If you read my previous post, then you got a pretty good summary of all I’ve done in the two weeks following the midterm other than Plovdiv, classes, homework, flute, yoga, reading for fun, and occasional dinners with friends. (I will talk about the happenings of the most recent, third week since the midterm in another post.) It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, though. As wonderful as the journey with Eric to Plovdiv was, it was also unbelievably tiring, and it took me many days to fully recover and be okay with normal amounts of sleep (~7 hours) again. A conversation I had with Eric on the trip also kind of disrupted my normal life, but in a different way. This conversation was mostly about religion, with some philosophy and physics thrown in (so pretentious, I know!), and Eric, as a theology/religious studies major and devout Catholic, did most of the talking. I asked all the questions, though – we only had that conversation because I was so curious (not because Eric was proselytizing), because Eric was so generously open and willing to share his knowledge and beliefs, and because we had nothing else to do on the long night bus ride out of Istanbul before we got tired enough to sleep. The reason this conversation kind of disrupted my normal life is because Eric explained what he believed and why he believed those things with such eloquence, thoughtfulness, and surety. I was impressed but not personally affected until several days later when I thought to myself, if someone asked me what I believed spiritually and why I held those beliefs, I could not give as well-thought-out, well-defined, or confident explanations as Eric did. Even though I am not part of an organized religion, I found myself wanting a better-defined value system by which to lead my life, rather than just kind of making it up as I go along, which I’ve been doing so far (and which might have some worth in its own right, I think). Concerns such as these aren’t solved overnight, of course, and I have to do some more thinking on the topic. However, the other day I did sit in a café and try to clearly define my values and reasoning in my journal, and it made me realize that I am not quite as directionless as I can sometimes feel.
My other sources of sadness: loved ones back home and the program’s fast-approaching end. For the sake of my loved ones’ privacy, I won’t say much other than that hearing about their struggles and being half a world away is heartbreakingly difficult. The hard part is that while the program’s end should help eliminate this source of sadness, I will only really be with loved ones for two weeks – one in Evanston/Chicago, and one in Cary, NC – before jetting off again, this time to Spain. As I said to my suitemate Keri last night, everything requires sacrifice. I definitely don’t regret this trip to Turkey, but, as the cliché goes, you can’t have it all. Keri reframed that cliché in what was, to me, a beautiful way. She said, “There are an infinite number of things you have to say no to in your life, and, relatively, such a finite number of things to which you can say yes. Therefore, the yeses are so very precious, and if you think about it that way, you can be more grateful for the yeses you do have.” This applies to things both big – spending a summer in Turkey instead of being with loved ones in the States, doing psych research, etc, etc – and small – going to dinner with my friend Amanda the other nnight instead of doing things like yoga, writing more of this blog post, reading for fun, etc, etc. I imagine that what Keri said can seem like just another version of “be grateful for what you have,” but for some reason it helps me more than the “be grateful” phrase in my quest to stop mourning so much the things to which I’ve said no.
Finally, the course’s impending end. I will be happy to stop having to wake up at 7:45 five days a week, do homework every night, take quizzes every week, etc, but I will be sad to face the reality that this wonderful stretch of learning Turkish is finite. (How easy it is to believe in the infinity of things – summer, college, even life.) I am also sad because I had unrealistic expectations for how good at Turkish I would get. My unmet expectations are not the fault of this wonderful program, but rather the fault of my naiveté. But surprisingly, with just a little bit of effort I have been able to, most of the time, focus more on how far I’ve come than how far I have to go. I am also choosing to reframe this impending end by celebrating what’s come before – new friendships, new trips and experiences both big and small, building relationships with my father and extended family, and SO MUCH improvement with Turkish – and what will come after – a week at my family’s Turkish summer home on the Aegean Sea, having my dad around with whom to practice Turkish, time with loved ones in the States, and then my semester in Spain. All these yeses seem so infinite and perfect right now, but when I remember the larger infinity of my nos, I actually feel greater peace, gratitude, and an ability to let go of the illusion of control – the illusion that every experience to which I say yes will always be better than all the experiences to which I say no. Not all the yeses were, are, or will be perfect, but in my opinion they all have something to offer, and they all are precious in their finiteness.