Wanderlust

I've always felt different because I've never wanted to just stay put and put down "roots" somewhere.  I feel like there are so many things I want to do, learn, explore, and figure out before I just settle down forever.

I'm reading a book called Wanderlust right now.  It's a memoir by Elisabeth Eaves--someone I'd never heard before--and her almost biological need to travel.  I feel like I'm getting together with an old friend when I read it, because it's so much like me (so far). 

She describes the word wanderlust as, "the very strong or irresistible impulse to travel...Wanderlust is not a passion for travel exactly; it's something more animal and more fickle--something more like lust"  That had me hooked right there.  I finally found a word for my...reason for being different from those where I grew up.  She goes on to quote other people, which I am going to use here:

      "Anatole Broyard (I have no idea who that is) put it perfectly in his essay, "Being There": 'Travel is like adultery:  one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country.  To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live...in our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.'"

     Former U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson, cautioned his nephew against roaming, saying, "Traveling makes men wiser, but less happy.  When men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge, which they may apply usefully for their country, but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret--their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects, and they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home."

Now, I don't want to sit here all but plagarizing someone else's thoughts and rewriting what other people have already written; but it's been really gratifying to be able to put my feelings of wanderlust into words for once--even if it takes someone else's words to do it.

While this life is so much fun and so very fulfilling in many ways, it does have its drawbacks.  It is very hard to to stay close and/or get close to people.  I mean, not only are you just going to pick up and leave those friends you hopefully (finally) make every two to three years and never come back; but your short vacations home are never long enough to really get to know your family and friends all over again.  I find it hard identifying with them, and I know for a fact that they find it hard identifying with me. 

See, when you live this life and work for the government and all that entails, you live a public life in a sense.  You always have to be on guard.  Once you've built that very necessary wall up, it's pretty much impossible to let it fall back down.  We can never let loose.  We can't go out in public and around people we don't know and discuss our political views out in the open or get falling down drunk (outside of the U.S.).  We can't just bust loose in a foreign country.  That is a lot of pressure and often a serious inconvenience.  But it's the life we've chosen and--finally--gotten used to living.

My longest, dearest friend from back home told me on my last trip home that I absolutely cannot identify with other adults anymore.  The sad thing is, she's right.  And, becuase of that, I often wonder if quenching this thirst, this "wanderlust" is really going to make me/us happy in the end. But, for now, it's all I know.  For now, it's worth it.

Professional Travelers

I often wonder what my kids are going to be like when they grow up, as most moms and dads do.  But I wonder two things the most:  is the lack of having definitive "roots" going to affect my children for the worse or for the better and since they're being raised as these professional travelers, will they find it hard to assimilate into every-day society once they grow up? 

I am not raising my children the same way that I was raised--where the family (immediate and extended) lived only as far as Baton Rouge or, at worst, North Carolina.  I'm raising my children completely independent of my previous life.  Sure, we see my parents and in-laws, brothers and sisters, neices and nephews once a year or so if we're lucky; but they aren't able to participate in the Good Friday crawfish boils and Easter Sunday egg hunts at Granny and Grandpa's like I did growing up.  And I truly hate that.  Truly.  But I keep telling myself that I'm giving them something--not better per se, but something --that most parents are not able to give their children:  the chance to be true citizens of the world. 

I love meeting people in this life (the Foreign Service life) and hearing their stories.  I've had colleagues who lived in Lesotho, Africa, during the start of the AIDS crisis, in Guyana in the ER when there were three people to a bed, etc.  (I never said they were all good stories.)  I love that my kids have different names for things:  they call french fries "papas fritas" and peanut butter "mani" and talk about doing things "properly" instead of "correctly" (the way Americans would say it).  At this point, my children are 1/3 American, 1/3 Guayaquileno, and 1/3 Canadian Kanuck lol.  I'm not ashamed that my littlest guy speaks more Spanish than he does English at this point because all of these things are opportunities and quirks that make my little family different.  I sit back and I am amazed at where our choices have taken us these past five years.  I fantasize and worry about where our choices will take us in the next five.  I wonder if we can handle it, not only together as a family, but also as individuals. 

I worry about the fact that my children are going to have to change schools every single two to three years of their lives.  But I also marvel at the fact that they're going to have lived in a minimum of six countries by the time they're eighteen years old.  My oldest child is already learning his third language, and he's four years old.  I mean, that's incredibly cool.  It's amazing really.  But is he going to be able to function in a group of his peers when he's going through puberty?  Only time will tell.  I just hope that in the future my hubby and I will still be as sure of the choices we've made as we are right now.

Deciding To Leave

I don't feel like "deciding" to leave was ever really a decision; it was just going to happen eventually.  I met "the one" at a bar one night.  I sat down next to him, and we started to talk.  I asked him what he did; and when he told me, I asked him what the hell a "business analyst" does (which I still don't understand).  He told me that he had no idea but that he had bigger plans for the future.  He told me about the Foreign Service.

 I'll explain what a diplomat does for those of you who have no idea.  The Foreign Service is the part of the U.S. State Department that works overseas.  These people are specially vetted to promote U.S. policies abroad.  They're taught every language you can think of (usually 2-3 per person over a career) and specially trained in specific areas of diplomacy.  These people pick up their lives and move every two to three years to a different country--sometimes across the world--to serve our country.  Our U.S. diplomats go in to prevent the wars.  It's a pretty amazing job and an incredible opportunity.  But it comes at a price a lot of the time.

Say you're in Brazil on vacation and your passport gets stolen.  What do you do?  You're stuck in Brazil without that little bitty book with the pretty visas and stamps in it.  Well, when you go to the local U.S. Embassy or Consulate, the people that help you there are Foreign Service officers.  Or another example would be--for those of you who know international students--those students had to apply for a U.S. visa at a consulate or embassy somewhere in the world.  And the people who interviewed them?  Yep! They were FS officers too.  There are lots of different types of Foreign Service officers: some work in Consular (visas), economics, political section, public affairs, etc.

So when my (future) hubby explained to me what the Foreign Service was and what he wanted to do, my response was--and still is--"That is my dream life."  So, not to gloat, but I am living my dreams.  I found the guy who was perfect for me and luckily that came with the life I have always wanted to lead.  We got married just five months later.  I was having contractions with our first son during our pack out for Washington, D.C.  He left for Washington just ten days after the baby was born, and we followed two weeks after that.  Our life has been a non-stop whirlwind since we met, and there are times that we can barely hang on.  We still look at each other and say, "Can you believe we get to do this for a living?"

But, like I said, it comes with a price.  We rarely see our families anymore.   There aren't many friends left. It's just us and the kids, taking on the world.  We've seen hungry children on the street, true poverty that those depressing, late-night commercials can't compete with.  But, in contrast, we've seen the look in children's eyes when they got an actual gift from "Santa" that they wouldn't have received otherwise.  Life, so far, is just a trade off: good and bad.