An Excerpt

I've been in touch with another volunteer who will be in my training class, trading thoughts on how we are feeling. Here's some of what I said to him:

This Peace Corps business is definitely a complicated personal life decision. I have always, always wanted to do this but until last year it was more in the hypothetical way that everyone who thinks the PC is cool wants to do it. It's really important to me that I have some real life-living under my belt before I settle down. I'm kind of getting ready to think about maybe settling down some day (obviously it's still a ways off), and there are some big things I want to do before that comes, so I decided to get a move on.

I know this will be really challenging but I have done a lot of research into the hardships and challenges that volunteers face during their service, and I feel like the lessons learned from those hardships (patience, flexibility, Spanish) are things I'd like to improve about myself. I studied abroad when I was in high school, and although there wasn't much in the way of culture shock, poverty or language barrier to deal with, there was the sheer physical distance and unfamiliarity of people and place. I experienced homesickness and that feeling of nobody knowing my history, and I came out okay in the end, although the experience has me anxious about living with a host family again.

The internal dialog I have with myself has to do with my fears about what will happen and where I will go in my life when I return. I am not certain what I want to do for my career, but I'd like to go to grad school. After Peace Corps would be a perfect time to do that, but then when I think of the timeline, I'll be 27 when I get home and then would probably take a year to get residency and apply to grad school (28); then two years for school (30) and THEN I'm finished with school and ready for "life." I'll be 30 more or less before I anticipate being ready to think about doing the things "grownups" do (marriage, family, house, career), and I'll be way behind.

And then I think... But wait, isn't all this life, anyway? College, working, Peace Corps, grad school... these things are living, right?

AND I also think... What am I in such a hurry for? 30 is not old. The rat race never made anyone happy. I don't have to live my life one thing at a time in perfect chronological order.

... Life is a series of forks in the road. I worry that I will wake up someday and realize I am not where I wanted to be and have no idea how I ended up where I am. I always worry, at every turning point in my life, "Am I turning the wrong way?" These are fears, but there is a saying about courage not being the absence of fear but the ability to pursue that which scares you. I remind myself of this often.

What's really getting me right now is, of course, the normal anxiety of leaving: finishing my job, moving out of my apartment, dealing with my belongings, packing, saying goodbye... It's stressing me out.

Long story short, I'm scared, but I'm sure. And I'm excited. And I hope it's great.