A good place to start is with all that hullabaloo I mentioned taking place in the month of May and during the first part of June. If I ever thought my life was busy during college, I had no idea what was waiting for me in the first few weeks following college. Not that I should complain too much, since it was an entirely voluntary and independently organized trip that I'd planned for myself, anyway. But that didn't mean it wasn't hectic flying halfway around the world a few days after graduating.
The point is, so much happened in my life during the period of time from the beginning of May to the beginning of June, and I was actually growing quite a bit during that month, even though the thought actually just fully occurred to me now.
At the beginning of May, with graduation on the 14th, I had no jobs lined up post-college. Not one. And not for lack of trying, mind you. I had applied to numerous positions, and scoured the internet for what I thought would be a good start to "the rest of my life," but I'd done a lot of it in vain. I was making broad strokes and casting a wide net, all of those picturesque metaphors which ultimately meant I was applying to anything I thought I was qualified for and wouldn't hate doing -- the two bare minimum requirements for many people during a job search when you need to pay the bills, unfortunately. So, I decided I was going to go something I'd been thinking about for a while -- I was going to apply for the Peace Corps.
What an excellent opportunity! It would teach me so much, my French would expand, I would go days without internet, I'd touch the lives of many, it'd look great on my resume when I came back to the States...There were so many reasons to try. I just had to give it a shot. Do my best -- that's what my mom always told me. So I applied. I got references to vouch for me and I answered their questions and I pressed submit, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best. I submitted my application sometime in late April, and shortly thereafter, I received the most exciting email I think I've ever received, saying I was chosen for an interview via Skype and I needed to choose a time frame to complete it. Holy crap.
I chose a date -- May 11, because I already had another interview scheduled for that day, an in-person one for a job at a law office in Wichita. I figured if I did them both on the same day, that as nerve-wracking as it'd be, I'd only have to dress nicely once and I could take off only one day of work to accomplish it. After choosing a date, I began the long wait for the day to arrive.
When the day came, I was in an excellent mood and I really felt like I could take on the world. I had just finished my last day of college the day before, I would be graduating in three more days, and three days following that, I was going to be hopping on a plane and returning to the country I love. I was beyond ecstatic -- my skin was practically buzzing with a mixture of excitement and exhaustion that whole week.
I went to my in-person interview in the morning, and I walked out of there feeling alright about it, like I probably got the job, but I wasn't really sure. (Oh, I should also mention at this point that I did have one other job in my back pocket if I wanted it -- although it would pay me exactly half of what this law office job would.) So I knew I had a few options open to me at this point, three days before graduation.
But after I finished my hour-long Skype interview later that day, I knew I'd nailed it. I knew I had this one in the bag, I just felt it. I had gone to Subway to grab some lunch, gone home and eaten it, put sticky notes outside all my doors saying to please be quiet and not knock for the next hour, fixed my hair, and sat down in front of my webcam. Let's do this.
The guy who interviewed me was beyond nice, and he was a returning Senegal volunteer as well. He was calling from DC at the Peace Corps Headquarters and he was stationed in a small cubicle with a Peace Corps backdrop behind him. As I spoke my answers slowly to him, he typed on his computer to take notes. I felt I was well-prepared for whatever they asked me, because I had read through not only all of the information the Peace Corps had sent me, but I'd Google researched a lot of things, too. There was not a question he asked me that I didn't have a good answer for. I was acing this interview, and I knew it. After an hour of Q&A and luckily no unanticipated technical difficulties, it was over. I informed him I'd be out of the country for a couple weeks soon and that if he wished to contact me, the best way to do so would be by email. I thanked him once again and that was that. I'd done the best I could, and now I would wait.
But between May 11 and July 5, a lot of stuff happened.
For instance, on May 13, the day before graduation, I was offered -- and I accepted -- the position at the law office. Therefore, I respectfully declined the position at the other job that would pay me half. Then I got on a plane and traveled 34 hours to the other side of the world. Then I spent two of the best weeks of my life in France and sobbed when I had to leave. Then I came home and had to move all of my belongings the next day. Then I had to find an apartment to move into one month later. Then I had to find new belongings to furnish this apartment with. Then I started my new job and had to go to work and focus on nothing else for eight hours per day. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... And if you don't think all of these things happening within the first month after graduating from college were enough to make my heart, mind, body, and soul stretch and grow and change and morph into newer, better, stronger versions of themselves... Then you have clearly never experienced something quite like my ungraceful stumble toward responsibility.
So. This was adulthood. I was beginning to settle in nicely to the idea, although the idea of "settling" into anything somewhat gives me hives (but that's another blog entirely). I had begun thinking of the future a bit, and what I wanted to do with myself in the time that would soon follow the present moment. I didn't feel like I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted that moment to look like, than when I had still been a student a month and a half ago. Walking across that stage hadn't suddenly imparted as much wisdom into me as I had hoped it would.
I had a few ideas though, of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. Nothing too concrete, because as I said earlier, settling scares the living daylights out of me, and I don't want to get ahead of myself here. At the time, I had considered applying for the TAPIF to teach English in France for seven months. That seems like an absolute no-brainer to me. I also seriously contemplated applying with INTERPOL and working in their Headquarters in Lyon. Again, a serious no-brainer for the International Business graduate and Francophile. And everyday, I still very much feel compelled to get on a plane to Boston and never come back. All of these right brain ideas were out there swirling around in my head, and yet, in reality, my left brain knew I had to keep my butt right here in Wichita and earn a living first, if I ever wanted to have a chance to make any of those dreams a reality. Meanwhile, I was still waiting to hear back from the Peace Corps, which still had until September 1st (Hogwarts Express day) to tell me a definitive answer about my fate.
And then the day came. And past. And I had no idea because the email went into my stupid junk folder.
Last Tuesday, on the day after the Fourth of July, I was lying in my bed right before I fell asleep around ten o'clock, and for whatever reason, the mood struck me that I should check my junk folder. Don't ask me why. I opened it and I was thumbing through it, when I saw the name of my interviewer towards the top. He had sent me an email that very day! My heart started racing. I mentally prepared myself. And I opened it.
But it didn't make any sense. He was talking about traveling and how he wondered if I was still abroad, and he said he was prepared to extend my response time if necessary. What? I was confused. So I went back to my junk folder and that's when it all made sense. He had sent me an official invitation to Senegal one week earlier. And the rule with the Peace Corps, as he had told me in my interview, was that I had three days to respond. Crap. Crap. Crap!!!
I reread his second email. Now it made sense. But I had to respond to him ASAP because I didn't want to keep him waiting. In order to respond, I first had to figure out what I was going to say, and then how I was going to say it. I pressed reply, and I took my time.
The truth is, I already knew long before this moment that I wasn't going to go to Senegal. If I'm really being honest with myself, I knew my heart had fallen out of love with the idea while I was in France. I can't really explain why, much beyond the fact that I simply remembered exactly how much I loved France while I was there. I think, looking back, I may have just wanted to go. Anywhere. I've always felt compelled to go elsewhere and help people. In fact, those were my two main motivations and objectives in my job search to begin with. If I can speak French while doing these two things that my heart so wants to do, then I will enjoy the journey all that much more.
So, I can see why joining the Peace Corps and helping female entrepreneurs in Senegal was so appealing to me. On paper, it makes perfect sense. But when real life happens between the moment when my interest is piqued and when the plane leaves the tarmac, there is more than enough room for a change of heart to occur. Especially when you've got such a fickle heart as mine, which so easily falls in and out of love.
In my response, I told my interviewer that I simply did not feel like this was the right thing for me to do anymore. I explained how things had changed since May, and I told him I felt that it would be extremely unfair to myself, the Peace Corps, and the people of Senegal whose lives I would touch, if I followed through with a twenty-seven month commitment to a cause which I now only felt lukewarm about at best. I would not have been able to sleep at night knowing there might well have been other volunteer candidates whose hearts would've been much more invested in their work than mine.
I'm not gonna lie, it was heartbreaking to write that response. I laid in my bed, in the dark, and typed it out on my phone, and cried because I felt bad. But then I took a deep breath and I pressed send. I just couldn't imagine myself getting on a plane out of Wichita to Senegal this February. Two months ago, that seemed like the right thing to do. I had fewer people and less meaningful things to leave behind. But we don't get to control the path life jerks us down sometimes, and in moments like these, I think it's nice to believe we do have somewhat of a choice. Sure, I didn't choose my heart remembering all of the things it treasures about France when I went back. To be honest, I didn't really plan a lot of things that happened during that trip, but I'm glad they did. I didn't plan to have so few career aspects after graduation either, but here I am, still in Wichita, and at least I'm well-paid. So feeling like I got to decide of my own free will that I would not be going to Senegal alone for more than two years -- while that seemed perfect for the headstrong, independent, strong-willed Alyssa two months ago -- really mattered to me now, and moreover, choosing not to go just felt right.
Every decision we make has its reasons, and a lot of the time, we have very personal justifications for our actions. Nobody owes an explanation to anyone else in this world, but I do think it is very important that we can at least look in the mirror and honestly answer to the one person who matters most in our lives: ourselves. If I had accepted the Peace Corps invitation, I'd be headed for great things. But I'd feel like I made the wrong choice. And that matters much more, because it's not something I'm willing to live with.
