What’s a woman in her mid-thirties doing out of a job for a year, traveling the world and sharing a tiny living space with six much younger women in their early to mid-20’s, most of whom have either not completed their college degree or have just graduated in the past year? What do they have in common living together day in and day out? The college experience was a decade a go for the 30-something and quite recent for the rest of them. Who’s John Cusack? And no! They’ve never heard of the movie “Say Anything.”
Yes, the woman described above is me. Never mind that I blend in well with my teammates due to my “youthful charm”, my age is still a reality on the race, and it hits me in the face on a daily basis living in a community with 20-somethings.
Truth be told, part of the reason I left my life in San Francisco behind for the time being was to escape.. from a million things:
- to escape from going to wedding #254
- to escape from attending baby shower #836
- to escape from buying yet another birthday present for someone who didn’t need it
- to escape from answering yet another “so why are you still single?”
- to escape from impressing someone at another networking mingling thingy where they ask “what do you do for a living?”
The truth is, I was sick and tired of living a life that other people expected me to live. “You’re in your mid-thirties now.” The voice says. “You need to know where you’re going and set yourself up for a successful future.” That voice sounds something between my father, my pastor and my psychologist.
Not only am I expected to have a diversified stock portfolio, an impressive career that highlights all my achievements of the last decade, a walk-in closetful of beautiful wardrobe versatile enough for company black-ties, business meetings and cocktail hour with friends, a kitchen stocked full of cooking ingredients and international wines for an impromptu dinner party (even tho’ I myself hardly ever dine at home), to a drawerful of witty comebacks and good-enough excuses to relatives’ nosy “when are you getting married?” questions, and a calendar-ful of social gatherings, fancy dinners, business trips, and vacations.
I was sick of it all. The life I led and followed had become cliche. As much as I repelled the white picket fence life, I felt those walls of expectation built by society closing in on me – soon suffocating the life out of me. And the only way out, was to leave everything behind and go away, far far away.
So I did.
I got on a boat called the World Race and sailed to faraway lands. I caught freedom and solitude and discovered instead, of what seemed to be a new wall of expectation called “community”. I went to Central America, Asia and Africa. I met people. I answered their questions to me. To my great surprise, the sense of adventure, anonymity and privacy I wanted out of this was nowhere to be found. I felt the same suffocation following me, the same breech of privacy when strangers in every country asked me virtually the same ?’s:
- “How old are you?”
- “Do you have a boyfriend?”
- “Why aren’t you married?”
- “What are you doing here?”
- “Women here have six kids by the time they get to your age.”
I travel the world, crossing oceans, arrive at new continents and settle in obscure villages just to have the same kind of questions waiting for me wherever I went.
What’s wrong with this picture? Is there something weird going on with a youthful looking, adventurous, semi-intelligent 30-something single woman out and about searching for something as she travels the world?
It seems that the world also wants to know the answer. We all want to know why so few 30-somethings do this. Why do most 30something stay comfortable while their 20something counterparts go out on a limb and experience life and discover Truth in the midst of chaos.
Where are the 30-somethings?
Are my 30-somethings all sitting at home already married, wearing aprons and holding spatulas, caring for husbands and having babies? If so, that’s fine. Are they getting promotions, at the height of their careers? Are they working on things to change their spheres of the world? Are they happy? Are they searching? If so, I want to know.
I also want to know this. Why me? Why does Jacqueline Yi Gu get to go on a limb like this? Why do I remain that lone 30-something to travel, explore and discover. Why do I get a year off? Why do I get to see what I saw? What possessed me to do this and what am I looking for in all of this? Gold, silver, precious jewels? Love from men? Love from children? Caring for orphans and widows? Good writing material?
The answers have yet to come, even to myself at this time.
As I write this, I am staying at the Salvation Army Highschool for the Blind in Thika, Kenya, known for it’s pineapple plantations supplied to companies like Del Monte, in a tiny 2 bedroom house full of coachroaches and mosquitos, containing a little gas stove and a squatty potty.
I live with six young women ranging from 21 – 26 years old, who are sound asleep in their mosquito nets as I write this. The sound of crickets and rain accompany my lonely wake. One of the few quiet moments I get by myself.
Lord, the one I serve and love with my life. Why did you tell me: “come away with me?” exactly a year ago, and why did you let me go far away from home, and allow me to still feel like this, instead of immense freedom, of immense heaviness as I continue to face the unknown.
Is there a happy ending in store for me? What is waiting for me on the other side of this journey?
The answer, I am praying, is YET TO COME. I‘m hopefully awaiting.
