The Beautiful Truth

Our egos take a bow here every day. Everywhere we go, it’s always, “Fine girl!” or “Hey, baby”. Once I even got a demand to show my asshole to someone. I admit that one threw me off. Pretty much because it was really demanding and specific. Anyway, we’re pretty hot shit here. Not through anything that we do, but because we’re white. Foreign. Different.

Anyway, it’s simply good self preservation to remind yourself that you’re not really that special, and you’re really not that attractive (95 degree weather with 105% humidity is no one’s friend). You begin to write it off and soon, you realize that irony of ironies, the place where you get the most compliments is the place you feel least attractive.

I didn’t realize the damage of this habit of Americans until recently. I was with one of my best friends here, a person who is far and away one of my favorite people I’ve ever known. He told me that he feels like he blends in and that people don’t notice him. That he wasn’t anything special. He said this so matter-of-factly, like that was simply the irrefutable truth. He didn’t sound upset about it, like you can’t really be mad about the fact that one toe is longer than another. It was just who he was.

I sat there in disbelief, not even sure where to begin to explain to him the way he really was. How I saw him. How far from the truth he was. That he was one of the most captivating people I’ve ever met and there was this sort of magic about him that I’d never seen in anyone else. He couldn’t blend in if he tried. When I feebly tried to explain this, he chalked it up to not knowing him long enough. I wanted him to know that the more I knew him, the less ordinary he became.

This was the first of many similar conversations I’ve had with people here. Somehow this topic always got lost in the states with movies and school taking up so many of the conversations. I was talking with a group of people about what we didn’t like about ourselves and the things people were pulling out were so strange to me. These things that just simply weren’t true from a preoccupation with the size of your head to never feeling confident in anything that you do. This self loathing that seeped from everyone filled the room, killing the love that we were trying to send their way.

No one can claim that they see themselves the way that others do. So much of our time is spent trying to wonder what these things are that the other people might be saying and imagining the worst. It’s true that the haters are going to hate, but more than likely, people are loving something about you that you missed.

Not caring what others think is something that was always associated with strength, and in many ways this isn’t a bad life philosophy. But in our haste to disregard what others think, you run the risk of never seeing something in you that shines so brightly it blinds other people. This strength, this thing that you miss could be so life-altering, could be the thing you always needed to hear, that refusing to listen could be detrimental to your life.

I was explaining my relationship with my mom to someone earlier today and I was telling him how stressful it was sometimes, because she honestly believes there’s nothing that I can’t do. I used to write it off as it being part of her job, one of those things they teach you in parent school. But as I’ve grown up, she’s been my biggest fan, and it’s gotten more and more real, this unwavering faith she has in me that my life will be extraordinary. I hate to tell her that this isn’t true, that my limitations are so real they drag me down to a point that I can never see myself rising up from them. In this scenario, who has the better deal?

How much would your life change if just for one day, you believed what everyone told you about yourself? (The positive stuff, screw the haters.) What could you accomplish if the things you hold yourself down with, you gave to someone who really sees them 20/20?

Let people see you. More importantly, let them love you. One of the many wonderful teachers that you meet in books once said “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Let yourself be loved. Just for once, let someone that loves you to the moon and back explain why. Ask them what they see. Everyone has this unspeakable beauty in them.

Let it speak.

 

“Butterflies can’t see their wings. They can’t see how beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that.”

Story of my Life

I sometimes feel like the background music of my life is the sigh.

I usually hear it after what could be deemed my catch phrase- “Tell me a story.”

I love a good story. But that demand almost always trips people up. All of a sudden their lives flash before their eyes and they realize the mundane nature of their day to day. More than likely they fend me off with throwing the question back at me, laughing or in more experienced cases, just flat out telling me to fuck off.  

At my core, I’m a writer. What drives me is the story. There’s nothing more interesting to me than getting lost in someone’s mind for a while. But I believe the most interesting story should be your own.

The ego is the most concrete part of the human experience. If you want a foolproof conversation starter, ask someone about themselves. No matter where your intellect lies, talking about yourself is a universal skill. So many people want to know so many things and people want to tell them. There are very few actual ‘private’ people, despite protestations of the opposite.

I’m just a writer chasing my story.

My Peace Corps group is composed of 40 20-somethings who just hang together, drink and shoot the shit. So naturally, the topic or virginity surfaces often. Apparently the fact that I still have mine shocks people. They approach with caution, morbidly curious, but not wanting to offend me when they ask what happened. I told them that the opportunity has presented itself, and it wasn’t religious or safety concerns that I had, but creative concerns. It wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. My life on paper is of infinite concern to me. The walls of my life are clustered with books, tangible evidence of my experiences.

I want to make sure that my story is one worth telling.

This is why I’m having such a hard time struggling with the decision to leave the Peace Corps. It’s the story of my life. No matter whom I choose to tell or how I choose to explain it, when the cocktail party is over, the story finished, I have to live with it. Is quitting something this big a chapter I want to have?

Or do I want to have a chapter entitled: Peace Corps- I finished, motherfuckers. And have that be the mentality that I bring back to the states. Completion that comes with anger issues, PTSD and a mild dose of Stockholm syndrome.

Right now, the thought of going home makes me nervous because I have no idea what I’d do. This was the plan for 2 years. I was supposed to have 2 years to plan the next thing and be a badass. But if I went home, tail between my legs, what would I do? Literally live in my parent’s basement, frantically trying to put my life back together? I have visions of me desperately trying to figure things out:

“I changed a light bulb one time and didn’t get electrocuted. Maybe I should be an electrician! Syracuse has a program and then I can move to Colorado and try my hand there. The 401k may not be the best but maybe I can add plumbing to it in a few years; be sort of a renaissance woman? Yeah, that sounds like a solid plan.”

And just go through this with everything until I fall exhausted into a bottle of drink or a drug induced coma. There’s no guarantee that if I leave the Peace Corps, the chapter after will tell people I got my shit together. And that isn’t the story that anyone wants to tell.

 I want desperately to not live a paper life. I want people to see the life in me, not read about it. But chasing the story is so inlaid in me, I have no idea how to break the mold and just be. Jack Kerouac, one of the greats gave writers the advice, “Be in love with your life, every minute of it.” I think the assumption is the story will find you.

 

I just hope mine doesn’t get lost.

Whatever Souls Are Made Of, Ours Are the Same

My life has always had background music. Any experience I had has had a song that went with it. From that mentality, Salone has had many contenders.

Fun’s song, ‘Some Nights’ was the top for a while, particularly the bridge where the singer is familiarly wondering if this all was worth it (So this is it? I sold my soul for this?) Also by Fun, ‘Carry On’ has made its way onto my wall at my house (When you’re lost and alone and you’re sinking like a stone, carry on).

Times like today where I went junking and made out like a bandit, all I can hear  as I strut away is ‘Thrift Shop’ by Macklemore ( Probably should have washed this, smells like R. Kelly sheets, but shit, it was 99 cents!)

But the most applicable at all times is hands down ‘With A Little Help from My Friends’ by the Beatles.

I know this is a tune I’ve sang before, but my people here are my people for good.

I was recently talking to a good friend from home who I haven’t talked to in a while and they asked me about Salone, and why it was hard for me. I realized that I don’t know how to explain it really to someone who doesn’t live here. I don’t know how to speak American anymore. I didn’t realize I had lost it because I’m around my Americans all the time, but they understand the random Krio that slips into the conversation, the Salone sounds that we use to convey tone and don’t write home when we talk about how sometimes flogging makes sense.

There’s more to someone speaking your language than tonal muttering and guttural sounds. There’s an inherent connection that we all share here that doesn’t seem to translate to friendships in the States.  There’s nothing external about anything here. I mean, we scoped each other out when we first got here and then we all promptly stopped shaving and flossing, and started getting random rashes, losing muscle and smelling. But no one cares. Because we’re all so gross, no one really notices.

Once you strip all the American trappings away, you get down to what actually matters. There are so many times that my best friend and I look at each other, usually when I’m trying to explain why fashion is important or she’s rattling off the stats to every team in the Premier League, and we know that we never would have been friends in the States. That thought both terrifies and mystifies me. How much of your Identity is rooted in external things? Would I have missed out on one of the strongest relationships of my life because I thought sarongs were more important than soccer balls?

This is true with pretty much everything here. You don’t have your things here. You don’t have your clothes, your makeup, or sometimes even your dignity. But without all of that, you’re stripped naked, down to as real as you can be. And when people can love you for that, they’re soul mates.

I’ve always believed in soul mates. To much mocking from my friends, I always believed that there was one perfect person for everyone and your paths would cross when they were meant to. That when you met that person, you would know. I still believe this in the romantic sense. But more strongly now, I believe this with your friends. Your true friends who know you past anyone else.

The Salone 3’s that have been here for a year already have been our lifelines in this country, and I know we want to be the same for Salone 5 when they get here, so…

For future Salone 5- here’s my most important piece of advice I can give you from this point in my service- Love your family. Your Peace Corps family is the only way you’ll survive here. And they’re the greatest people your life will ever have. Make them yours.

 

 

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

-Emily Bronte