Running water is for pansies.

I need to get on an airplane.

Tired of the emotional roller coaster in anticipation of my departure, I would prefer the emotional roller coaster of actually being there. At a moment’s notice I go from anxious to melancholy and back to “Super stoked.” Right now, I’m numb. Having had every possible thought and emotion in regards to the next chapter of my life, it’s time I actually live the next chapter of my life.

I’m sure my new found ambivalence towards spending two years in poverty is a result of the past six months with little in the way of productivity. This is not to discount this period in my life. I have learned immensely about myself, and others. I fell in love; I learned the upside of being born into upper middle class bourgeois society; and I took the first real break in my young life. For the first time, I floundered.  The joy of unemployment, work I once put my nose up at, and people I would have not otherwise met all had new value.  Already my Peace Corps journey has opened my eyes to a bigger world and given me perspective on my own country.  I reflect on this time with frustration and fondness. I wouldn’t trade it, but I am certainly over it.

There has been sufficient negative in the “break” to make me eager to get back to work. To be working in a way that is mentally challenging and more goal oriented than my daily effort to not simply walk out before my shift is over. Work has been arduous and mindless at the same time. I did not know I could work so hard at something I felt could do in my sleep. I rarely felt that I accomplished anything because, well, I didn’t. Taking solace in friends and climbing, I brought up Peace Corps to anyone who would listen as to remind myself why I chose this.

For all my bemoaning, I look over the past six months and a huge grin crawls across my face. I was in every definition of the term, a “Twenty-something,” i.e. A little lost, overly dependent on my parents, partied a little too much, and responsibility was not high on my list. You know what? IT WAS AWESOME! I ask my adult readers to think of the last time a group of friends broke into your house, drug you out of your bed to go do anything, and you got to respond to their request for adventure with “Let me get my pants!”?  If that has happened to you in the last six months, you are very lucky.

So here I am, days before my departure. In these past months, I have wondered if I’m making a horrible mistake, overly romanticized what is going to happen, worried about what happens after, and covered all the intermittent grey area. I’m unsure how to best articulate what I am feeling now, but I never thought zen and apathy could resemble each other until tonight. So again:

 I need to get on an airplane.