Back Home

Well, I’ve been home now a total of 6 weeks. That’s the longest I’ve been away from my site since I first got there, and it’s starting to finally sink in that I’m not going back. I mean, I knew I wasn’t going back. I was incredibly excited about going home, seeing friends and family, living the good life again. And that was all a great distraction while it still felt like just a visit. But it’s real. I’m not going back, and it’s hard to admit.

Leaving Ukraine was impossibly hard, emotionally and physically. There was all the stuff I had to do administratively to finish my Peace Corps service, involving multiple trips to Kiev; an awesome 16 hour roundtrip goodbye visit to a friend who’s boldly extending her service for another year who lives in the middle of nowhere; a disastrous bike ride with my sitemate over 115 miles to the Azov Sea to celebrate a friend’s birthday; the first surprise party anybody has ever thrown me with incredibly dear friends, Ukrainian and American alike; getting a new site ready for their first volunteer and their first Peace Corps summer camp (they don’t know what’s about to hit ‘em); and moving out. Ohhhh, moving out of my little Soviet apartment. It never fails. Every time I move it’s like I’ve dug a nest out of quicksand. Something about every living situation just refuses to let me go without a fight. Thankfully I had Katelyn with me to pull me through it and make it as fun as it could be. And it was all so sad.

Ukraine really became home. The people I came to know became family. The lifestyle, as frustrating and difficult as it was, became habit. The work finally, finally, became rewarding and lucrative. Though I knew it was time and I needed to go home, I didn’t choose to go home. Peace Corps chose by signing me up for a 27 month contract and not a day more. The goodbyes in Ukraine were so much more difficult than in America. My friends and I would joke that it was like I was dying. None of them were leaving. They each still have at least 6 more months of what I love left. By leaving Ukraine I left their world. And it really felt like I was dying. I guess I always knew I was coming back to America; Ukraine is not so certain.

Since I’ve been home it’s been a whirlwind of seeing friends and family, eating all the foods I’ve missed, and doing all the things I couldn’t while I was in Ukraine. I’ve slowly adjusted to being back in America, but the transition has been harder than I expected. In order to really survive in Ukraine I had to sell myself out to the culture and lifestyle.

I never realized how different that was from my life in America and how much I changed. The changes weren’t huge but very subtle, and continue to catch me off guard. For example, I never thought I would look at my American lifestyle as being luxurious. And in comparison to others in America, it’s very standard, not poor of course, but hardly luxurious. But the fact that my family has a dishwasher that they regularly use puts them somewhere near the crème de la crème of Ukrainian society. Living in Ukraine for 2 years got me used to not having a dishwasher. The complete absence of a dishwasher leveled the playing field for other things to rise to the top as luxurious. So at home, the things I took for granted before seem over the top now.

There’ve been other things about being home that have surprised me in similar ways, but slowly I’m getting more used to being American again. I’m getting comfortable driving again and my head has finally stopped jerking around when I hear someone speaking English in the background.

I can’t get too used to it though. In a few weeks I will head off again, this time to Italy. I’ve been accepted to Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Thanks to my experience in Peace Corps I was able to get into my dream program for International Relations. They admitted me to their Bologna program so I will spend my first year in Bologna and my second in D.C. After that we’ll see where I end up. I’d like to work for an international development agency and manage projects and funds, particularly in Eurasia and Russia. So the mission continues. Never thought it’d take me this far.