Once again, I write to you from over the Atlantic.
But this time, I’m headed home.
After many conversations, tears, indecisiveness, and far too
many goodbyes, I’ve decided to ET and head home early from my Peace Corps
service.
For those of you that have had the misfortune of being one
of the people I overanalyze every aspect of my life with, you’ll know how long
I’ve wanted to do Peace Corps. And how hard of a decision it was for me to
leave it.
I have a fear of a life ill-spent. That I’ll get sucked into
a life that I despise. I always thought that was going to be a life of
corporate submissiveness, where I would have to work countless hours making
sure some rich white male could afford his Boca condo. I always thought I would
hate a life like that. I didn’t dream that I could also hate a life in a mud
hut, halfway around the world, doing what everyone else called ‘worthwhile
work’.
Don’t get me wrong, there were parts that I loved; that I
can’t wait to get back to. I loved how easily Sierra Leoneans accepted
strangers. Everywhere you went, everyone wanted to know you. I loved the steady
bass line that resonated from every club until all hours of the night. The
Sierra Leoneans loved to dance, and so do I. They laugh easily and are so
thankful for any help. I served with the loves of my life, whom I’ll miss more
than anything else I ever have.
But the bottom line was this- I didn’t like who I was
becoming.
To the outsider, Peace Corps is this amazingly selfless
thing. Everyone admired me for taking 2 years of my life and living in the
poorest country in the world. They rained praises down, like I was some kind of
saint. What no one knows is what a selfish thing Peace Corps really is. Once
you get to country and realize the full hopelessness that exists, and get over
the defeated attitude, service becomes about you. Self discovery, intellectual
growth and friendships forged.
I read a lot of books, made best friends, fell in love and
slowly realized I didn’t like who I was becoming despite these things. I yelled
a lot at people who didn’t deserve it (and some who really did), chased kids
off my lawn like a crotchety old man, and realized how many times a day I
thought about how much I hated kids. So much hatred and enmity was bubbling
inside me all the time. I had slowly regressed to a point that I couldn’t find
my way back from. The only good thing in my every day was my friends, who had
seen the changes in me too, worried like I was.
The tribe I lived with and I didn’t mesh well, and I worried
what 2 years would do to me. I didn’t want to be a person who came back to the
States a racist, elitist, nationalistic asshole. And I felt like with the job I
was doing, I was fast tracked to that fate.
As a writer and lover of words, I’d have a hard time picking
a favorite quote. But gun to my head, I might have to go with F. Scott and his
quote “I hope you live a life you’re proud of. And if you find you’re not, I
hope you have the courage to start all over again.”
I never knew what he meant by courage until I was faced with
it. Walking away from a ‘should’ goes against human nature and every way I was
raised. You’re ‘supposed’ to finish things you start. You ‘shouldn’t’ give up
when things get hard.
But at what cost?
How would the seesaw of life measure up with a completed
service that comes with a black heart? I want to be proud of my story. And the
only way I know how to do that is to love people. And any thing that gets in
the way of that has to go.
So once again I find myself over the Atlantic, tears in my
eyes because of my friends that are waiting back in Salone, but a peace in my
heart knowing that I made the right choice to head home. Whatever I was
supposed to get from Salone, I did.
I hope to find my way back to Mama Salone one day. And with
a mission that I believe in, one that fits just like your life is supposed to.
But not too soon, because the coffee really sucks there.
"Respect yourself enough to walk away from something that no longer serves you. grows you, or makes you happy."
