Month 24

Well, here we are. In three days I will have been in Peru for two years. Just a little more than 6 weeks left in service. Peru 21, the replacement group for Peru 17, has landed in Peru and is starting training. This is it guys-- the homestretch.

I have been caught in this weird limbo where I both want to write down everything describing every emotion that runs through me, and at the same time I am seized in paralysis where I can't seem to write a single word of any of it. Like when you trip and fall and there is this moment where you don't know exactly all that is happening and are caught off guard and can't do much about it. It happens so fast, yet so many thoughts flash in that instant that they can't be quantified in normal time.

Does that make sense?

Two years of my life. A life goal almost accomplished. The end of an era.

Simply put, I am overwhelmed.

I am overrun by the past and the present and the future all at once. When you're coming to the end of an experience you can't help but look back at how far you've come; the array of good and bad days that all smash together and create this nostalgic foray that comes out any moment of the day to remind you just how amazing and complicated it has all been and how soon it will end. And the future? Well, to think of life any different than how it has been can be exciting and unsettling in it's own right. Going home, going back to life how it was but at the same time completely different. It makes you wonder if it will all just seem like a dream? All that's left is to try and live in the present, and sometimes the past and the future are pulling so hard that just taking a deep breath and looking around and saying, "this day-- this moment-- is all I have," becomes the most difficult task.

Overwhelmed indeed.

I don't know if many of you know this, but Peace Corps is probably one of the biggest, scariest goals I had set for myself in my entire life. I didn't actually know if it would be made a reality or not someday. Those of you who have known me for a good deal of time know that I can be considered a bit of a "free spirit." I make goals, I accomplish them, but I'm not a "five-year-plan" type of person. I am a "follow-your-heart-and-it-will-all-work-out" type of person. Peace Corps is probably the only thing I've done that could kind of fall under both.

My very first post about Peace Corps, my very first post on this blog, is one about my Peace Corps interview almost three years ago in Oregon; that incredibly exciting and nerve wracking first big step after applying. The very first question the interviewer asked me was: "So, why do you want to join Peace Corps?"

I wrote:

"This is the question I had spent the entire drive to Salem trying to rehearse out loud. It was incredibly difficult to verbalize my answer. How do I explain to someone what I just know to be right? How do I verbalize in a short precise answer all of the events of my past and present that have led me to this moment where this drastic step is not so drastic? .... How do I sum up that when I am older I want to look back and have the Peace Corps as my past?"

That last part, the "when I'm older I want to look back and have Peace Corps as my past" part. I can't seem to get it out of my head. No one really knows what they're getting into when they first join Peace Corps, I don't think. Every country, every region, and every person has such a different experience. It was nothing like I expected it to be, but it was everything I wanted.
And at this moment, I am conflicted on how I feel about making it my "past."

Just like anything in life, change can be scary. Hopefully I will be able to unfreeze my paralysis and write some more about what the end of this wild ride has been like. There are still so many stories to be told, and such little time to tell them.

Sueños

Sometimes I get stressed out hearing the TV in my house. Having a stay-at-home mom for a host-sister means the TV is often on, cued in to whatever telanovela happens to be on. Have you ever watched a telanovela? Have you ever watched three telanovelas in a row? I didn't grow up in a household with a lot of fighting or crying (unless you count me in my teenage years) so to hear nonstop angry diatribes, crying, and melodramatic lovers quarrels spewing out at a decibel just a tad too high for comfort is, well, uncomfortable. My favorite part of watching telanovelas is laughing everytime someone passes out or fake cries. This happens a lot. I think I ruin telanovelas for my host-sister now, because she doesn't watch nearly as many with me anymore. Who wants a crazy person laughing at serious stuff all the time?

Which seems to be the theme of my life here these days--the crazy person who laughs at the wrong times, doesn't laugh when everyone else is laughing, says things that don't make sense, and sometimes cries for seemingly no reason. At least the girls in the telanovelas have a reason to cry. Their supposedly dead husband never really died and shows up at their wedding to their new man, and when they get ready to re-marry their once-thought dead husband, his secret second family shows up. Talk about problems. Why would I cry?

Which is why I hate getting too deeply involved with emotions and feelings in my blog posts outside of blind optimism. Because who wants to hear about the crying and conflicted feelings. But let's get serious--it's not all sunshine and sublime bars, brother. There are days of frustration, loneliness, and confusion.

Don't get me wrong, things are still great. Each day I become more and more comfortable with my host family, my co-workers, teaching English classes, walking down the street in my town, dancing in front of everyone, etc. I can't walk down the street without at least five people yelling my name. And it feels really good to know things are slowly getting better, to know I'm here on the adventure of a lifetime.

But some days just suck. Some days I don't want to be stared at by everyone as I walk down the street or be chased by a group of 10 year old girls. Sometimes it sucks that I'm so far away from home, missing out on all the things happening with family and friends. Sometimes I just want to call a friend and talk, and I can't. And some days I just want to express my feelings and thoughts to the people around me, and whether its language skills or cultural differences, I can't express myself properly. People don't get it. I just continue to be the odd person who sounds funny and says things that don't make sense, is tired when she "hasn't done anything," is sad when no one has died, or is not doing things the way they should be done. 

This week has been a big festival in my town and everyone has been out celebrating. There's a ferris wheel up in my town, food booths, trampolines, carnival games, a haunted house--the whole works. It should be awesome, but it's probably been the most frustrating week I've had in site with miss-communications abound. I just wanted to hide in my room and ignore everybody, but I made myself go out and see all the festivities. Last night I was hanging out in the plaza with one of my new friends (and by "friend" I mean person who I am in proximity with a lot for a youth group) making small talk, taking in the scene of people dressed in their nicest clothes walking around eating their cotton candy, popcorn, and candied apples. Then out of nowhere, completely unprompted, my friend asked me, "Do you have a dream?"

It kind of took me aback a little because not many people have tried to have deeper-than-surface conversations with me, or at least personal deeper-than-surface conversations. And now this guy wants to know what my dream is and what I aspire to do?

I looked at him and kind of laughed as I said, "Well...I guess this is my dream. I'm living it right now!" He looked confused, probably because my dream involves a tiny town he's lived in his whole life and just wants to leave. "My dream has been to travel the world, learn to speak new languages and get to know new people and cultures. And I'm here with you, right now, speaking in Spanish, living and working in this small town in Peru. I've been thinking about this job for four or five years now."

His dream is to become a dancer. But that's beside the point.

As I left the festivities far earlier than anyone else, but still late for me, I couldn't stop thinking about the question of dreams. No one really tells you that even when you're living the dream things are still going to be hard, or that you will still want to "get away" from it all.

I got home and somehow ended up looking through a years worth of photos from my last year living in Boise. That was seriously one awesome year. Being separated from the comforts of home has made me extremely nostalgic. I have had a lot of luck in life with friends and opportunities to travel and live in different places. I've met a lot of amazing people and seen a lot of beautiful places. My heart is still in Idaho. And Oregon. And Spain. And....

The problem with a dream being the world is it gives you more and more people and places to miss. And someday in the next two-years, I'm going to be thinking back on the days I spent in Peru working for the Peace Corps, wondering where the time went...

You just can't win.