I see options where I once didn’t and I see wide open spaces where I once filled in all the details. I know now that in risk there is failure, but there is also amazing discovery.

Added tonight:

The above could have been written today. And my foray into the Peace Corps was another way of me looking at an option and seeing it instead of looking past it. (Yes, I came home and didn't complete that, but I still speak Spanish a lot better than I did and I lived with a wonderful family in Paraguay, a very weird country I otherwise never would have seen, for that choice.)

The moniker in the title of this post was a gift from a new friend. He referenced himself as another when he gave it to me. I love it. It is a title I believe I'll wear proudly. When someone says, "Tell me about yourself" I think I might start with, "Well, I'm a drifter-with-a-mission" and go from there. It sounds like it fits. It feels like I understand it. Thank you, Nick.