Choice

Isn't it funny how we believe what people tell us?  Talking with someone I don't even know.  Talking with someone who takes up space in my life, not really by my choice but because sometimes these things happen.

And they comment that they probably should do a study abroad, but they are so used to traveling on their own, they can't imagine going in a big group of people.

I'm sure they pictured tour buses and perky tour guides who handed out headsets.  They probably thought of museum tours with docents and doting professors.  In some ways, my traveling around the world did amount to tour guides ("Wakey, wakey" -Fritz, about an hour before our destination).  And it did amount to tour buses (Mercedes tour buses with cheap bottled water and air-conditioning).

But my study abroad also consisted of wandering the streets of Mumbai, and joining a soccer game simply because it was interesting.  It did consist of never having to think about how to get to the airport to the hotel.  It did consist of never getting lost on the way to Mandela's home.  It did consist of free water and air conditioning in the sticky Indian air.  It did consist of tour guides that gave personal perspective on the king of Thailand, before he passed away two months after we got home.  It did consist of having three days to do whatever in London, with the only obligation meeting up at the Globe theater for tickets to A Midsummer's Night Dream.  It did consist of being dropped off in Italy and getting gelato on the hour, three hours in a row.  It did consist of hiking Swiss alps and eating pizza in front of where the world dropped off.

This list sounds incredible and beautiful (which it was and is).  But this was mostly a lesson of believing people.  I blatantly agreed that a study abroad is basically traveling in a big group, reducing it to having matching t-shirts and limited free time. (I mean we did have matching hats?).

And I'm tired of believing what people tell me, whether they are obvious or more subtle about it.  I'm tired of agreeing with people's opinion of me--that I work too hard, that I'm too stressed, that I don't have fun.  I'm tired of agreeing that I wasn't good enough to get that interview, that I don't do math well, and that I have reasons to be stressed.  I'm tired of letting other people's perception dictate what my actual life experience was.  I'm tired of having other people decide what I should be feeling or how I should be living.  Sometimes people take up space in your life because these things happen, but I do have a choice.

xo. Elise