The past few weeks, the Peace Corps has become shockingly real. Frighteningly real, even. But, the same time as I have it in my hands and as I settle in to play the waiting game again, I feel like it's slipping through the cracks.
My medical paperwork was approved a few weeks ago, but how did the Peace Corps tell me? In a letter. That took a week to arrive. After they told me that my medical paperwork had been processed. Thanks, Peace Corps, for giving me a week long panic attack. I'm sure the folks in my life dug it almost as much as I did. On a Monday morning, bright and early, I checked my email before going to work, saw an email from the Peace Corps and opened it, where it told me that a change had been made in my application. So I followed the link, where it told me that my medical paperwork had been processed. Expect word via US Postal Service in 7-10 days. I love the government and their manners of communication. For a week, I felt like I was in Congress! I checked the mail obsessively and tried to ignore the impending doom I felt. I distracted myself. I worked out. I ate. I got sick. No but seriously, I lost my voice for a few days. It was cute.
It was during this week that I decided the Peace Corps needs to change their slogan. "The hardest job I ever loved" doesn't cover the whole process well enough. Even my friends who are currently in service agree to some extent. It's hard. The whole process is hard. I don't regret a moment, and I'm sure that looking back on the whole 2 years, I'll be thankful and happy. But seriously, I think that they need to change the slogan slightly. Just tweak it. Make sure people know what sorts of things are necessary for the process. Something like: "Are you patient? No? Don't bother."
I thought that working with kids under 10 made you patient. Turns out, I had to apply to the Peace Corps to actually understand that word. (Says the girl who spent 15 minutes trying to get a 7 year old to stretch last night instead of talking her ear off. 15 minutes of my life I'm never getting back. Kid, I hate you.)
The thing about this process though, before even shipping me off to a third world, I'm already becoming creepy thankful for what I have here. I walk through the City almost every day and look around, smelling the restaurants and the food carts, drinking local beer and wine and eating local food. Seeing my friends and laughing loudly on corners and in bars at absolutely nothing. I'm happy right now. I'm happy here. It's been a while since I could say that with absolutely no caveat, but I am. I don't even hate my hair or my nails or whatever I usually complain about when life isn't going my way.
I was asked recently, as I spoke to a relative about these great things I have as my life right now, with Peace Corps and everything else, with all these wonderful opportunities and happenings here, why am I still considering leaving. Why walk away from all of this, from everyone?
I actually considered this question. I know, it's a slight shock. After almost a year of stubbornly stomping my mental foot and slamming my internal door on everyone who questioned me before, I'm actually thinking about the question: "Why are you still considering leaving?"
It's not leaving. It's never leaving. My friends and my family, if they're actually part of those definitions, are not going to desert me because I did something different and useful with my life for 2 years (27 months). I'm an adult (almost). I made this decision after a lot of thought, a lot of debate and a lot of proving to my family that it is, indeed, safe. No matter what those congressional naysayers are naysaying. I've wanted to do this for a long time. Why waste the opportunity?
But what opportunities am I wasting by leaving? I have an internship, in the field I may possibly want to stay in. I have a life here. And I'm still walking away from it? It won't be the same when I come back. Nothing will be. I'll have changed and the world here will have changed. Life is not stagnant. Or at least it shouldn't be. I remember what was so hard to come back to after Spain, the stagnant existence of my old friends and my old life. I had changed, I had grown, why hadn't they?
So do I worry? Yes. Of course I worry. I wouldn't be myself if I didn't worry. (I prefer the term "wonder", actually.) I wonder where I'll be. What grad schools I'll still be considering. What my friends will be doing. Where will they be living. But I've accepted that it's natural for this to happen. It's natural to worry and natural to wonder. To think about the future.
I said before here that I think too much. That my understanding of what I do and where I go is over-thought and overwrought with choice and chance. The people (person?) who used to be in my life who thought that thinking is a trait of someone unsure of where they go, who isn't settled in their beliefs or choices, they tried to change me. They (he) tried to get me to think the way he thought and I tried that. I failed. I have to do these things, whether by choice or by design. But they will be done.
I'm terrified, trepidatious and so damn excited.
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