I only have three months left of service and I’m beginning to realize that means I have to say goodbye. I’m beginning to mentally prepare myself to leave.
I have a little over three months left of Peace Corps service and I’m beginning to mentally prepare myself to leave. Since my arrival in Georgia, I welcomed this new country as my home. I knew that I was going to stay for a couple of years, so I mentally got used to living here quickly. When we decided to extend, it was about nine months before we were originally set to leave. Therefore, as everyone else in my cohort was mentally preparing to leave around the Spring of 2018, Justin and I continued as normal.
As I am thinking of returning to the United States, I started thinking of the meaning of home. When people leave their homes, they expect things to be the same when they return. However, I’ve been gone from the U.S. for three years. I haven’t even lived in my so-called hometown for longer than that- about seven years. When I return to the U.S., my heart needs my home to be the same. But my head is nervously calculating how much it actually changed.
Despite the changes in my small world, such as friends getting married or pregnant, there are changes on a national scale. When I left the United States, Obama was still president. When I return, Trump will be more than halfway done with his current term. Since then, national and global movements started that have changed the national discourse on multiple fonts. The Women’s March started while I was gone. The Time’s Up and the #MeToo movement also started when I was gone. Colin Kaepernick took his first knee months after we arrived in Georgia. Conversations regarding sexual violence, sexism, racism, and gun violence are now occupying more pages in newspapers.
America is no longer the same. Some could make the argument it is for the worst and some could make the argument for the better. I’m going to leave my opinions out of it for this blog post. The whole point for me to write this down is to highlight how different America is now than when I left it three years ago. When I left my parents’ house at 5 something in the morning in April 2016, I honestly did not anticipate this much change in this amount of time. Because of all these nations, I am wondering how much reculture shock am I going to experience. I know that I’m not the first Peace Corps Volunteer to think this because here is an article about a Returned Peace Corps detailing his thoughts returning home.
Things in Georgia also dramatically changed while I’ve been here. My town for instance now has multiple fast food chains! For two years, I needed to go to the capital if I wanted to get my hands on a real hamburger (that isn’t McDonald’s). But now, a mom-and-pop shop, ironically called White Castle Burger, has opened in my area! One of my Georgian friends was engaged when I met her. Now, she is married and has two daughters! And no, she did not have twins. One amazing change that happened in Georgia on a national level has also been the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces. For instance, when I would go out to a restaurant, my clothes reeked of cigarettes when I came home. Now, it is illegal to smoke in restaurants. My clothes and lungs couldn’t be any happier.
Leaving home does a funny thing to you. Everyone around you changes little by little, so they don’t notice their own changes. I change little by little while I’m over here, but I don’t notice it. I know that I have changed gradually, but could I pinpoint the exact moments, no, I cannot. Then both our worlds will collide when I return and I have to make sense of it and analyze how my personal puzzle pieces fit into everyone’s lives.
I’ve heard multiple Peace Corps Volunteers tell me that when they returned home, that they felt out of place. Home is supposed to feel comforting and fits right into place. I’ve been told that this might not be the case. Before I departed for service, I asked a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in South America how long it took her for home to feel like home again. Her response: THREE YEARS. She said that the first six months were the most difficult and then she gradually started getting used to it. But the first three years, she felt a tug or a pull towards her country of service.
I have a sense that I will feel this way about Georgia. I extended because this place is already occupying a permanent place in my heart. Now that I’m here for the third year, the roots are even deeper. To help with my readjustment, I’m beginning to look forward to what I have in the United States. In the next several months, Justin and I will begin a new chapter of our lives. Peace Corps will become something that we did, rather something that we are.
My friends back home have been also patiently awaiting my return. One of my oldest friends, Nikki, who I basically consider family at this point, got engaged while I was gone (read a related blog post here). The day after I return to the U.S., we are going bridesmaids dress shopping. Nikki patiently waited until I got back so I can shop with the rest of the crew. I also happened to convince my baby sister (well, she is actually almost 24 years old) to take some time off work to help me set up my new home by unpacking some boxes and buying new furniture.
Therefore, I am excited for the next chapter of my life to begin. These past three years in Georgia have been such an amazing chapter. It feels bittersweet to close this chapter of my life, but it is coming to a close whether I am prepared or not.