Finding Oneself Through Service

As my newsfeed on FB begins to fill with my friends beginning their long trek across the US from their homes to Black Rock City, I'm reminded of a major life event I haven't undertaken: Burning Man. I've been to regional events and parties. I've volunteered and done ranging shifts. I've found some of my closest friends, yet I've never taken that step. I've never gone to the desert this last week in August to dance, experience art, and just find myself lost in the experience of BM.

Two years ago this week, I went to Utah the week before BM started. I got on a plane with hopes of counseling young minds in the Utah desert at a survival camp for at-risk youth. That dream didn't quite work out for me, but it lead me back home and back to my family and friends. Of course, a year later I applied to the Peace Corps, and now, here I am...in China. My group of trainees swear in today. We commit the next two years of our lives to service to our country and volunteering in our individually placed communities. I look back on the last few years and I am reminded that there are any number of ways to find oneself, to challenge oneself, and to commit oneself to the service of others.

I began my journey attempting to find a place I fit in this world at birth. I've never felt a sense of normalcy or "humanness," in my life. I've always felt like there was a chip missing or that I was somehow different from others. I've felt compelled to go just a little bit further and just a little bit farther. I love adrenaline and extreme sports, and I seek out-of-the-ordinary experiences to fill my life. When I was very little, I tried to fit in, to find that chip that so many other people have, and to find my "place," among the popular girls and the people wanting to get married or settle down. Five years ago, when I first went back to school, I was with a wonderful man who ended up leaving me, accusing me of needing "a big life," by this time, though, I knew something implicitly, "yeah, well, I only get one! I better make it count!" 

So here I am, five years later, no longer stumbling around looking for my place. I'm making it. I'm creating my own future. It doesn't look exactly like what I thought it would and it definitely doesn't look like most everyone else's. I made a different life for myself. I forged a different path. I am dedicating the next two years of my life to serving my country, the country I find myself in, and my students. I joined the Peace Corps because I wanted to give of myself. I wanted to experience a life that was dedicated to being a better person and never giving up on that dream. I made it happen. That's why I have so little sympathy for those who complain about their situations. Do something about it. This world is big and experiences are unlimited. The only limits you truly have are the ones you place on yourself.

I've found my place through service. What will you find when you stop making excuses?

Anthropology may lead me to the Peace Corps

My entire life, my parents have told me I can do anything. At around six years old I noticed that all songs on the radio were about love of another person. I asked my mom why. She said that the love of another person was most people's idea of their life's goal. I looked at her disgusted and said that there should be songs about other things....oh how naive and sweet I was. As I grew into adolescence and then early adulthood, I was somewhat boy crazy. I read over some of my poetry from my teen years recently and had to laugh. It is very angst ridden and totally filled with all the unrequited love I could fit into those years. In my twenties, I had a string of very long, very unsuited relationships. It seems that lasted all the way up to my current age, 32, when I suddenly realized: I don't want to do this anymore. Who cares about love of another person? I want to DO something with my life! I want to travel and change the world!

Don't get me wrong. I've always had big outside goals, but the prospect of having a partner who would help me and pick me up when I fell and encourage me, that was just icing on the cake, and I searched for it, as if my dreams were secondary, as if they would come if only I found this great love. I give a big thumbs-down to old-school Disney movies and, consequently, my grandpa, of whom this blog post is eventually going to be revealed as the inspiration. I have distinct memories of my father saying to me at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, twenty, twenty two, and twenty five, "I wish you would stop focusing on relationships with guys and start focusing on the things that matter for you, like your goals." I would laugh and say, "I'm still focusing on my goals, dad." He would look at me slightly disgusted (this must be genetic) and I would feel like my dad, "just didn't get it."

Wasn't love the greatest goal?

It turns out, no, it is not, at least not for me. I had a boyfriend in my late twenties who, when he broke up with me, said, "you want this big life. You want to travel and make differences. I just want to get married and have kids." I was heartbroken. I wanted to get married and have kids! But he was right. The part about the traditional lifestyle and not traveling all over the world or changing small parts of it, it simply didn't appeal to me in the least. I kept modifying my wants and needs, still thinking that the right relationship would give me the stability and focus I needed to succeed in all the rest of my life. It's funny, though, that when one of my best friends said, "you should come work for me," because of my intense work ethic and ability to get things done, that my immediate response has usually been, "umm...maybe YOU should work for ME!" Because I couldn't imagine working at my friend's small business for one second. My dreams would have to be put on hold if I did that, and I simply didn't have time for that.

So now I'm questioning it all. Even love. And yesterday, when I was searching for a Peace Corps document in my inbox, I came across an email exchange I had with my grandfather seven years ago where he asks me why I won't just get married already. And I lose my flipping mind. I tell him that I love him, but I think he underestimates me, that I'm smart, and just because I'm female doesn't mean I can't accomplish something outside of getting married. I tell him that I may study anthropology in school and that may lead me to the Peace Corps (a revelation I forgot all about even though I DID end up studying anthropology and it DID lead me to the Peace Corps), and then I tell him, as a granddaughter who loves her grandfather, that I think he should be proud of me no matter what. I believe I was inspired to do this because when my father and I were cleaning out and packing my grandfather's house a few years earlier and my grandpa said something similar when I expressed my desire to be a writer, my dad, Mr. Passive who never ever talked back to my grandfather said sharply, "don't you dare tell my daughter what she can't do! Somebody has to! It might as well be her!" And you know what? My grandpa backed down. Both when my dad said that and when I called him out. I learned then that expressing one's feelings doesn't have to be dramatic or loud. It can simply be stated as in, "I feel like I would like my grandfather to be proud of me, even if I choose a different path than the norm," and it will be met with a far more mature response than if one were to scream, cry, or get offended and shut down completely.

My grandpa passed away a few years ago. It was rough, yet in 2014 I graduated from the University of Maryland with my Bachelors of Arts in Anthropology and in 2015, I was given an invitation to join the United States Peace Corps with a departure date in 2016. I'm just sorry my grandpa wasn't here to see it.