When you choose to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, you choose to step in to a new world, a world where the boundaries begin to blur, where the familiar becomes strange, and where your concept of home begins to dissolve long before you step on the plane.
It's hard to describe what I'm going through right now. I know that in two months I'll be half a world away, trying to navigate a new country, new friends, new alphabet, new family, new job. Everything here has an expiration date on it. How many more times will I see those friends? When will I visit my family before I go? How many more days before my things must be packed, my life put in storage? The liminality is overwhelming.
As melancholy as those thoughts are, this liminal state has been one to revel in as well. The idea of doing things "for the last time" electrifies everything. I know that in two months this huge chapter is opening up in my life, something that I am privileged to experience. Two years volunteering, serving a foreign country, giving my time to help see that county improve. Two years learning about new foods, new music, new friends, new people, new ways of living. Two years seeing the world in a way that few other Americans have had the chance to see it, by being immersed in the life of another country.
This is the liminal state I live in right now, one I do not see an end to anytime soon. Transitioning between worlds, trying to retain my American identity while trying to learn as much as I can from my life in Armenia. Seeing what life looks like outside the safe, beautiful Green Mountains I have called home for nine years. And forever living with the new perspective that only an experience like the Peace Corps can bring.
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