In Praise of Quitting
My turning point came during a rare phone call with a friend back home. It was the first time we’d spoken in months and she listened patiently as I explained my predicament.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re having fun,” she said. I reluctantly agreed.
“But,” I countered, “It’s not supposed to be all fun, is it?”
“Well, no. But it sounds like you want to leave. So why stay?”
I made a final run at my list of ideals, cultivating a love of backpacking and physical work, learning how to grow food and milk goats, embracing the goodness of the universe and living with less. She was not convinced.
“You can do all of that stuff in other places, you know.”
I hadn’t really thought about that. It also hadn’t occurred to me that all I really wanted was permission to leave. And now I had it.
Things moved quickly. I stuffed my clothes and books into my backpack, scrawled a vaguely apologetic note to my fellow volunteers, and got on a bus to the airport. I felt like Dustin Hoffman in the last scene of The Graduate, giddy with the thrill of escape, riding forward into the unknown. It was hot, the bus was small and crowded, and music blasted out of speakers at head level. Across from me a toddler in a frilly white dress threw up milk all over the floor by my feet. I felt better than I had in weeks.
“I marvelled at the smoothness of the roads, the cleanliness and uniformity of the landscape, the ubiquitous street lighting and absence of barking dogs and crowing roosters. It was beautiful.”
Within twelve hours, I was gliding down a freeway, my dad at the wheel. Los Angeles, where my parents live, was only a three-hour flight away, but it felt like a different universe. I marvelled at the smoothness of the roads, the cleanliness and uniformity of the landscape, the ubiquitous street lighting and absence of barking dogs and crowing roosters. It was beautiful. My parents had been vocal proponents of me coming to stay with them since they found out I was sick. Normally the idea of spending more than a few days as their houseguest fills me with anxiety—they bicker, I regress to teenage angst, no one has fun. But it felt different this time. I felt different. I was genuinely glad to be there, ready to deal with whatever happened as it came.
In the last couple of months I’d fit my life into a backpack, navigated Mexico by air, rail and road, braved all manner of hygienically suspect street foods and relied on the benevolence of countless strangers for help along the way. For the first time I allowed myself to acknowledge the notion that perhaps I had picked up more in Mexico than a horrible, debilitating virus. I hadn’t found myself in Mexico, nor had it been the paradise of palm trees and never-ending guacamole I’d hoped, but leaving didn’t feel like quitting any more. It felt like a step towards getting what I wanted out of life – wherever I might find it. And what I wanted more than anything right now was a hot shower and a cheeseburger.
Jeremy Freed is Sharp’s editor at large.
