#79: Emerging from what life asked of me... into what I want for me.
Went to New Zealand, got an existential rewiring.
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“Don’t walk away, boy… I’ll be right there for you!”
I was perched on a high stool at a bustling Italian restaurant in the heart of Wellington, New Zealand. A familiar beat and lilting harmony floated from the restaurant’s speakers as I clanked my spoon against the bottom of my tiramisu glass, crawling the terrain for any leftovers.
After shazaming the song to make sure I heard it right, I threw my head back in laughter. It’s 2024. I’m 8,744 miles (give or take) from home, visiting my son during his study abroad. Yet an early 90’s R&B hit is throwing rocks from the past up at the window of my present-day brain.
I’d traversed a continent, an ocean, and thirty years, yet my mind was suddenly trying to return to 24-year-old Sue. Pre-Mike, pre-mom, pre-world traveler, pre-almost everything I am today. Who was she? What were her values and priorities? Why was she doing what she was doing?
At that age, we feel so mature and so assured. We think we are fully formed, know everything there is to know, and are ready to take on the world.
Little do we realize it’s just the beginning of our journey of discovering who we are and what we actually want.
Being immersed in a different culture sometimes feels like entering an alternate universe.
The basics are the same: planet earth, humans, food, water, shelter, money. But the difference is in the details.
In New Zealand, there’s limited public wifi. So people aren’t staring at their phones in cafes, on park benches, waiting at the bus stop, they’re reading books! Literal, physical, cover-and-pages books! Buying anything at the pharmacy, including cough drops, involves talking to a pharmacist. Pedestrians very much do not have the right of way. The cross-country bus driver learns everyone’s names and drops them off like a parent dropping their kid off for school, “Enjoy your day!”
Spend enough time in a new culture and you can’t help but wonder… How much of myself is actually me, and how much is just the culture I grew up in?
For example, 24-year-old Sue to present-day Sue spent the majority of her time working, with a few years spent getting her MBA… in order to work. I chose that path; it made sense based on my priority to be financially secure. But how much of my desire and the way I went about obtaining it is actually based on American culture and values? I never took a year off to travel or tried a different type of work. It’s like I couldn’t even imagine there was any other way to reach the same end.
In case that line of existential questioning wasn’t enough, in New Zealand I’m also out of my routine and to-do lists. Did I pay the kids’ tuition bill? Is that shower head leak going to turn into a major repair? Did I make the Christmas flight reservations? Is the Subaru’s registration expired? Nope. The tasks and kettlebell workouts can wait. Right now the question isn’t “what do I need to do today?” It’s “what do I want to do today?”
There is no responsibility, auto-pilot, or expectations to hide behind way out here.
By being taken out of our element, we’re brought back to ourselves.
Since Mike died, I have been a mountain.
I got a new job. I crushed the new job.
I got the kids through their most profound loss. They are launched from the nest.
I built a support network. I built a haven.
But it’s time to switch form. Mountain-mode has served me well these 7+ years. I’ve stood out there on the horizon, leading from the front with strength and resolve. Now I want to learn to bend, to sway, to flex with the wind and rain. Maybe even to dance.
I’m ready to see who I am when I don’t have to be anything. I’m also curious to see who I’ve become since life and loss have changed me. What have I been forged into? What am I ready to emerge as?
I have so much more to learn about myself — this person underneath all the societal norms of executive, wife, mom, widow that have defined me for decades.
On my way to the airport to catch my flight back to Virginia, I found myself rattling off all the time differences around the world to my Cambodian cab driver. (England is 5, Kuwait is 7, Auckland, 16.) “You’ve been everywhere!” he declared in wonder.
So what’s left to explore? My inner landscape. The canyons and ridges of myself, the hidden alpine lakes. The sinkholes. The waterfalls. The meadows.
Life, loss, culture have taught me to show up in certain ways — driven, work and family focused, tough as nails, slick as a duck’s back. But there’s so much more to me. Parts that are softer, quieter, less productive but more electrified by reality.
Before it’s too late, I don’t just want to see the Great Wall of China, spend mountains of time with Connor and Kendall, turn The Luminist into all it can be. I also want to know and experience all of me.
To self discovery,
I love this essay, Sue. Thank you for writing it.
Like you, I’ve travelled, worked, lost and grieved, and my next adventure is inward.
Sending you solidarity for the road.
Wow, you are on your way!!!