I had a conference call with my therapist back in Pasadena the other day where we talked about how to make the decision or not to move to Lima and what that would mean for my life. One of the concepts he presented was the idea of moving backwards. We all want to move forward in our lives, but moving backwards is more difficult. It is tough to live making $50,000 a year if you are used to making $100,000. It is tough to go back to being line worker if your used to being the supervisor.
It is also tough to go back in the closet if your used to being an openly gay man. It is equally tough to go back to a job that is limiting when you have gotten used to professional growth. The move to Lima is a balance of these backwards and forwards. Personally moving here means I likely won't date much and will need to step back into the closet in some sense as I can't refer to my ex-boyfriend at work and society at large here does not really have a place for someone who lives like I do in Pasadena.
Moving back though represents possibly going backwards career-wise. Pasadena has for me the same small projects and small minded people I was working with. It has the same small office politics and issues. The work here is amazing and on a scale that we just don't deal with in Pasadena.
Looking back on my life I went backwards career-wise in a sense when I moved to Pasadena, but it was such a large step forward personally that it all worked out. Certainly the job was more money and a higher position that what I had in Florida. But the projects were (and continue to be) of a smaller scale than what I was working on on Florida. In some sense I was spoiled in that I just happened to be working on the largest ecosystem restoration project in the world, and was there largely by happenstance.
So certainly the comparison is not perfect, but it does help me frame what I want to do. In the end whatever career "regression" happened was more than offset but a richer, fuller, more honest and happier personal life. The question would be if a richer professional life offset a dimer personal life here in Lima.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Called to do what?
I recently served on a discernment committee at my church. The purpose of the committee was to help this person explore what they felt was a call to the priesthood. We spend many weeks discussing matters of faith and matters of how faith takes action in our world. We talked about what God meant to us, to him and how He is real and active in our lives. We talked about what a call is, how it feels and what it means to be called to serve God in the Church.
At various points in my life I have felt like I was being called to one thing or another, including feeling the occasional called to service in the Church. In the beginning I felt like I had a call to be here in Peru. It seems strange in that it wasn't like I felt called to do certain work for the company, it was more like I felt I was called to be in this place at this time. Work was part of it, but there was more that I can't really put my finger on. There was this sort of feeling or pull or just a notion of being in the right place at the right time. I don't really know what it means but nonetheless it was there.
As time has gone on and there exists the possibility of a relocation to Peru for work, that sense of call has gotten muddled. I don't feel it as much as I did before. Certainly there are days where I wake up and have a great run around the golf course, kiss ass at work and feel like I could be here forever. Other days I feel trapped in a country that may not want me or possibly can't accept me. Other days it somewhere in between where I feel a longing for the comforts of home (like Target, really miss Target) while feeling very satisfied in the work that I am doing here and in the ways I am connecting with my family here.
Maybe the real concept to analyze may not be the notion of a call, but the notion of home. When I meet people (and I have many lots of people over the last couple of months here) the question is always where am I from. I speak Spanish well, but not like someone who grew up in Lima but also not like an American who learned Spanish in school. The explanation is always a bit awkward in that I was born in Peru but moved away when I was young and then lived in so many different places in the US so I don't really have a specific place I am "from." No hometown as it were.
When I took the job in Pasadena I wasn't looking to love. Inertia was keeping me in Florida and it certainly felt home-ish or at least familiar enough. When I landed in Pasadena and starting working, started meeting people and started to build a truly authentic life, it really did start to feel like home. It feels like home in a way that no place ever really has. I certainly will always be connected to Peru having been born here and having so much family here, and that connection is as real as it could be, but it isn't home. Florida isn't home either, but I can see being connected to that place for the rest of my life.
So maybe this decision isn't really about a call or about work or about navigating being gay in a conservative city, maybe the decision is about how long I want to be away from home. Maybe that is what to focus on.
At various points in my life I have felt like I was being called to one thing or another, including feeling the occasional called to service in the Church. In the beginning I felt like I had a call to be here in Peru. It seems strange in that it wasn't like I felt called to do certain work for the company, it was more like I felt I was called to be in this place at this time. Work was part of it, but there was more that I can't really put my finger on. There was this sort of feeling or pull or just a notion of being in the right place at the right time. I don't really know what it means but nonetheless it was there.
As time has gone on and there exists the possibility of a relocation to Peru for work, that sense of call has gotten muddled. I don't feel it as much as I did before. Certainly there are days where I wake up and have a great run around the golf course, kiss ass at work and feel like I could be here forever. Other days I feel trapped in a country that may not want me or possibly can't accept me. Other days it somewhere in between where I feel a longing for the comforts of home (like Target, really miss Target) while feeling very satisfied in the work that I am doing here and in the ways I am connecting with my family here.
Maybe the real concept to analyze may not be the notion of a call, but the notion of home. When I meet people (and I have many lots of people over the last couple of months here) the question is always where am I from. I speak Spanish well, but not like someone who grew up in Lima but also not like an American who learned Spanish in school. The explanation is always a bit awkward in that I was born in Peru but moved away when I was young and then lived in so many different places in the US so I don't really have a specific place I am "from." No hometown as it were.
When I took the job in Pasadena I wasn't looking to love. Inertia was keeping me in Florida and it certainly felt home-ish or at least familiar enough. When I landed in Pasadena and starting working, started meeting people and started to build a truly authentic life, it really did start to feel like home. It feels like home in a way that no place ever really has. I certainly will always be connected to Peru having been born here and having so much family here, and that connection is as real as it could be, but it isn't home. Florida isn't home either, but I can see being connected to that place for the rest of my life.
So maybe this decision isn't really about a call or about work or about navigating being gay in a conservative city, maybe the decision is about how long I want to be away from home. Maybe that is what to focus on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
