The past few days I’ve been sending a lot of snapchats, which can only mean one thing: I’m bored.
When I am fully present and occupied/don’t have 4G/am super content I don’t really use snapchat. I love to share photos with instagram and write this blog, but other than that I try to minimized my social media use. Snapchat, by its nature, is just a one-off candy coated form of entertaining stimulation…and can be a fun way to distract yourself from your boredom.
There’s this perception that traveling to foreign lands is going to be this non-stop romantic rollercoaster ride of self-discovery, romance, and mountains. I suppose that’s true sometimes. But I’ve really emptied out my bank of self-discovery, romance and mountains in the last couple of months, to be honest, and I’ve come to New Zealand because I have a working visa. So I’m going to work.
The thing about working is that you have to settle down and do all the normal things of life like fill dish washers, sweep floors, clean toilets, and go to be early. Saving money means limiting the amount you go out to eat or drink. It means not buying a bus ticket unless you really need to and relying on either a bicycle or other people to get you to where the bus does not go. It means waiting and doing a lot of stuff that you would kind of rather not do…like wash dishes behind a bar for five hours straight.
Life is life in most places, I’ve found. We all need clean water, food, a place to pee and a place to sleep. These things take time to maintain, especially when you’re just getting established. I’ve been in New Zealand for 10 days and I have managed to get a job and not loose a ton of money. As a result I am secure and bored. How appropriate. If I wasn’t so lucky, I’d be stressed out and spending too much money on food and housing. Being bored at this juncture is an amazing sign that I’m doing what I need to do to sustain myself. Cool.
As it is, I have landed in a pile of blessing so large I’m still sinking into it, bewildered. The people here have helped me so much and I have been so well taken care of that things like not having a car for the time being are just fine. I don’t need an adventure right now. I need to make some money, and sometimes that means putting the adventures on hold for another day. Everything has a price, and I’m happily paying for it right now.
In gratitude for being cared for, safe, warm, and yes, bored…for now.
Molly
Recieving Time 