The Decision

I haven’t been able to blog because of the lack of internet and the lack of time to sit down and write my thoughts.  So this is a journal that I am keeping and hoping that one day I can transfer all this to a blog of some sort or maybe not and just send it to family and friends.  I am currently at my host family in Ukraine, just 15 minutes outside of Chirniv.  I will talk about my host family a little later.  I just wanted to catch up on the past couple of days.  Even though it has only been 5 days ago I took that plane trip to Washington DC it seems like a lifetime away.

The Decision

The past two weeks were probably the best two weeks I’ve ever had.  I felt positive and there was a glow about me.  I was just happy.  I was in the right spot in my life.  Family life is and will always be great and it seemed to be even better, I knew my friends and I loved them, I left a job that I knew I needed to get out of because if I didn’t I would have gotten sucked in for another couple of years and would have looked backed wondering what happened and if I could get those years back, and I finally found somebody that I genuinely loved and cared about.  It seemed as though my life finally found what it was looking for.  But none of those things in my life would have happened if I didn’t apply to the Peace Corps last summer.   So I must go back and explain why I feel that every aspect in my life wouldn’t have seemed perfect if I hadn’t applied to the Peace Corps.

It was last year in February that my buddy Howard came to San Diego to visit me.  At that time I was working at the same place, had my group of friends, and was always surrounded by my family.  I felt content, comfortable, but at the same time I felt alone.  So my buddy Howard, who I went to college with, was talking to me about traveling and his life and where he went and how much he changed because of the things he did.  And then he asked me ‘What are you doing with your life Merto?’  And I responded ‘Nothing, just living my life.  I have a decent job, my family is here, and so are my friends.  I’m happy where I am.’  But as I was saying these things I knew where Howard was going with this conversation.  He was just telling me what I wanted to hear, or what I needed to hear. 

A couple of months had gone by with no change, but that conversation I had with Howard kept playing in my head.  ‘What are you doing with your life Merto?’  So I decided to make a list of the things I wanted to do with my life.  A sort of bucket list but on a smaller scale.  And at this time I was 29 about to hit 30 so I made myself a dirty 30 list for the top 10 things I wanted to do while I was 30.  So I thought about it over and over and wrote a list of the things. 

10.) Get a dog

9.) Brew my own beer

8.) Get a tattoo

7.) Run a marathon

6.) Continue to do volunteer work (Big Brother program)

5.) Take more pictures

4.) Pay off credit card debt

3.) Skydive

2.) Go on more dates

1.) Find a career

Needless to say I did complete many of the things on that list.  I ran a marathon (not that fast but I ran it), I can now say I’m debt free, I have a dog that my grandma watches, I’ve taken plenty of pictures of all my cousins, Ralphie and I made some beer (not good beer, but we made it), I was still a Big Bro to Sebs, I found a wonderful person by the name of Taha, and I joined the Peace Corps.  I still haven’t gone skydiving or got a tattoo but those were just fillers for my list.  So this list that I created over a year ago was supposed to be my written contract to myself to try to check the things off my list.

During the first half of 2010 I started looking into joining the Peace Corps.  I thought this was going to be the answer to all my problems.  Well not problems, but more of in the career field.  If you know me I hadn’t really followed what I planned to do since graduating college.  I got a degree in Community Studies and a Minor in Education, but since then I’ve had jobs at Target, as a Security Guard, working for my uncle doing admin, working at Choicepoint, working at Enterprise rent-a-car, and then working at my last job ASH.  I didn’t have consistency and I think the reason why is because I couldn’t find it anywhere.  So what better way to get rid of that feeling of wastefulness and go away for two years.  The Peace Corps is ‘The Hardest Job that you’ll Ever Love.’  On the website it stated that to leave for spring of 2011 my application had to be in by July.  It was already April and I told myself that I would complete the application by my birthday.  So my birthday came and the application was completed.  My birthday past and so did the rest of May and yet I still didn’t apply.  The application was filled out I just hadn’t pressed send. 

Subconsciously I felt I was trying to convince not to go.  I felt content with life but yet I wanted a change.  And I came across a quote that inspired me. ‘Stop thinking about the man you want to be and become that man.’  When I read that it hit home.  It made sense.  I’ve always wanted to see what kind of person I could be but I never gave myself the opportunity.  I applied in July, got the interview in August, was nominated for Youth Development in Eastern Europe, finished all my medical/dental forms in October, and finally received the official invitation in January.  It was a long process, especially waiting for my invitation.  But it finally arrived and when it did with that March 20 departure date everything just sunk in.  I couldn’t believe it.  Something that I talked about for so long to so many people about was going to happen.  It was for real. 

And so the past two weeks before leaving on that jet plane to go away for two years I did everything that felt real to me at that time because I knew in a week or so from now none of it was going to be my reality and my present was going to fade away into my past.