Advice

I received some particularly good advice as I was sitting in a lawn chair this past summer at my neighbor’s annual Memorial Day party, chatting with another neighbor whom I’ve known since I was young. It is hard to explain, but we are close with all our neighbors. The dads borrow tools and help each other with various projects, the moms really borrow eggs and sugar, and the kids all play together. We actually have a block party every September, to which over one hundred neighbors come each year. I am lucky to live in such a neighborhood. In short, this neighbor to whom I was speaking was not a woman I barely know and was just making polite conversation with. Looking back, I was basically on the receiving end of a lecture. I’m not sure what I said in response to anything she said, so it is hard to recap the exact dialogue. However, I do remember precisely what she told me. As we sat eating salad and drinking lemonade, she told me to travel while I’m young, before life gets in the way. Once you get married and have kids, life gets in the way, and you can’t just pick up and leave. When you are young though, you can. She told me too, never to give up opportunities because of a man. If there is an incredible job that you really want, realize that if you give it up and things don’t work out with him, you will regret it. When you are young is the time to be selfish and live your own life before devoting it to anyone else.
What she probably knew at the time that I didn’t was that she was getting divorced. This conversation occurred about two months before the neighborhood found out that this couple was getting divorced and her husband already bought another house and was moving out. Now I realize why these ideas were on her mind, and why she felt it was so important to convey this to me. Before getting married, she had traveled the word. She estimates she has visited over sixty countries. She said Africa was so cheap that she could have lived there forever on the money she had. You don’t have to be rich to get those experiences. Now, however, she is a single mom of two young children. She can’t pick up and travel at whim. Honestly, this is the best advice I have ever received. I want travel, and to just as vacations to islands and Europe. I want to join the Peace Corps after college. Some people see this as idealistic, but really, it can be a reality! My own mother would never give me the advice that my neighbor gave me. My mom married months out of college, and the most foreign place she has ever lived is Texas. Naturally, she would have no basis to give me such advice. She led no such life. However, although my neighbor didn’t realize it, her advice was validation of my dreams. I can do these things that other people think are just part of my youthful idealism. For this, to my neighbor, I am so grateful.