Making Meaning

Friends came through in a big way today! I started the day with two awful adult decisions:

1. Weeks back, I had stashed 5 rubbermaid tubs in our lab at work, assuming this was a semi-permanent, unused space. During lunch yesterday, my advisor let me know that the university will push him to close down this space sometime in the next year, as we graduate students are all computer scientists and have no need for a lab! Speaking with the rational, prudent humans in my life led me to believe I needed a storage space, which would cost me $600+ for the 9 months I'll be gone, a decision that gave me anxiety to even consider and would not honor the thrift that I have learned from the wisest of elders and come to cultivate over the years.

2. I will turn 26 during my Fulbright, August 2018 specifically, and must find me own health insurance...My advisor has generously offered to pay both my fall tuition and student health insurance during this time from his rainy day fund! Still, 1% of me speculates that 9 months in Chile will convince me that a PhD is no longer worth it, that perhaps brewing chai and fixing bikes and growing food in a conscious community is a much more meaningful life than impractical academic pursuits. I worry that accepting this generous offer from my advisor indebts me indefinitely, makes this choice permanent, eliminates the potential 'out' that I have enjoyed thus far. But last night, I decided that it is contradictory to criticize capitalism for commoditizing human bodies, while simultaneously skimping on health insurance to increase my freedom or save money. Brenden Housemate pointed out that it is probably good to have another reason to come back, and Colleague Christa pointed out that I should not feel so indebted if new life circumstances arise.

And then tonight the New Family Recipe bandmates threw me a surprise going-away party! And Meesa fam offered to host my rubbermaid tubs while I am gone! 

I've been struggling with a weird internal question, 'have the past 2.5 years in Boulderland been the meaningful mountain experience I sought? or has it been a mostly work-oriented, capitalist drag punctuated with occasional community collisions?' I now recognize this as a so-called 'false dichotomy,' a question that I have posed to myself which is not really a necessary or practical distinction to make. Rather, I choose to recall the many meaningful, special, and sometimes magical moments of this journey: making music with the New Family Recipe, biking food waste around with Boulder Food Rescue, gardening cooking and pickling at Chrysalis, and most importantly, shredding rad gnar with the best of buddies.

I've felt more in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years! Emotions blow through like Front Range winds. I ride it, sit with it, chew it, swallow it, move on. A real transition is taking place, and to ignore, distract, or numb would be cheating. Now I feel nothing but excitement, knowing that soon I will be moving, building. This weekend, I plan to meditate, plug in, be present with the communities that have given me purpose in the past years! And maybe those that promise purpose when I return! Woohoo!