Tuesday, December 22, 2009

and so the adventure begins...

Ok, I'm finally doing it. I keep telling everyone, "I'm going to start a blog so everyone can know what’s going on while I’m in Paraguay," secretly wondering if I really do want to communicate with everyone through posts, sent out into the internet abyss. Maybe that's just an excuse to myself for being lazy, but either way I decided now is the time to actually buckle down and start it. I guess my reasons for starting my blog now, rather than when I actually leave the country are twofold. First, I want to make sure that everyone who wants to read my blog has the address before I leave and knows how to communicate with me if they want. But second, I had the strange realization a couple days ago that this is the first chapter for me in transitioning my life into the Peace Corps, and I thought that should be documented.

Maybe that should have been a "duh" realization for me, but knowing something and feeling it are two completely different things. I've known for a long time that I've been planning on moving back home to Camarillo for a month, that I'm going to quit my jobs at the end of the year, that I'm moving away from all of my friends, that I will not have easy access to the internet or the phone, but that all hit me fast and hard the other night. I had just come from a graduation party and I dropped my friend off at her house. As I put my car in reverse to make my way back to my now furniture-less and very empty apartment, I realized that things will never be like this again. The days here that somehow felt like they would go on forever are suddenly very numbered, and are flying by faster than I thought was possible. Yes, I will still have a month to spend with my family, say my last goodbyes and somehow pack two years worth of stuff into a couple of suitcases, but I am leaving a place I have come to call home for the past 4 years. I am moving away from most of my friends, I am leaving a job I have grown to love, and as excited as I am to go to Paraguay and start a new adventure, there is a little part of me that is sorry to leave because I will miss it all so much.

With this realization came a sudden rush of tears, and I cried myself back to Seal Beach. Yes, I admit it, I cried. It was only after I found myself in bumper to bumper traffic on the 91 (yes, you can hit bad traffic at midnight) and realized how much my head already hurt from crying, that I stopped crying, and just drove in silence. Over the last four years I have made some very dear friends, many of whom have had a big influence on the person I am today. When I dropped my friend off, I realized that very soon, I won't be able to call her whenever I want and talk for an hour. I won't be able to go to my friends houses and apartments and just hang out. I will very soon no longer be working at FAST and won't be able to just sit in the office and talk and joke with all my coworkers. It's not that I didn't know this was coming, but I hadn't really realized how much I'm going to miss everyone, and hadn't really realized how thankful I am that I have had these friends. It's not just that I'm leaving it all, but I know that it will truly never be like this again. When I come back, all of my friends will be in different places (literally and figuratively), and while I know this happens at every major stage of life, there is a piece of me that wants to believe that life will not continue here without me. It's strange to think that all these changes will happen whether or not I'm there to see them.

As much as I will miss many comforts of modern day America like the internet, my car, running water, Target, and *sigh* Starbucks, it is the people I will miss the most. This is not meant to be a purely sad post, and I'm not writing it to depress you all. I'm writing it because I am thankful for what I have been blessed with and it will be a bittersweet departure. I want you all to know that I love you and will miss you all very much.

To all of my friends I made through Biola, thank you. You and large amounts of coffee are some of the main reasons that I graduated college and got through the year and a half afterwards as a semi-sane person. (I in no way claim to be a completely sane person. After all, I'm the one leaving to go live in a developing country for the next two years.) You have meant so much to me and I am truly blessed to be able to call you friends.

To everyone at FAST, you guys are all crazy, and I love you for it… it’s actually the reason I fit in so well. I can’t believe there were days I got paid to hang out with people that became my friends. I have a feeling I will probably never find a staff quite like us, and I’m definitely miss it.

This first post I dedicate to Erin. It was you who gave me the idea to apply for the Peace Corps in the first place. For all the insanity that happens to me over the next two years, I blame you.