What I've come to believe

I believe in adventure and growth and learning by living; in seeing something in a book or on TV and making it real.

I believe in change, in the pursuit of dreams, in committing when you're ready and acknowledging when you're not.

I believe in the beauty of being hopelessly lost and, in the struggle to find your way, noticing people, places and details you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

I believe in trial periods and return policies and in telling time to f*** off because the only purpose it serves is to rush you or remind you of what you haven't done.

I believe in respecting the wisdom of others but giving your gut the last word.

I believe in a fluid definition of accomplishment; in the acquisition of knowledge; in recognizing the things you don't know and working to fill the gaps.

I believe in focusing on yourself first so that you can better focus on others, in always thinking for yourself and regularly thinking of yourself.

I believe in being responsibly irresponsible because with too much diligence you'll have too little fun.

I believe that talk and tears are miraculous, that the best memories come from the worst circumstances, that there is a reason for coincidence and chance encounters because they really aren't coincidence or chance encounters at all.

I believe in never stopping, never settling, never being OK with being stuck in the mud.

I believe "I was busy" always means "I didn't want to make time."

I believe in toughing it out, but when the levee breaks, I believe in the healing touch of home, of Mom's cooking and Dad's jokes.

I believe that we can always be better and things can always be worse; I believe in counting your blessings before counting your money and in saving the worst for last.

I believe in the power of, "I love you," "I'm sorry," "Thank you" and "Excuse me."

I believe that make-or-break moments come more than once in a lifetime and that improvised disaster is more worthwhile than scripted perfection.

I believe in saying "no," in the beauty of being alone, in regular self-reflection and self-improvement.

I believe that normal is an incredibly boring thing to be and that we should leave an "I was here" mark on the lives of the people we meet.

I believe in guiltlessly eating an extra piece of chocolate, sleeping an extra five minutes, drinking another glass of wine and watching stupid television.

I believe that people who say they have no regrets are full of sh** because we'll always wish we did things differently.

I believe that people change, that all of us deserve second chances.

Most importantly, I believe in the pursuit of happiness, whatever that happiness may be. 

On living anonymously

It's OK to fear starting over, to stew about the person people know you to be and how you want people to know the New You. It's scary to build yourself from scratch, to leave behind the people and places whose smells and smiles you recognize, whose presence is so intricately linked to your identity that you don't know who are are without them. 

We all have those people and places that help define us. There's that restaurant you go to when your diet crumbles and then there's the one you go to when you start anew. There's the rundown party house that reminds you of morning-after struggles with Captain Morgan and the tacky bar that'll always make you think of The One Who Got Away. And then there are the people who give these places meaning. 

In your new home, no one will be a pharmacist, cook, biggest fan, friend and listener quite like Mom. No one will affectionately and intentionally annoy you like your big brother. And no one will grip your secrets as tightly as your best friend. But there's something refreshing about living anonymously. Each day when I walk down the street, I see no one from my past. I only see people who may or may not be part of my future, people who may turn out to be my roommate's cousin's tutor or the worthless woman at the bank who's at work to do everything but her job. It's both terrifying and invigorating that people here aren't tied to milestones or mile markers back home. Restaurants and parks and street corners here aren't tied to memories. Everything is new, and so am I. 

With every person I meet, I can define my identity. No reputation precedes me. No yearbook entry tells people here I'm the most or least likely to succeed. No two degrees of separation tell a new acquaintance her roommate didn't like me in high school. I am Teresa, whoever that may be. I'm not saying I'm here "trying to find myself." That's a cliche, and nobody knows what the heck it really means, anyway. But starting over has an interesting way of sparking self-reflection, of making us question which parts of our former selves we'd like to conserve and which ones are better left to die along with the previous Me. So, as I stumble through this latest adventure, here's to Teresa being more thoughtful, less catty, more selfless, less volatile, more delicate with feelings and altogether less like the worst parts of the Old Me. Because sometimes it takes leaving behind who you were to realize who you'd like to be. 

Nobody said it'd be easy.

I was freshly 18 when he and I met at a party in a new friend's basement. You know, one of those places with the low-slung ceilings, mismatched furniture and a keg on ice. I had plans to move to the dorms that week and join the college scene as a smart-but-social co-ed. I didn't want a boyfriend. But he was tall and skinny and had shaggy brown hair. With those three characteristics, he met all of my teenage girl criteria. And so, he was mine before he knew he was mine.

I can map the trajectory of our relationship according to the evolution of his haircut. At first it was long, far past his ears, unkempt and chill. So was our relationship. It was fun and carefree. We partied, crashed on friends' floors and made beer-fueled memories we couldn't remember the next morning. Then he cut it. It was still long, but it was above the ears. It was still cool but more serious, more suitable for a degree-seeking 20-something. Our fun fling took a similar twist toward serious. We began saying "I love you" at the end of every call and increasingly chose Netflix and frozen pizza over drunk non-memories. With every inch he cut off, we inched closer to middle-class suburbia and joint tax filings.

Five years in, I moved to Spain to work for what was supposed to be a one-year deal. As part of that, I was traveling, teaching, making new friends and drinking wine and coffee. (Both were drinks I'd always adamantly despised before. They stain your teeth. They taste like shit.) And so, ours was a slow, undetectable decay, like a tumor that goes unnoticed until you're saying your last goodbye. I found myself embracing everything around me in Europe and embracing a life without him. I call B.S. on the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" line. With every Skype call missed, we grew further apart. While I was gone, he became a career man, a slacks-and-button-up man with his own health insurance and 401k. Meanwhile, I became even more of a lost soul. I was overqualified to be unemployed post-Spain but too clueless to know what I wanted to do. 

I can't pinpoint when exactly I questioned going back to Nebraska to settle down, but it seems I came to a fork in the road. One path was full of curves, bends I couldn't see past and neon warning signs. It promised to be exciting but full of risk and uncertainty. The other path was straight and narrow, lauded for its smooth surface and suitability for cruise control. It was The Path by any rational standards. It was safe and comfortable, The Sure Thing that everyone searches for. I spent days, nights, mornings, evenings and middle-of-the-nights telling myself The Path was the right path for me. 

When I finally chose The Wrong Path, I cried. He cried. We cried, but rarely at the same time. It always seemed like he was grieving when I wasn't, or vice versa. I grieved in private, at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., as the unrelenting cadence of motorbikes outside my barely-there street-side window kept me awake.

I could've had it all - a nice house, a stable career, a handsome, loving husband who would kiss me before leaving for work in his new sedan. Instead, I moved back to Spain, where I rent a bedroom in a furnished apartment and earn a pittance at my part-time teaching job. Here I'm seeing the world, gaining Spanish fluency more each day and challenging myself to build a life as a young woman who doesn't identify as the future Mrs. Anybody. 

It has not been easy, but in life we're liable for the decisions we make and the hearts we break. I broke my heart and his heart and our families' hearts, and that weighs on me every day. I struggle with my decision, and having faith that I made the right one is a daily challenge. Months after calling off our wedding, moving on remains an ongoing pursuit. We've relapsed too many times to count, done the familiar dance of exes caught somewhere between committed and not.

There are days when the allure of The American Dream eats at me like a parasite I can't shake. We tend to measure life by a quantifiable system of metrics, and accordingly, I'm failing. We assess success by hours worked, children raised, money earned and cars owned. The intangible victories - challenges overcome or fears conquered, for example - don't count for as much. I recognize that. I don't expect everyone to understand my choice, to legitimize my lifestyle or to encourage my wanderlust. But I do hope that they respect my decision and the guts it took to make it. Maybe he and I will be Us again someday. Neither of us can say for sure. I still love him, but for now, I've chosen to live instead of to love - to live out my dreams, to not let them be dreams at all, really. So here's to having the courage to follow my instincts and the confidence that I've pursued happiness, even if in the end, I could've found it right in front of me.

Don't envy me.

People call me brave and adventurous, ambitious and determined. They congratulate me for making a decision that changed my life even though I was terrified it would, well, change my life. But for as courageous and composed as people think I am, the truth is deep down I'm as frazzled and anxious as you are. The path I've chosen wears on me, just like yours wears on you. 

I'm scared - Every. Single. Day. Of what I'm missing back home. Of losing touch. Of losing people. Of not learning enough or trying to learn too much. Of missing the signs that I'm in the wrong or the right place. You may think my life is worth envying. You see my pictures on Facebook; you imagine me regularly parading through passport control; you see me making friends around the globe and pursuing the opportunities I always said I would.

But you know what? I envy you, dear 8-to-6'er (nobody works 9 to 5 anymore, let's be honest). You're chained to your desk, at a job where you don't feel fulfilled. You sometimes plot how to accidentally spill your coffee on your keyboard so that it can be out of commission for a while. You eat lunch at your desk because coming back from a break just reminds you how much you don't want to be there. But hey, you have stability. You have a steady paycheck, perhaps a retirement account and savings, even. There are times when you feel accomplishment and optimism and self-worth. I envy that.

Dear wearied mom, you think cleaning runny poop - or, God forbid, crusty poop - off your teething infant's butt is unglamorous and perpetual. Perhaps you feel moribund, stuck in the monotony of your day-to-day. While I'm eating couscous in Morocco and Parmesan in Italy, you're taste-testing baby foods. Those meats really are awful. As much as you love your kids, sometimes you dream of travel, adventure or, hell, just a few days off. But guess what? I envy you, too. You are surrounded by people who know and support you. As much as that baby cries, she loves you, and you can hold her when you're about to break. I envy that.

Dear straying partner, you think your relationship is sparkless, blissless, romantic-comedy-moment-less. On Monday you talk about a weekend date night, but by Friday you're microwaving popcorn and falling asleep at 9 with crumbs in your bed. He's tired. You're tired. You wonder about passion and romance and surprise. But guess what? You're falling asleep next to him. When he holds you, it reminds you why you've hung on for so long. I envy that.

Dear young newlywed, you still hold your hand in the sun and watch your ring sparkle. You can't help but cry when you hear the song you danced to with Dad at your wedding, and you have tiered white cake in the freezer. But sometimes the naysayers get to you, the ones who've said you're not at an "OK age" to marry, that being ready only happens after you pass a certain birthday, that you didn't have time to find you before you agreed to we. You know what? I envy you, too. I envy the strength you had to commit. I envy the burnt dinners at home and the wedding album on the coffee table. I envy you having an us.

Even so, life is about decisions and accepting the highs and lows that come with them. There are good days and bad days for all of us. I'm not cleaning baby poop off butts, but I'm cleaning pigeon poop off my European sandals. Some days I'm OK with that. Some days I'm not. But I can't sit and compare my life to yours, and you shouldn't compare yours to mine. Because envy is a cancer. So here's to fighting it with everything good we've got.