Tickin' Time

90 days left in Vietnam.

There are two ways to look at this:

1. Wow! I’ve been here for 214 days! 70% through! Way to go, Mad! 4th Quarter! Rounding into home plate! Last mile--running on adrenaline! You go girl!

OR

2. 90 days is a long time. Ask Lindsey Lohan.

I got halfway through writing the sentence “You know, I’ve never been a person to dwell on time” before I guffawed and quickly deleted that lie.

I’ve always been a person to dwell on time. I have minute-by-minute schedules for my days off. Hell, I pencil in “relaxing.” For me, the present has always seemed the perfect time to plan the future.

In my defense, it was my father who called me last week and told me we were within 100 days. You know what they say about apples and trees and gravity...

Despite some serious issues with over-time-management, organization, and, dare I say, control, I’ve had to adjust (ever so slightly) since I’ve been in Viet Nam. The truth is that people just don’t plan things ahead here. Last weekend I missed a teacher’s wedding because she didn’t invite me until 2 weeks before, and I already had plans. She hadn’t forgotten to invite me; she just hadn’t set the date earlier. I know American girls who have a date, dress, and selected china at Williams and Sonoma before they even have a ring. (Or boyfriend....)

Not planning ahead is quite literally a foreign concept to me; it baffles me just as much as my to-do lists baffle my friend Huyen. But quite frankly, it’s MY anal-retentive way of doing things that doesn’t work here.

I’ve never seen my students write down their homework assignments. I’ve never seen a cookbook in someone’s kitchen. I’ve never seen anyone with ink on the back of their hand.

I’ve never even seen anyone with a shopping list at the market. Me? I bring a post-it note with the word “eggs” written on it.

I’m not saying the people in Vietnam are wrong for their lack of scheduling. Quite the contrary: I’m mutually bewildered and impressed by their spontaneity and laid-back temperament. How do they do it? While it sometimes drives me crazy, it really does work for them, and things somehow always get done. Furthermore, the reason it makes me insane is because I was conditioned from an early age to schedule tightly and efficiently in order to get the most out of my time on Earth because someday I will DIE, and do you want to be remembered as a “doer” or a “watcher,” Maddie?!?!

But am I really so conditioned to be organized and efficient that I don’t think I can trust my mind--a member of Phi Beta Kappa-- to remember one solitary thing at the market? Do I seriously require 24/7 post-it back up? When you think about it, that’s kind of messed up.

Maybe the Vietnamese are onto something that the working drones in America have overlooked. Perhaps if we had a little more trust that things would naturally fall into place, then they would.

I’m supposed to be learning and growing here in Vietnam, right? Well, if there’s one thing I can really afford to learn it’s to live more in the moment... to take things as they come...to stop trying to take the proverbial bull by his proverbial horns. I have honestly never been able to sit still, and while my frenetic motion has moved me in some very positive directions, it has also always kept me from being completely satisfied with the present. And that’s no way to live.

Maybe I should try an experiment: I will spend the next 3 months NOT looking for job, and if one just magically appears I promise to never write another 5-10 year plan....

....

Ok. That’s just stupid. But perhaps I can at least take the calendar off my wall and try to relax and let go during my last 3 months here.

In all seriousness, I know better than most that it’s so easy to wish you were wherever you’re not. But at some point--like after 214 days--its probably time to get over that.