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I find myself at a roadside that is both nowhere and also exactly the place I need to be. It is daytime, but it is gloomy and the sun is hard to see. I stand between a dying tree, and a large stone, and I share this space with my sister. We are waiting for Godot.
As I watch and reflect on the production of Waiting For Godot, I am reminded of one of my last interactions with my sister, Maddie. She is now 22 years old and reaching the end of a year-and-a-half period of time off college in which she has traveled through India, Nepal, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and the United States. Maddie took that year-and-a-half to find something that would bring her growth, as her 2 years in college had left her with only a few people she called friends, and a deep feeling that she lacked inspiration and passion. Just 2 weeks ago now, we were sitting in a car with our mother and father, driving from a funeral in Baltimore to visit a sick relative in North Carolina. It had been two days past the deadline for Maddie’s next decision. Her year-and-a-half of exploration came with an agreement to make a decision about whether to go back to college and finish her degree, or commit to some other long-term way of life, where she could be more self-sustaining. She chose to continue with and complete her college degree, and this road trip marked the end of a period of several months where she was to decide between the two schools she was accepted to. After at least an hour of weighing the pros and cons, and moving in circles around which school was the better option, Maddie seemed somewhat indifferent to both. My father finally asked her, “So, Maddie, what are you thinking? Where do you want to go to school?” I watched my sister freeze in the back seat, unable to say anything back to my father, and I noticed the way in which we all released heavy sighs. I kept pushing her, “Maddie they’re both great schools, this is about what you want. What do you want, what makes you excited?”