At first, that was okay with me because I’d planned to go to grad school for creative writing anyway. I worked my ass off getting paperwork around, writing essays, contacting references and taking the GRE. What I didn’t do was research the acceptance rates of the programs I applied for. Turns out Harvard law school has a higher acceptance rate. Oops. At least Hollins put me on their waitlist, so at least I know my writing must be pretty decent. Still, grad school was not to be. Which meant plan B: wallow in self-pity, I mean, take the classes I need to renew my license.
Meanwhile, as I was awaiting a decision on grad school, I got a job teaching a couple guys who are homeschooled. This turned out to be a great choice as I really enjoy this job and like my students. One of them even took me hunting, and I bagged my first turkey, which I finally got mounted. I also threw myself into my community, taking on responsibilities at my church and re-joining community theater.
At church I became part of the missions board, a member of the lay preaching team, and taught some adult Sunday school. As you know, I just preached a few Sundays ago, and this fall I’ll be teaching another session of comparative religion in one of the Sunday school classes. I’m also working on getting the church basketball league changed to co-ed. Not for any higher reason than that I miss basketball and want to play.
When I tried out for Spamalot, I didn’t know many people in the cast. But over time I became friends with many of them and found myself looking forward to rehearsals. Because of Spamalot I met the leader of Alma Swing Club and started going to swing dance lessons. And during Spammy I met another person whose company I so thoroughly enjoyed that I always looked forward to seeing him and hoped to make him my boyfriend. (Success!) In fact, Spammy was so fun I decided to audition for the next theater production, Second Samuel. Those rehearsals are even more fun!
So when I got the news that I would not be going to grad school in fall of ’13, while it was depressing to experience rejection, I had enough good things going on in my life here, that deciding to stay for a little longer to take my classes wasn’t a difficult choice. For maybe the first time in my life I actually want to be in Gratiot County. Probably not indefinitely, but for now it is a good place for me. In the year since I’ve been back I’ve had a chance to see family I haven’t seen in forever (including a niece I had never met), I’ve written over 60 blog posts, run my first 10K, taken up tennis, learned swing dance (well, the basics), nailed the GRE (for all the good it did me), broadened my social circle, and reacquainted myself with the beauty that is Michigan.
But Turkmenistan will always be a part of me. I miss my cousin and sister and some of my students. I actually sometimes have a craving for manty. I catch myself trying to use Turkmen words on people, asking my students ‘boldymi?’ (are you finished) or ‘sheylemi?’ (really/is that so?). I almost referred to my jump drive as a ‘flashka’ the other day. Sometimes Tstan pops up in my dreams in one form or another. When one of my castmates from Spamalot told me he was thinking of studying Russian in college I got really excited and tried to teach him some words. Maladetz! I am acutely aware when I’m being “that” RPCV who starts statements with “when I was in Turkmenistan…”
One of my fellow RPCVs tagged us T18’s in the following quote on her facebook: “You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and place because you’ll never be this way again.” I responded with, “There is this part of me that was formed by Tstan, and people who weren’t there won’t ever understand it. And part of it is that, yes, I was a different person there, and yet I wasn’t.” I’m not sure if I can articulate what the Peace Corps experience does to you. Certainly it challenges you and grows you and refines you, like a crucible or eroding wind. And that refining and eroding doesn’t stop when you land back on American soil. In many ways it’s just beginning.
As you see life through the RPCV lens, everything is a different shade than it was before. Things that used to matter no longer do and things you didn’t care about are now a big deal. You get bolder. You have more tolerance for people but less tolerance for bullshit. You find yourself sitting in a grad level lit class thinking ‘these people need to get out of their ivory tower and go live.’ You find yourself taking risks you never would have taken before because you learned that life is meant to be an adventure. After all, you survived two years in Turkmenistan, you’ll survive if he says ‘no.’ You come to realize that regardless of all the flaws of your host country, there’s still a little place for it in your heart, and your hope of all hopes is that those who were dearest to you will someday come visit you in America where you can extend to them the same hospitality they extended to you. And you will always notice if there’s a Turkmen carpet in a movie and elbow the person next to you and say excitedly “that’s a Turkmen carpet!” and if you’re lucky they will pretend to be interested.