hello stranger

If you didn’t read my last post, or don’t keep up with me in person, then you might not know that in about a week I am leaving for staging with the US Peace Corps, and shortly thereafter leaving for Armenia.

I worked my last shift as a content writer a few weeks ago and in the meantime, I’ve been visiting my grandparents, getting 100% snowed in Northern Michigan, learning Armenian, and distracting myself from the abyss. Mostly that’s a joke.

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Packin’ Stress

I was more stressed about this before I actually started packing and realized that I probably have it under control. I was able to fit most of the clothes I want in my bags easily, and used packing cubes to smoosh them down.

I’ve got two checked bags, and was able to jam my tent in there, and I’m not so concerned anymore that I’m missing anything important.

I’ve been told that many people in Armenia are very nice dressers, and I will be expected to scale it up a bit. I was a little stressed about this, because none of the jobs I’ve worked before or places I’ve lived have had a more formal culture, and most of my work clothes in the past have been jeans or outdoor gear.

I think I’ve probably over packed on the business casual front. Once I’ve been in country for a while I will post an actually packing list will recommendations for future PCVs.

Tickin’ Off the To-Do List

My to-do list involves a series of very manageable tasks like “clean car”, and “put stuff in boxes”, and some last minute shopping for a few odds and ends (new pens, chapstick, extra American deodorant, I don’t remember the rest, but that’s why I made a list). Also on the list is various lunches with friends, continuing to stress study Armenian, and eating a lot of bacon.

Gettin’ Real

It’s strange to me that something I’ve spent a whole year thinking about and six months actively prepping for only started to feel real a month or so ago, when I started studying the language. Something about the curves of new letters and stumbling through the most basic of conversations makes the reality of leaving more immediate, and my own language incompetency glaringly obvious.

I almost wanted this Peace Corps position to work out too much, you know? So now that it is working out it seems surreal. It’s like there’s a line between my life, and the sort of life or person I wanted to be, and I’m crossing that line just a little, and for some reason those two lives and people are incompatible. I am so lucky, and excited, and very grateful.

Still, there’s all that I’m leaving here. In fourth grade we were introduced to the concept of opportunity cost, and I’m happy with my choice and its implications, but I’m also aware that there are implications.

I love my family so much. My dad took me to over a thousand soccer games growing up, and my mom is one of the most interesting, open-minded, and just best people I’ve ever met. I have three younger siblings, and I love them all, and we have so much fun together. I have funny and open-minded grandparents, who I am going to miss as well. I am so incredibly lucky to have such a supportive (and, like, fun) family, and I am missing out on time with them.

In the time I am gone, my sister will graduate college, and my brother high school. I am going to miss out on birthdays, and time with my family, time with the coolest friends anyone could ask for—I’m talking snowed in together for two days, drive nine hours to visit, completed two shot tours together, live together and still never sick of each other style friends.

I’m leaving another summer kayaking, and my favorite diner, and the Great Lakes.

But I am going to gain so so much—language skills, more classroom experience, new friendships. Still, right now, from Michigan, all of that seems ambiguous and unknown, and occasionally eclipsed by the people I know I am going to miss.

I think it’s okay to acknowledge and talk about that, because it would feel dishonest if I only wrote about how stoked and #blessed I am. Kidding myself into thinking I’m only excited seems detrimental.

One of the things I’ve been doing is working really hard to put myself in a good headspace for all of this, and part of me things that means making myself so oppressively positive that nothing will phrase me once I’m in country, inevitably making a fool of myself.

I sort of ended up deciding that that’s dumb, and if I don’t address all the things I’m feeling now, I’m just going to feel them more later. And I’m publishing this on the interweb (1) because I have no shame and (2) to let you know if you’re feeling the same thing about moving or leaving home you’re very much not alone. And you’re super normal.

I feel this completely imaginary pressure to be really tough, all the time. To be only excited for this, and optimistic, and have these massive goals and sunny attitude towards my service.

And I am excited—but I am also worried, and know I will miss my family. I know I will see my friends kayaking pictures and be impossibly jealous. I know I will cry when I say goodbye to my mom and sister, and my nose will get all stuffy and my eyes all gross and red. I don’t think any amount of emotional prep will make that moment less graceless.

I’ve lived away from home plenty of times, but 27 months isn’t the same as a semester, and a different state isn’t the same thing as a different continent.

So I guess here’s what I need to put to paper:

• I am going to miss things. That’s okay.
• I am going to airport cry. Then I am going to be embarrassed that I am airport crying and cry harder.
• Soon, I will be able to make a really funny map of places I have public cried, including a train in Wales, the floor of Bessey Hall, and in-flight while watching The Good Dinosaur. Whoo! (Maybe this makes me sound like a disaster, but crying is healthy. And be honest, we’ve all sat on the floor and cried on the floor outside our Academic Advisors office.)
• Despite all of this, I am still excited, and grateful, and going to have a really great time most of the time.

Thanks for reading; gold star if you made it this far! I am flying out Sunday the 17^th(St. Patrick’s Day). In the meantime, I’ll be packing for real, hanging out with my super cool family, and eating so much that the jeans I bought a size too big will fit.

Some of my favorite Michigan (home) pictures:

Snowy sunrise, Alden, MI

Esch Road Beach, Fall

Fall at Sleeping Bear

Michigan swimming hole

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Lake Superior and yellow kayak

Sunset over Lake Michigan

Sleeping Bear and wildflowers

My youngest sister, swimming

Bees

Manitou Islands and Sleeping Bear

Lake Superior from the Pictured Rocks Cliffs

Empire Bluffs and stormy weather

Grass River Natural Area, my sister skipping

Tahquamenon Falls, Winter