So, tonight marked my final day as a dishwasher (for now at least, until my world travels need further funding). It was a great experience and I learned a lot. I learned that as a person, I can do what I need to do to try and make ends meet. If I need to work crappy hours, or slog dirty dishwater, or come home smelling like - who really knows, but it's awful - I can do it. I have enough drive to recognize that if there I goals I want to meet, I can do what I need to do to get that done.
That being said, it also gave me an appreciation for how much I enjoy reading and learning and thinking. To be honest, though, I have read more books over the past few months, and looked forward to learning and thinking more than I have in any single year of my college experience. Interesting how that works out.
It also taught me that saying goodbye can be tough. I met some really great people, who I genuinely enjoyed spending time with, joking around, and even occasionally being yelled at by. It is good to meet people from all different walks of life - recent high school grads, immigrants from El Salvador and Honduras, recent college grads - who all have something valuable to contribute to my worldview and education.
It has also taught me the tension that exists in my desires. I long for movement, for change, for the kind of motion that lets one be immersed in the moment, totally aware of who one is and what they are living for. At the same time, I enjoy the peace and comfort of stability, of community, of relationships. It is a tension I have tried to reconcile throughout the last few years, sometimes with more success than others.
I think it is one I will have to navigate for the rest of my life, because in reality, both desires are authentically me.
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