On Valentine’s Day, I accepted my next move in life. I committed to serving in the Peace Corps as a secondary English teacher in Zambia.
One of my fears is running away. It scares me to think people might see me as abandoning everything and everyone. Of course, this fear is driven by my own self, my own doubt. It scares me to think my coping mechanism is isolation. Am I running away from my life? In the back of my head this question sticks hard like chewing gum. There are two conflicting feelings within me. One, is the idea of running away and two, the idea that this choice hums in perfect tune with my heart and mind. Becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer falls gracefully in line with my life’s journeys thus far. I can look back and finally understand the time I’ve spent away from family as preparation for this next great adventure. My past serves as a template for why. Now that I’ve seen it, becoming a volunteer, I cannot unsee it. Nothing else makes sense anymore. Not graduate school, not any city, not the loneliness of being on my own at home. At least not for right now. The nagging loams big though. Am I making this decision because of my fears? Because of the solitude in my life? Because I am afraid of taking the concrete next steps towards a career? Because I am still so unsure of who I am? I am, I am, I am. Composed of a subject and verb, centered on myself taking action. Taking action for what, for whom? Me, me, me? The Peace Corps will also be a lonely experience, but it will be different. This would not be about me. It would be a journey of community love. I listened to a TED talk recently about empowering young women. There is self love, romantic love, and community love. Community love has the power to lift you up, support you, and serve as a mentor. Being apart of a community that could use my service, my independent, sensitive and soulful self - giving myself wholly to a place and the people for two years - will demand me to give them all I’ve got. I spent 2018 battling against who I am. Despite my best efforts that year, towards the end I came back to myself and listened to my intuition. The Peace Corps is exactly that, a conscious decision to follow what’s deep within me. Here’s to being a part of something big. 2019 is the year of living large. “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ― Joseph Campbell
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Author's note:Hi, I'm Helen. Welcome to Lifted ~ I write to lift myself up. Archives
June 2021
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