I'm cheating. I have been calling myself 30 for months, and now I am announcing my birthday a day early. (In my own defense, I was born at 1:06 am EST, which is 10:06 pm here, which is not so far away, now, after all.)
I have been so eager to get to thirty, but just yesterday I found myself nostalgic. Oh, it's not that I'm worried about getting older. I am happy to get older. I know myself better now than ever before, and I like myself more. I am delighted to be 30.
It's more that I started thinking of all the things I have done in the last ten years, and all the emotions I've experienced, and I realized that this has been quite an incredible decade.
Ten years ago, I had not been back to Liberia since we evacuated in 1990. Now I have been back twice, in 2000 and 2006.
Ten years ago, I had never moved on my own, without family and not for school. Now I have moved, alone, to Rwanda, New York, Tanzania, Liberia, Southern Sudan, and Gone West.
Ten years ago, I could not reconcile the Liberia and US parts of myself. Now, although I miss the place I am not, whenever I'm not there, I no longer have to scrabble frantically to hang on to the missing place. The two coexist much more happily.
Ten years ago, I had not even thought of law school. Now I'm through it, somehow, and licensed to practice law.
Ten years ago, I had never driven a car in a country other than the US, or been in charge of a project, or stumbled my way through accounting, or been in a courtroom, or made an impossible decision about where in the world to live.
The only thing I remember about my 20th birthday is the moment when my dad told me that we had gotten funding to go back to Liberia the next summer. We were standing on the soccer fields where my sister played soccer, on a Saturday morning (it may have been Oct. 2, actually, after I drove down from school). I didn't cry much back before the mid-twenties hormones kicked in, but I cried then.
It's been a long decade. I have stood on hillsides across Africa, stunned by the beauty before me. I have wept into my pillow more nights than I want to count. I have made friends and lost some of them and found some new ones. I have learned when to give up on people. I have begun to be gentler toward myself. I have begun to learn how to be happy and maybe, even, as they say, how to choose happiness.
Two years ago, in Southern Sudan, I had to decide whether or not to pursue the final stages of an application for a job in Ethiopia. I decided against it, mostly because I was thinking of this day: my thirtieth birthday. I didn't want to spend it alone in a remote place, with only a few friends who were friends of convenience because they were also stuck out there.
I am so glad I'm here in Gone West. Some people learn the most about themselves in isolation or danger. I have learned more about myself, and how to be my best self, here in this far western city than I ever did in isolated Rwanda or Sudan. I am happy here, and I am growing. I am excited to see what happens in my fourth decade.
I have been so eager to get to thirty, but just yesterday I found myself nostalgic. Oh, it's not that I'm worried about getting older. I am happy to get older. I know myself better now than ever before, and I like myself more. I am delighted to be 30.
It's more that I started thinking of all the things I have done in the last ten years, and all the emotions I've experienced, and I realized that this has been quite an incredible decade.
Ten years ago, I had not been back to Liberia since we evacuated in 1990. Now I have been back twice, in 2000 and 2006.
Ten years ago, I had never moved on my own, without family and not for school. Now I have moved, alone, to Rwanda, New York, Tanzania, Liberia, Southern Sudan, and Gone West.
Ten years ago, I could not reconcile the Liberia and US parts of myself. Now, although I miss the place I am not, whenever I'm not there, I no longer have to scrabble frantically to hang on to the missing place. The two coexist much more happily.
Ten years ago, I had not even thought of law school. Now I'm through it, somehow, and licensed to practice law.
Ten years ago, I had never driven a car in a country other than the US, or been in charge of a project, or stumbled my way through accounting, or been in a courtroom, or made an impossible decision about where in the world to live.
The only thing I remember about my 20th birthday is the moment when my dad told me that we had gotten funding to go back to Liberia the next summer. We were standing on the soccer fields where my sister played soccer, on a Saturday morning (it may have been Oct. 2, actually, after I drove down from school). I didn't cry much back before the mid-twenties hormones kicked in, but I cried then.
It's been a long decade. I have stood on hillsides across Africa, stunned by the beauty before me. I have wept into my pillow more nights than I want to count. I have made friends and lost some of them and found some new ones. I have learned when to give up on people. I have begun to be gentler toward myself. I have begun to learn how to be happy and maybe, even, as they say, how to choose happiness.
Two years ago, in Southern Sudan, I had to decide whether or not to pursue the final stages of an application for a job in Ethiopia. I decided against it, mostly because I was thinking of this day: my thirtieth birthday. I didn't want to spend it alone in a remote place, with only a few friends who were friends of convenience because they were also stuck out there.
I am so glad I'm here in Gone West. Some people learn the most about themselves in isolation or danger. I have learned more about myself, and how to be my best self, here in this far western city than I ever did in isolated Rwanda or Sudan. I am happy here, and I am growing. I am excited to see what happens in my fourth decade.
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