As I write this, I'm listening to R.E.M's Monster, courtesy of a care package my sister sent a month or two ago. It brings me back to the days I would run, on my toes, up the Battery Hill hill at home, rocking out to Crush with Eyeliner as I conquered the 'mountain' after work on a warm, fall day. Oddly enough, I crave the day when I can sprint up a hill (an actual hill) since I've been running on the flattest tarmac on this continent for 9 months now. Although, I think I may have to bring a baboon back home with me and see if it spastically runs out of someone's yard as I round the bend...who wants a pet baboon? Anyone? You can tie it to a fence post in your yard and let it run loose every now and then; they'll eat your weeds...
Lately my thoughts have been on the future...followed by the past and meeting it again in the future (think: warm embraces and food and how glorious those things will be in two years, or 1.5 years now), and lastly the present. What will the next 1.5 years hold? What about when I return to the land of the free and the brave? Some say it's too early for me to toss around those post-Peace Corps thoughts, but I'm realizing that thinking ahead is a typical 'Steph' thing to do, so I'm happy to see that I'm still normal in that respect(phew!).
Initially, these post-Peace Corps thoughts entered my mind during training (so early, I know). I'm so determined to make the most of my time here and enjoy the moment, but I feel like many of my thoughts (when my host family tries to snap me back to reality as I stare up at the (shooting) stars at night) are devoted to the life beyond/after here. And initially, I felt guilty for having these thoughts. I like to think forward and always have...it's what makes me tick. Is it so wrong to know that worlds beyond the one that I'm living in, at that particular moment, exist?
However, I've slowly realized that my thoughts about the future (future love? job? place of residence? hobbies? house/apartment? car?) have reinforced that my journey here can only be attributed to prior journeys and experiences, in which I was inevitably thinking of 'what's next?'.
If my Father hadn't pulled a map out everytime something important happened on the news when I was a child, and if my Mother hadn't let me continue to talk to myself as I taught social studies and geography to my stuffed animals in the basement, and if Susan hadn't been a huge influence on my desire to know more about the things she was learning in school, even though she was a full four years ahead of me, then I would have never had a desire to travel to Russia in high school, or study international affairs in college, or volunteer in the States and here.
My experience here is just that...an experience...much like the other 'experiences' in my life; yet, somehow this one is so incredibly different than any other. I can't help but think how this one experience, in essentially, such a minute fraction of my life (2 years really isn't that long---really), will shape me, my career, my friends, my family, and my children (give that ten years).
So now I'm trying to grasp how to best deal with these overwhelming thoughts of the future and how I can make sure I can make the most of what I can while I'm here. I look back on college (soon it will be 4 years since I graduated) and realize that there are many courses I wish I could have taken, many activities I wished I would have been involved in, and many other things that I wish...I wish...I wish...BUT I've reached an understanding that while I do wish I did this and did that, I am simultaneously content with what I
DID do.
My happiness here is dependent upon how I handled previous experiences, how I've learned to adjust to the 'abnormal' and how I've learned to adapt and be flexible, how I've tried to maintain my integrity, my values, and all those lessons I've learned. Using the past to help in living the present, I think, makes thoughts of the future all the more exciting. I love looking back at how I've changed and remained the same all these years; perhaps that's why I'm always looking ahead...
***
During a recent phone conversation with my Dad, he asked what I wanted for Christmas. First, I'm still trying to adjust to the idea that it's November as I still think it's July because of the heat (although cold season is coming soon, soon---I may even get to wear long-sleeved shirts in the morning!) And Christmas will probably be a emotion-numbing experience, so I think it's best not to think about it for as long as possible...
I asked that he and my Mama send me a teleporting machine, similiar to the little glass cars that the Jetsons would ride around in their space community. Much to my dismay, he said they were on backorder this year. I said, well, perhaps next year then...
I often express such teleporting desires when on the phone with family and friends, not because I want to go home (I really do like it here and want to finish the job that I came here to do), but that I really just want to go home to experience the little moments that are more important that I'd ever imagined they'd be---like tuna fish sandwiches on Sundays after church, running through Maria Barnaby Greenwald Park, backyard BBQs, shopping excursions with Susan, and conversations over a cup of tea with Mom at the kitchen table.
To all my engineering/science friends out there, can you get working on some kind of teleporting device, perhaps within the next year? I'd like to be able to fetch water at the pump, sweep my house, teach class at the school, garden with the women, bike 20 km for vegetables and be home in New Jersey in time for a Sunday lunch. Let me know of your progress soon, please...
