Leap!

Have you ever received a message like this?

It’s a little surreal. It feels quite final. I’ve made the leap.

I’ve made leaps before. Big leaps. Resigning, house-selling, relocating leaps. Blind leaps, for the most part. Great, optimistic, terrifying leaps into a new unknown. Leaps I’ve later questioned. And here I go again.

If you know me at all, you know that I’m not great with decision-making. I have a fridge magnet that says, “I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.” I become paralyzed over the slightest conundrums: which brand of yogurt to buy, which meal to order, which colour to paint my walls, which shower curtain to hang, where to plant my tomatoes, which costume to wear, which song to sing, which lesson to teach… right down to the socks on my feet, I simply cannot make up my mind. I get so worried that I’ll make the “wrong” choice – as if there could be a “wrong” pair of socks to wear on any given day… Deep breaths, Natasha. Just pick one.

Just pick one.

Pick a job. Pick a city. Pick a continent. Eenie-meenie-minie-moe. Choose.

Life in Morocco, or life in Canada? Another year here, or another year there? Life with palm trees, or life with snowbanks? Life as a linguistic outsider, or life as an articulate communicator? Life with vehicular mayhem, or life with a functional urban infrastructure? Life with couscous, or life with bacon? Life with donkeys and parasites, or life with potable water? Life on the doorstep to Europe, or life near the people I love? Life at a job that is made for me, or life at a job with a pension? What will it be? Just pick one.

When I moved to Morocco, I took a one-year leave of absence from my secure, part-time job with a public school board in Ontario. Then I extended my leave for a second year, and then a third. And now my leave’s run out. There are no four-year leaves. Return, or resign. Choose.

I chose “resign.” It took a lot of thinking. It took a lot of math. Soul-searching. Strategizing. Pro-and-conning. Inquiring. Ruminating. Flip-flopping. Flop-flipping.

In the end, it came to two lists: Plan A, and Plan B.

Plan A: return to Morocco. Learn a language. Return to Canada in a year, armed with French qualifications that will enable me to find full-time work pretty much anywhere. In the meantime, teach in a school that called me from across the world to come and share my gifts. Be appreciated. Travel. Thrive.

Plan B: return to Canada. Go back to my familiar life in my familiar town, doing all the safe, familiar things I’ve done for decades. Keep striving, and striving, and striving, to get that full-time, permanent position that has eluded me for the last twelve years, always trying to impress the unimpress-able.

You know it had to be Plan A. Why else would it be called Plan A? The only thing separating me from my risk-laden future was a little bit of nerve. And despite my sock-selection paralysis, I am quite capable of mustering a bit of nerve when necessary.

So, Trillium Lakelands District School Board, I bid you farewell. I will spend eight weeks in France this summer, perfecting the subjunctive and the letter R, eating croissants and bathing in the Mediterranean.

It’s not a very sensible choice. It’s not the easy way. But I want a Plan A life.

Leap!