I had a job interview yesterday morning. It was for a job in Norway I applied to earlier in the summer that would last from November to May, and at the time I thought it’d be perfect for me. I could live in Iceland from July to November; 5 months of comfort before I’d inevitably grow bored and crave change again. A new season, a new environment, a new life. Honestly, months before graduating in the spring, I sort of dreaded the summer and what would follow. I didn’t think I could really move back home, to this small, isolated island where it feels like nothing happens yet nothing goes unnoticed. Back into my room and with my family and my old fears of living.
I’ve been settling into my new job at the museum, and although it requires some social skills I haven’t quite honed yet, or ever really will, I like it there. Generally, I enjoy my coworkers and the hours I work and I don’t spend the whole shift waiting for it to be over. It’s not exactly exciting, but it fills the day and I’m having fun getting to know new people in moderation. I haven’t been thrown into a den of lions and my only way out is convincing some of them to like me, which is pretty much how starting high school felt at 16, and boarding school at 17. My previous jobs were always either very short lived or a footnote in the story of my life, so it didn’t matter very much to me whether I got to know anyone there. School was the storyline.
The lions aside, I think I’m starting to find new beginnings enjoyable. No one knows you. You can be anyone in that first period, before you grow weary and start to let your mask fall off, slowly. I remember my manager telling me that “people like [me]” there, and that’s why they wanted to have me back, and another that I “had a fun aura”, which I found hilarious. Although I’m usually not exactly good at it, it can be fun to play the chameleon in the beginning.
Because of many more working hours, my freedom is restricted now. I try to use it wisely: reading, writing, running, and sleeping. It was only a month or so ago when I thought I’d claw out my own brain out of boredom because I had nothing but freedom. You know those questions that start something like: “If you had a year to do one thing…”? I’d probably do nothing. My days off feel productive now; I’ll have errands I saved up until that day, I use them to be creative, even lounging in bed and spending the entire day in my pajamas feels purposeful.
Another aspect of moving back home is the sense of permanence. Some weeks ago, I bought a new plant. I haven’t had one in what feels so long. I want another one already.
I listen to Hozier and bake cinnamon buns. I crochet scarves for the coming fall. I read my books in bed. I visit my grandmother. I water my plants. And it doesn’t feel so useless anymore. I think this feels like breathing, finally.
The other day, I was in a good mood the entire day. I joked around at work, sang in the car on the way home, and when I went to bed, I fell into a dreamless sleep. I didn’t lay for hours, thinking about the day after, or some impending doom waiting for me somewhere in the future. Is this what it feels like to be a normal person, living a normal life? I still feel anxiety, it manifests in other things now, but it is wonderfully limited lately.
You might be thinking, well, why do you want to leave, then?
I don’t, really.
I think I will cross both my fingers behind my back and reject the job offer in Norway if they give it to me. Shut my eyes tight and hope that it was the right decision to stay here, in shelter. That I won’t grow bored of it come November. But in all honesty, if there is anything I have learned from the last few years, it’s that I’ll always find a way to squeeze myself into paths of new opportunities if I want them, and then convince myself that it was all some strange coincidence.
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