Jan 16th , half way through the first month of
the last years in Peace Corps.
I feel like time stamping everything. They’ve
started to feel more and more precious, these moments. In an attempt to keep
sane I still spend way too much time watching “tv”, sleeping, being in my jams,
being alone, and not speaking Spanish. I knew this month would be a lull in
that which I call my job here. It has also given me the time to see the
velocity of life on the downhill of this journey. I can’t slow it down,
everyday, it’s like someone cranks the speed dial, just nudges it, so that none
of us hear the click. But sure as anything it ticks.
My family is both more important and more annoying. My time
alone is both more necessary and more of a cop out. My progress on my degree is
both accomplished and disheartening.
I always knew I wouldn’t be here forever but now the light,
as they say, at the end of this dark tunnel is in sight. It shines the future
and predicts the oncoming change. When I look at my feet I keep pace, but when
I look up again, I’ve gone leaps and bounds forward, unaccounted for. How am I
supposed to be in the moment when I have to plan the future and reflect on
paper my entire experience? There is no next year, there is no “next time” or
any “I still have a long time, no se precupe”.
Until school starts these themes are blinding and when it
does start I’ll be too busy looking at my feet, calculating my remaining steps
and before I know it that light will have found its way to me, with panic and
calmness it will shine in everything around me.
We return, for these final months, to the undulating tides
of emotion that plague the nature of change and uncertainty, much like the
beginning; holding on to the past, excited for the future and never quite ready
for goodbye.
