The 2-minute version of my career history takes you on a whirlwind tour of France, Spain, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and sounds deceptively glamourous. There’s a research station in a cloud forest, a yoga studio in a treehouse, lunchtime wine-drinking in Parisian school canteens, an office overlooking an ancient Moorish palace.
Understandably, I get oooohs and ahhhhhs when I answer that question. But what many don’t realise, is that beautiful stories can be like grown-ups’ Easter eggs – once you get past the foil the chocolate’s too dark, there’s nothing inside and the only half-decent bits are wrapped up in a plastic bag underneath. I think a life lived disconnected from yourself is a melancholy thing – no matter how lush the packaging.
I’ve spent much of my life adventuring. It was kick-started age 16 by visiting my cousins in Papua New Guinea, where my uncle and aunt were missionaries in a tribe. On day two I fell down a waterfall, barefoot, glimpsed the exposed white of bone and thought it was all over. I’ll never forget my (gynaecologist) father sprinkling capsules of outdated antibiotics over the garish fuchsia tissue before using all his might to yank at the phalanx until it snapped into place – while my uncle filmed gleefully on his camcorder. I remember screaming because I thought it should hurt very much – but I’m not sure it actually did. My uncle later set the film to the Chariots of Fire music and played it to anyone who would watch.
Anyway, I got the travel bug. Age 17, I took my 12-year-old sister on a coach to Paris with two friends and we crashed in a (missionary) friend’s apartment and stayed out all night. (Yes, they do send British missionaries to France.)
I lived for a year with a pastor’s family in France, volunteering in their outreach cafe. My uni summers were spent in Bosnia – I learned Serbo-Croat, befriended a family in the war-torn city of Mostar and stayed with them for a couple of months. Sleeping on sofas was my happy place and I was ravenous to twist my brain to new perspectives.
But in my early twenties I was knocked for six. At uni I unwittingly, unwillingly lost my faith and found myself floating adrift.
The adventures up to that point had been truly so – I was immersed, growing, excited about life. The next 12 years may sound like an adventure, but what they actually were, was running away.
I know a woman who works in international development. Whenever a do-gooding, adventurous young student asks how to get that career, she tells them to go spend a few years volunteering in their neighbourhood. If they can get that right, they may have a chance.
Lockdown is a chance to focus back on community, family and self. To pause the small adventures that can distract from the larger one that is living and dying. And sometimes it’s the harder path.
Real adventures are tough – they’re about taking risks, struggling, failing, allowing yourself to be scared, lost and vulnerable. I can tell you from many years of experience that they have nothing to do with waterfalls or rainforests and they are definitely not geographically defined.
This blog is part of the #DailyWritingChallenge set by Hannah Wilson to keep us connected during the Covid-19 lockdown. Today’s theme was “adventure”.
Photo by Andreas Dress on Unsplash
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