Decisions, anxiety and Murphy's Law

When I told my friends I've decided to quit my job, leave my apartment in the middle of the lease term and buy a one-way ticket to Rome, Italy, most of their responses were "Coooool". No doubt, self-fulfillment is very popular these days. So popular that it almost seems like people study computer science and work in high-tech just so later the Huffington Post title would say "After ten years in front of the screen, Wilma finally left everything and became a farmer".

Most my family members'/older acquaintances' responses were "Really? Why?". And really, why leave a perfectly good, well-payed job, a nice, comfortable apartment, a (wreck of a) car and most importantly, the hip Tel Aviv scene to go work on organic farms in Italy and France? Sometimes, I have no answer to that question myself. Sometimes I just shrug and say "Because.", while my insides twist and shout 'What the f*** do you think you're doing?". But more often than not, I find myself being able to answer that working with my hands has always felt most right to me (no, beloved colleagues – hands on keyboard doesn't count) and that nature has always had a therapeutic effect on my body and soul. Urban life, interesting and full of action as it may be, is also extremely hectic and stressful; every step you take, you're required to pay someone money for something; the air is polluted and hence not ideal for my asthmatic lungs (mom, I promise living in nature will reduce my smoking! I mean, I hope…).

A previous attempt of mine to do something different

And so my trip started to take shape. 5 months, 2 countries, 7-8 farms in total. Yesterday I even bought my return ticket, so there is a deadline. There is only so much adventure my anxious self can stand. Signing up for agriculture studies next year is just another one of those decisions I question every other day, but it's currently still part of the "master-plan" to become… seriously, I don't know what one becomes after studying agriculture, though something inside tells me it might just make me a happier person.

Yet another attempt.

Until the trip starts, I'm spending my days at the office and my nights worrying, or drinking my worries away in one of the bars I'll miss after I leave the neighborhood, city and country. Before I fall asleep my brain involuntarily makes lists of the things that could go wrong between now and the moment I first land in Rome; between now and the moment I land back in Tel Aviv; between now and the moment my life ends. The lists are longer than I can bear because they're endless. Murphy's Law states "Whatever can go wrong – will go wrong" (trivia fact - all the other "Murphy laws" are actually just people's variations on that one) and I couldn't agree with him more. Not in the manner of "if I move to the other line it will surely become longer than the previous one and so on, and then I'll check-in last so will be on stand-by on my flight and my Couchsurfing host will have to wait for me at the meeting point and get angry and leave after not getting a message from me that I'll be running late, while I desperately try to save my phone from dying after it fell on the airport floor and someone stepped on it". So not like that. But in the sense that there is actually no "right" and "wrong" and when something gets "messed-up" there is no parallel universe in which it didn't get messed up. When things get complicated or unexpected all we can do is smile about it because that's the only course of life we have (said by the girl who's often not able to breathe when she misses a bus. I try, though).

Gonna miss you, balcony

So, spiritual talk aside – I'll miss you, Tel Aviv. And hopefully the next post will be written from Rome with a cone of Gelato in my hand.