I've been back in England a month now, and I've done 2 weeks at work, and this will be the final entry in my blog of my South American adventures. I was hoping that I could reflect on my trip with some sort of conclusion, some sort of epiphany to punctuate an amazing trip and bring meaning to my life (and yours, of course!) but it doesn't seem to be forthcoming.
When faced with the prospect of coming back to England, I was not filled with joy, to say the least. In fact I was filled with dread. And the first week I was back here, I was kind of horrified at the vulgarity of the everyday life of the English mundane existence... but now I've been here a month, I’m kind of used to it again.
Television is something that I did not miss one iota while I was away. I was away for six months, and just before I left England, I was all like “Oh no, I won’t get to find out what happens in...” but literally the first day I arrived in Costa Rica, I forgot all about telly, and didn’t give a shit about it all the time I was away. But now, I come in from work, give Barney a quick belly rub, and then I turn on the telly. Not because I care about the programmes, not because I actually am interested to see what events are happening in the world at the moment, but simply out of boredom and habit. I live alone, there is no one here but me; I have, over the past six months, become accustomed to living with 20 other people all day every day and now I am on my own again I don’t really like it, and so the telly solves part of the problem; it is someone chatting shit at me all the time!
My average day used to involve excessive sweatnig, insect bites, and seeing cool animals in the amazon rainforest... now my average day involves teaching teenagers about Marxist theory and discussing whether England is racist / sexist / homophobic. And you know what, when I was away, I really was not relishing the prospect of coming back to work, but now I am working again, I quite like it. To some extent, I feel that I do have a renewed sense of enthusiasm and wanting to be a cool, fun teacher who people will look back on fodly – as a teacher, we have that power to be amazing and memorable for all the right reasons, or to be the teacher who the kids take advantage of and we get locked in the cupboard and cry. I know I am not the latter, but I may be in danger of falling into the ‘average’ and ‘forgettable’ category but I don’t want that , I want to be the teacher that people look back and think about a really good teacher who helped them or changed them or opened their eyes to something important. I know I can be that person if I try hard enough, but then when I think back to the simple life of the jungle, I know I could quite easily choose that over teaching.
So... life in England is cold, the streets are grey, my car exhaust has broken since I've been back and my car sounds like a boy racer / formula 1 car, and will cost a good deal of money to sort it out, and petrol is expensive, and food is expensive, and I have to cook for myself all the time (I don’t like that!) and I have to do all the housework (I don’t like that either, so i don't do it) and it seems kinda pointless to cook for just one person... I can’t be arsed to do it, not without someone telling me it's my day to do camp duty.
A good proportion of life feels pointless... traffic, cooking, filing, photocopying, watching TV, walking the dog, sleeping, and it's the same every day... and the weather is cold, yeah I don’t like that... it’s like -5’C and that feels fucking freezing... although it has felt warmer this weeked and I hope spring is on the way.
The things I was looking forward to about England like Cadbury’s chocolate, warm showers, and having my own space really aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. I would be happy to go back to getting bitten by insects and taking cold showers every day. Other things like seeing my family, seeing my dog Barney, and having my own house and my own space, well I do enjoy those things, but that won’t keep me going for ever. Friends... boyfriends... well things didn’t turn out as I hoped and expected they would, so in that sense , there is less reason for me to stay in England than I expected. And now I find out that Ella, who I met in Ecuador, had got a job teachign English in Ecuador, I feel jealous, and that may be telling of something...
So now, my spare time is taken up with doing a photobook (I have like a gazillion photos!) of the stuff that happened while I was away – from Papa Noel, to abseiling down waterfalls; from counting turtle eggs, to listening to bird calls; from white water rafting, to Designated Fun Time... it was brilliant!
So in conclusion, what was my epiphany? I think, that I know I can be happy without many possessions, without television, and without the stress (and money) of a professional career. It is people, and not ‘things’ that bring fun and happiness to your life, and there are fun people the world over. I am getting older by the day, and I will inevitably one day look back on my life and evaluate it, and I’ll always feel glad that I went away on this trip, and met people like Sarah, Kyle, Marcus, Ella, Phil, Max and Grant (and lots of other cool people too). These are the people who made the trip the awesome experience that it was! People have said to me that this was a once in a lifetime chance, but I’m hoping and thinking (as ever) that it wasn’t.
Surely, the next adventure is just around the corner!
