Loading...On my office wall, somewhere between the picture of the Eiffel Tower, a postcard someone sent me from Homer, Alaska, my Italy wall calendar which is currently sporting a picture of Castel Sant’ Angelo, and my company’s Mission Statement is my own little personal Mission Statement. It came to me in a fortune cookie. I don’t remember exactly when I cracked open this cookie or from which Chinese restaurant it came. It’s been on my wall for a long time and I look at it at least once a day, think about what it means to me that day, and move on.
It says: YOU ARE ALMOST THERE
Sometimes, during my pessimistic moments, it’s taunting me. I’m almost there, I’ll always be almost there, I’ll never just be there.
Sometimes, in my “get me the hell out of here” moments, it’s reassuring. That little piece of paper gets me, it’s telling me to hold on, keep going, the end is in sight.
Sometimes, in my metaphysical moments, it’s questioning me. Where is “there?” When will you know when you’re “there?” If you do reach “there” will there be another “there?”
I like to think about what “there” is. Some days it’s just the end of this chapter, the day I pack up my desk and walk out the door. Some days it’s an actual “there”–a place, like the Tel Aviv airport with my luggage trying to adjust to the smell of a new place. Some days it’s my mind, it’s the little place where I’m not questioning or over-analyzing and over thinking and making myself nuts. Some days it’s nowhere– a long dirt road that I can’t see the end of.
It’s the perfect fortune for me, evocative and changing, perfect for my overactive brain. I can think it to death and never have an answer. I’ll just want to keep thinking some more. Maybe someday I’ll have the answer- maybe I’m almost there. I hope not.
