Ok, ok, ok. I know I promised I was going to do better about blogging, then promptly didn't post....
It's been a killer few weeks and I've been getting rested up. Today, I took a day off. I'm out of town, seeing some fantastic Tibetan monks. But, you know, it has reminded me of all the things I used to want to do, all the dreams I used to have, that are no longer on my radar.
Many years ago, before I finished high school, all I wanted to do was going to culinary school and be a pastry chef. My goals changed when I started learning about Tibet. It occupied my every waking moment. I planned to be an activist, to single-handedly free Tibet. I entered college with that clear goal in mind, finished my Bachelor's degree in two and a half years so I could join an MA program in Tibetan Studies that had an open spot. At some point after that, I changed. I think, at first, I had burnt myself out working so hard at school. After a summer in China, my perspective changed. Did I still think China was wrong for taking what wasn't theirs? Absolutely. But, I no longer thought of Chinese people as the proverbial "devil". The people charmed me, and I began to realize that hardcore activism would not solve the problem.
So, off I went to grad school, barely 20 years old, and starting to lose confidence in my own convictions. While I wholly agree that Tibet should be independent, I no longer had the emotional drive that started me on the path. How does one transform that now empty spot into something productive? That, I never learned. Instead, I finished grad school, kind of floundering at the end, barely hanging on, and made my way to the Roof of the World.
I spent almost two years living there, in Tibet, the land of my dreams. It was amazing, incredible, taught me more about myself than any other experience I ever had, made me become more social, more confident, more assertive. But, conversely, my focus changed. I decided to get back into cooking, after spending so long experimenting with food there, finagling successful renditions of home-cooking out of strange ingredients and irregular appliances.
Eventually, I returned to the States, full of a new vigor, eager to get into cooking in a way I never had before. And I did. One year in an intensive culinary school, and I was out in the world, cooking for a living. And, while I find profound pleasure in cooking for others, there are times I feel regretful about not completing those idealistic goals of my younger years, for giving up on my own potential in that arena, for allowing my own feelings of inadequacy to inform my actions in life. Perhaps that is a little dramatic, but the fact remains that at some point, I lost both my confidence and my focus. I do love my career in food but I wonder what would be different if I had kept that extreme passion and drive that started me on the path in the beginning. I don't even know what my true dreams are now. I don't have an objective out there, pushing me, coaxing me to evolve, to change, to grow. There's no carrot on the end of the stick anymore. And I don't know where to find one.
In a way, I'm sad I came out here today. The physical distance from one part of my life is nice, but I've exchanged it for emotional closeness to that other part, that dusty part covered in cobwebs, that I put away long ago, hoping it would disappear.
Now, the question becomes, what do I make of myself?
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