Learning by going

So, I am currently reading Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, and in it he quoted one of my favortie poems by Theodore Roethke, the most pertinent part being the last line "I learn by going where I have to go."

Though I am a literary purist and do not generally appreciate people taking bits of poems to reflect meaning (the whole poem reflects the meaning, I tell you!), I realized how much my current life is reflected in that one, single line.

Never before in my 23 years have I taken my education with such blind progress as I have here. Literally, every day I awake like a child, not really sure what the day will hold or how I will live it. I have no plan, no ultimate event I am preparing for. I get out of bed, get dressed, and experience an entire day of suprises only to go to bed again and awake again, prepared for nothing, and everything.

Up until now, I have generally followed a tried-and-true path toward typical adulthood -- getting things done in primary and secondary school to get to a decent college, doing decently in college to get a good job, and then BOOM! I landed myself smack in the middle of Bulgaria and found myself trying to become a teacher (for which I have no formal education) in a country I'd never been in (hell, I'd never even HEARD of Bulgaria till I got the Peace Corps letter saying I'd be sent here), operating almost entirely in a language I had never heard with an alphabet I had never seen. As the Aussies would say, WTF mate?

But day by day, it dawns on me why I am here...I am here precisly because I wanted to learn by going where I have to go. I wanted to wake up every morning with my only goals being to teach someone some English, learn a little Bulgarian (or Turkish, or Roma), manage to cook a meal for myself, find myself deep in a coversation I don't understand with a total stranger, and generally throw myself in the deep end to see if I can float.

And day by day, I find I can float. Sure, there are moments when it is not a happy thing (this trying-to-survive and learning-by-going), but it is making me the person I will be. I can feel it. Even if I find myself trudging through the mud of a messy day, I am still going. And I feel that so long as I am going, I am learning and, most importanly, I am becoming.

I look forward to seeing the result of these two years, but I also intend to enjoy the ride.