Easter Eggs

I know by now that there are no right or wrong choices in life; only series of possible pathways, each with their own upshots and outcomes, pros and cons. No black and white, only infinite shades of infinite colors.

I also know by now that it's not healthy to compare your life to other people's Facebook versions of themselves. Through the carefully-manicured filter of social media, it's easy to begin to believe that other people spend 100% of their time opening yoga studios, becoming published authors, training for half-marathons, garnishing elaborate dishes they made from scratch for their loved ones, getting glammed up in order to attend fancy parties, becoming betrothed, getting hitched, and reproducing.

But let's be honest. If you were to look at my Facebook feed recently, sure, you would see me climbing Machu Picchu and befriending alpacas in Peru. And I did do these things! Yay for me! Truly, it was super cool, and I'm happy to let the world think that I live in my hiking boots and totally go hiking, like, all the time and that my life here is nothing but adventures and alpacas and breathtaking vistas...

But what you won't see on Facebook is me eating leftover pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today because it was easier than going grocery shopping. You also wouldn't see me playing a game on my phone for 2 and half hours (it's called Twenty, by the way,  if you need a new time-sucking digital distraction, and I would estimate that it is approximately as addictive as heroin). My Facebook feed won't tell you that I spent an entire day watching old episodes of X-files on Netflix... Okay, fine, an entire weekend...and I also didn't post about having to spend a morning re-entering grades in my Excel spreadsheet after incorrectly saving them.  And you wouldn't find out about me accidentally dying a quarter of my wardrobe light pink through imprudent laundry-related executive decision making.

That's because Facebook, when it's not about bitching or moaning or ranting or raving, is largely about celebrating accomplishments and milestones, and that's fine. It's the highlight reel. And it's a perfectly good way to catch up on important events in the lives of your friends and acquaintances. But it can be a little disconcerting to see everyone else's good news and Hallmark moments all concentrated in one place, peering in from the shadows of your own quotidian life. The contrast tends to be especially stark because, more often than not, you're peering in from your lumpy, crumb-covered couch while wearing pajamas in the afternoon, or from your bumper-to-bumper rainy bus ride home. For these reasons, it is important to remember that social media is more advertisement than documentary.

That said, Easter Sunday on Facebook was a tidal wave of family portraits and precious memories and traditions and tenderness and adorable children all tied up in ribbons and bows and miniature neckties.  Some of my peers are already starting their second round of baby-having, and babies are something I'd actually quite like to have myself, assuming I one day find a partner I think highly enough of to want to create additional human beings in their image. And of course, it was also a reminder that I'm just a smidgen under 3,000 miles away from my family and our usual Easter traditions. Easter eggs have been on my mind.

As you might know, in movies and TV shows, "easter eggs" are inside jokes or little shout-outs or homages to other works in the oeuvre that the creators throw in maybe for their own amusement, maybe for the benefit of devoted fans. Just something to make them smile, if they catch it. They're usually gone in an instant.

I think it is the responsibility of each one of us to find the easter eggs hidden in our own lives - the little surprises and hidden moments that maybe no one else can appreciate except for you, because you're the only one who knows where to look. These are not summits or climaxes of the sort you'd post to Facebook.  They wouldn't even breach the consciousness of others not in the know. They're just the little incidental perks of the path you have chosen. So, in the spirit of Easter, here is a list of the easter eggs from my life recently:

* the opportunity to spend more time together one-on-one with my beloved Auntie than we ever have before
* an Easter Sunday that was perfect for the context (the context being that our flight coming back to Quito from Peru got us back to my apartment at 4 in the morning.) Aunt Jane and I slept late, symbolically ate a hard-boiled egg each, talked to my mom on the phone, and went out for pizza
* learning how to make fast guacamole, and access to avocados whenever I want
* learning how to cut mangos, and access to mangos whenever I want
* getting compliments from native Spanish speakers about my Spanish
* owning a soccer jersey and going nuts along with the real soccer fans when the announcer goes GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL
* having a washer and dryer in my apartment (doesn't get old)
* teaching and really getting to know 14 lovable, well-cared-for, amusing lil' knuckleheads
* the absence of winter and associated unwelcome meteorological events

In conclusion, I guess what I'm saying is this:   Each of us can only travel one pathway at a time.  It's pretty easy to unwittingly become jealous of other people's paths - maybe the ones you've always wanted to take, or that you kind of always thought you'd be on by now, or an unfettered dream unlikely to ever come true for you, but it already has for someone else... but that jealousy is kind of pointless.

You only get one life, but it is singular. I might have been one of about a zillion tourists visiting Machu Picchu, but I was there with MY friends, MY eyes, MY thoughts and feelings, MY sweaty underclothes. Maybe every tourist came home with dozens of pictures of Inca rocks, but I have pictures of the ones that I saw, that I liked. Your history is your own, so own it. Make yourself proud. Follow the path that presents itself to you. But don't regret things that never were, and don't wish yourself into other people's lives, because you'll end up missing out on the easter eggs all around you.