Rain patters on the earth outside, beckoning slowness in this sleepy Mexican town. For three days, I’ve been here. The other hostel-goers keep saying, “I wish I could stay longer.” Fortunately for me, I can. I have three months until my next work contract and a delicate—but real—financial runway. And yet, even in this peaceful, quiet place, I feel unsettled. On my first morning in Todos Santos, I woke in a small bed, in a room with four other guests, heavy with regret and confusion. What am I doing here? I asked myself.
The first time I remember feeling this kind of confusion, I was in a different sleepy town. After graduating from university with no real plan, I followed another student’s idea and moved to Spain to teach English. I remember Spain as a cocktail of excitement and loneliness, exuberance and confusion. Alongside some of the highest highs of my life—being able to travel beautiful places on a whim—I felt deeply lost, like a ship wandering the sea. I had a newfound freedom and a sense that my world was opening, but it was shrouded in confusion and loneliness.
For a long time, I thought isolation was what sent me spiraling. In retrospect, it may have been something simpler: I didn’t have a plan. I lacked direction. While I was there, I fell back on curiosity and inspiration. I wrote endlessly on blank white sheets of paper, scratched with harsh strokes of bloody red ink because I only had one red pen. When the teaching program ended and summer arrived, I panicked. What do I do next? The easiest path is always the one you’re already on. I made a shoestring plan to return and teach the following year, though my heart wasn’t in it. That plan even included a return ticket to Spain. But once I was home, I committed instead to becoming a geology professor—and I never returned to Spain.
With a new plan, I was on fire. Those were great days. I was doing something I enjoyed and pursuing a dream. I attacked my goal with intensity, spending a year taking classes while working on the side, then tackling the arduous process of applying to graduate schools. That meant conferences, networking, and a lot of faith. It paid off when I landed in San Jose, California, two years later. Then came the next turn of the pattern.
About a two years into my Master of Science program, I began struggling with the tedium of research. I lost faith in the plan. I loved teaching, but I hated the grind of research. I despised hearing, again and again, that my work wasn’t good enough—especially while barely staying afloat financially. I couldn’t imagine enduring another five or six years of this in a PhD program. I slogged through the remainder of the degree and graduated two years later than planned. What followed was another period of wandering, one that eventually led me here—to Todos Santos, Mexico.
I needed money, so I took the first geology job I could find. I held onto a living situation that didn’t satisfy me. I never really made new plans, and when I did, they were loose and half-hearted. I struggled to form a vision I could truly believe in. Now, sitting here in Todos Santos, I see the pattern clearly. Having a plan matters—but not just any plan. It has to be one my heart is fully in. For the first time in a while, instead of rushing into the next thing, I’m choosing to value the uncomfortable space of not knowing what to do next.
<3 Colin