The awakening of a blue moon

Fortunately, realizations come much more often than once in a blue moon. The one I just had, however, did come through a blue moon phase and it was huge.

I realized how much I deny myself of what I really want. It is true that I have been breaking through that and doing a lot of things that I had thought impossible –hey, I am writing this from Bangkok’s bus terminal!- Still, I did not feel deserving of so many gifts that came freely to me.

For more than I want to think that I learn from my experiences, I recently got myself inside a very similar situation to the one I lived thirteen years ago. When I signed up for the Au Pair in America program I was twenty two and fed up with my life in Argentina. I was extremely excited when I found out about this program that would allow me to live in the US for a year and experience a totally different life. I waited anxiously for an American family to call me to be their au pair (aka: international nanny). To my desperation, months passed by and there was no call, until one day my mom told me that an English-speaking man was on the phone for me. I received an invitation from him and his family to come and live with them and take care of their three pre-teen boys. I said yes right away.

In the next few days more families called, including one from New York city that had two little daughters and who liked to vacation in Argentina. That situation would have been so much fitter for me than the one I agreed upon first. Somehow it did sound too good and ended up going to live with the first family, which turned into a nightmare situation (thankfully, I was able to later rematch and meet my dearest Jacquemin family)

So many years later, I jumped to the first invitation to teach English at a school in the middle of nowhere instead of pursuing another opportunity at a place that I would love much more. While my friends in Thailand went to Phuket and Chiang Mai, I went to a remote farmers’ town. I trust that all experiences can be positive ones if we chose to think them that way, but I try not to get got up in the idea that “everything happens for a reason”. I rather believe that everything happens because we take decisions that derive certain results. And what inspires us to take certain decisions can be any emotion between passion and fear. Coming to live in Khun Han was a lot more of a decision based on fear than on passion.

My biggest fear was that nobody would want to hire me because I am not a native speaker of English. The agency that hired me for the job in Khun Han and the school did not mind about it so I thought that it was the experience that I needed to have. When a school in Phuket asked me to interview with them I declined the invitation terrified that they would reject me for having an accent.

On Monday, while visiting my friends in Phuket, I came for an in-person interview with the same school which offer I declined before. They were so nice to me and promised to try to find a position for me at the school as soon as possible. They even told me that I would be happy there because they have a Mexican teacher and a Puerto Rican teacher that I could talk to in Spanish!

So, my blue-moon reflection is: the only rejections one will face are the ones imposed by the self. The things that we passionately want are hanging low for us to fetch. If we prefer to not look up and extend our arms to reach them, then we will not have them. But that is our decision.