Let it be here DECREED: There was a good reason for Bali.
I was crossing the surprisingly civil crosswalk the other day on my way to Hogwarts, musing on the December inevitability.
Friend A: Hey, you want to go downtown for drinks on Thursday?
Me: (sketchy eyes, internal paddling, externally smoothing of feathers) Um, yes?
(later, much much later, like 1:00 am)
Me: (in my head, while looking in wallet and fishing in pockets) Oh no.
Friend B: (joining me at the bar, where I have been holding post for a good 10 minutes) Hey, I’m going to get another drink. Do you want one?
Me: Um, no?
Friend B: (sketched out) Are you sure? Its on me!
Yes, that time when I will be broke. I’ve figured it out in my budget. I already know I will be. I have $44.74 per week. Good thing this is not New York and there are, amazingly, NO TEMPTATIONS on the walk from my place of work to my place of residence. This should cut back a lot. But, as I usually do, I felt flooded with the pang of guilt.
This guilt is partly residual. And for a long time, I took refuge in that. I was brought up, among other things, without any spending money. It didn’t occur to me that this was normal to even after college. But for all that was expected of me to be ‘of a certain class’ (Italians) I certainly didn’t have the means to be there.
But that time is way over. 6 years over to be exact. I could be a millionaire by this point if I had followed the path of some of my other peers. So now that guilt is all real, and all deserved, and I have to re-train myself to accept it as my own, and change it if I want to.
I do to some extent. But then we come to questions of Bali. And why it was necessary, even though I absolutely in no way negatively could afford it. Who knows when I will pay for it, or even from my last ‘essential’ adventure (Jen to Senegal).
We’ll see how this all works out, but the biggest lesson I am hoping to take from Bali is to follow your heart. If this does not in fact turn out to be the lesson, well I will have some serious reckoning to do. But what is that voice you hear ‘in your heart?” Now, don’t run out on me just yet. If you looked up “heart” in my thesaurus, you would get “instinct,” “wisdom,” even “collection of all the advise of people from whom you’d take it,” or so far as “sum of your collection of experiences leading you in this certain direction.” It could be “life force,” or “spirit” or “energy.” If you wanted to go the other way into mush-dom, you would find “guardian angel,” “voice of my father,” or “God.” The point is, I think we all have some inner voice that bugs us like an itching for a cigarette. Thing is, it dings off every 5 seconds for all of our lives, so many of us have done a really good job of telling it to shut the f*ck up or otherwise throwing the pillow over it.
Something itched in me to go to Bali and I just couldn’t shut it up. I fast-fowarded myself into law school and knew I would feel like a lamo and a sell out if I hadn’t gone. There always has to be room in my life for the impossible, the spontaneous. But its more than that. Sue’s making a peace documentary for f’s sake. How could I not go?
So, this is how my “follow your heart” theory will either work out or, well, take another turn. While everyone is sitting in these info sessions wheels ticking about where to find a public interest law opportunity for the summer to get the $3,500 stipend, or how they could rack up 4 credits through the externship program and qualify for some $8,000 financial aid package, I just need to think about how I can best serve Lian and her community. Maybe the Water Law Journal? I can look for ways that I could get back to Senegal and continue my chicken project research. Maybe this does not put me ahead of anyone else, but it reminds me why am here and makes me über motivated to study Crim Law.
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