It’s been over four months now since I returned to Seattle, and more
than five months since I boarded a plane in Casablanca and left Morocco, my
home for over the last two years, for likely the last time. I've started and restarted this blog post so many times I've lost count, never quite knowing what I was trying to say, as every day my head always seems to be in a different place. It’s been a time of
transition (obviously), a time of great (terrifying) changes, and some of the
hardest adulting I’ve ever had to do. If I joined Peace Corps to soul search and
find myself, that entire process only had to be repeated once I was no longer in
Peace Corps. I now have had to find out who I am without Peace Corps: 2 years
wiser(?)than when I left, nowhere near the same person I was when I was 21 and
debatably running away from who I was at the time, ready to prove I’ve changed,
but back in the exact same place (physically) that I left. There have been
great things that have come of this transition, some not as great, and, of
course, a few bizarre realizations I’ve made. Here they are:
The Good
Morocco is a great country in many ways. It’s probably the most naturally
photogenic place I’ve ever seen. There are wonderful parts of the culture and
religion. The food is unbelievably great (I’ve said more than once since I’ve been
back to Seattle that my stomach is homesick for Morocco). I can understand why
people fall in love with it.
I didn’t fall in love with it.
I have no regrets about having gone into Peace Corps, and I have no
wishes that I would have served anywhere else, but I never fell in love with
Morocco. I struggled to feel like I was never able to fully be who I wanted
there and often felt trapped. Being back in the US has made me unbelievably
grateful for the opportunities we have here. I am more comfortable in my skin
than I have been in over two years, and it’s been nothing short of freeing. In
some ways my transition home has been like a bad breakup that I went a little
too crazy after. Day 1 on US soil I cut all my hair off, I got a new tattoo
within a week of being back to Seattle, and just to round it all off, I got a
piercing also. I changed up my wardrobe and started dating again after not being
able to for 2+ years. It’s been a blast to be able to do whatever I please
without feeling like I’m under a microscope every time I walk out the door of
my apartment. I can go to the store and buy groceries without someone 3 days
later saying they saw me buying carrots and quizzing me to make sure I got the best
price I could for that kilo of vegetables and if I actually, in fact, was capable
of knowing how to properly cook the food I bought. In many ways it’s as if I
finally have privacy about everything that used to be public, and I’m allowed
to be public about everything that used to have to be private. And that’s a
very freeing feeling.
I recently Skyped with a friend who’s still back in Morocco, who told
me I looked completely different in the best way possible, and who said I look
happier than she’s seen me in a long time. And it’s true. Being able to be
myself again has made a world of difference. I love being put into situations
where I’m uncomfortable and out of place. Those are always the moments I learn
the most about myself. But sometimes it’s also nice to just be able to feel
like you don’t have to spend 24/7 being self conscious.
There’s also good beer here. That’s been nice
. I’ve taken full advantage
of that.
The Bad
As I said earlier, while I joined Peace Corps to find myself, sometimes
I feel like now I have to do that process completely over again to now find my
“Post-Peace Corps Self.” I went for a walk today to try to help clear my head a
bit and called up one of my best friends from Peace Corps that I hadn’t talked
to in awhile. Her and I spent a long time discussing how strange readjustment
has been and commiserating over our struggles in it, specifically, we spent
awhile talking about what making friends post-Peace Corps means and how in many
ways it’s been both of our biggest struggles. I’ve always said that a person
can never find friends like Peace Corps friends. We get each other in ways
nobody else ever can. We’ve seen each other at our absolute worst and our
absolute best. There’s no such thing as secrets in a Peace Corps friendships,
with all possible topics on the table at any time, from what our most recent
bowel movement was like to what it is back home we ran away from when we joined
Peace Corps. Friendships in Morocco were deep, intense, trust-based, and most
importantly, supportive.
One of the hardest parts about coming back after Peace Corps to the
same place I left instead of moving somewhere entirely new is the realization
that I have to face the fact that people aren’t right where I left them. My
friends have scattered. I have to see people one at a time now rather than in
large house parties filled with all of my favorite people in one place. People
have moved, people have fallen out of touch, and, in all honesty, in many cases
the most important people I want to see now are my Peace Corps friends who
aren’t from here anyways. Combine that with the fact that I work evenings 5
nights a week and my social life is essentially shot. However the issue comes
when I do have time for a social life and I have those moments where I don’t
know who to call anyways. I told a friend today that my issue isn’t that I
don’t have people to call if I ever need to talk. I have an abundance of great
people in my life who have always told me I can call them whenever. The issue
is that for the most part, all I have are people to call up and talk to. What
I’m lacking are the people to call up to just hang out and be around.
But I think I also have a different definition of friendships when I
meet new people now also. My friend and I were talking today about how we make
friends and they just all feel superficial for the most part. They’re great. We
get beers, we talk about what crazy thing happened at work that day, we share
stories of our latest dating trials and tribulations, but it all feels surface
level. I’m used to Peace Corps friendships. Friendships that involve talking
for hours upon hours about our dreams and goals in life, about why we’re doing
what we’re currently doing. Where we can cry to each other about the pain we
saw someone else fighting through that day and how much we internalized it. I
miss having friends that not only want to, but truly believe they’re working
towards changing the world for the better. Friends that dream big, trust
deeply, and have the utmost faith in each other and what our friendship means.
And compared to the average American friendship, I feel like I’m always just
surviving day to day, rather than truly moving forward in my interactions with
others.
I may not necessarily miss Peace Corps or Morocco specifically, but I
miss my Peace Corps family above anything else, and that’s a really difficult
thing to explain to people who haven’t experienced it. Trying to explain that
balance between not loving Morocco but being defensive as hell if anyone tries
to insult it. Trying to balance wanting to travel more and knowing that if I
keep letting everything in my life be temporary I won’t be invested in
anything. Trying to find a social life that doesn’t require me to board a plane
to go visit people on the other side of the country (or world). Honestly, the
bad about readjustment is just the fact that I can rarely explain what is bad
if I try, because it’s never anything tangible.
The Bizarre
A few days after I returned to Seattle I was driving somewhere (for the
first time in a long, long time, I might add), and was sitting at a stoplight
when the light turned green. Without thinking my hand moved to the horn and,
just before slamming down and honking at the car in front of me less than two
seconds after the light turned green, I stopped myself. I realized that maybe I
should give the driver in front of me a chance to even process the fact that
the light changed and allow them the opportunity to shift into gear and drive.
In Morocco, when cars pull up to a stop light, the car in the very front
is often pulled so far forward they couldn’t see the light when it changed anyways.
Car horns are used more as a courtesy for the drivers further forward in line
than as an actual warning. And to be honest, now that I think about it, I’m not
sure I ever saw a horn actually used as a real warning… Only as a way to let
the furthest car forward know the light turned green and everyone behind said
person was extremely impatient to get a move on. That day at the stop light I
found myself chuckling at the extremely unexpected thing that had carried home
with me from Morocco. My entire time living overseas I remember being extremely
annoyed by how car horns were used, but apparently it had sunk so deeply into
me that I tried to do the same thing without even realizing it. Ultimately, what
this taught me was that sometimes what comes home with you most strongly are
the things you never realized you paid attention to.
Additionally, I have taken to proudly accepting my “technological ineptitude”
since I have returned home. It’s not that I’m actually technologically inept,
merely that so much changed while I was gone that I have little interest in
actually keeping up with it anymore.
One of the most striking things I found when I returned to the “first
world” was how deeply everyone’s faces were buried in their smart phone. This
was a realization I had before I ever left the airplane when I was flying into
Europe after leaving Peace Corps. The moment the flight landed I was standing
waiting for the mass of people to disembark and I stopped to look around. In
that moment I realized that every last person within a 5 row radius of me
already had their cell phone on and was very intently staring at the screen. It
was unnerving to say the least. This isn’t to say I haven’t taken up this same “iPhone
posture” as my dad calls it: slouched over, blank face, staring into my phone.
It’s just to say that I don’t take the time to keep up with every latest fad or
app that comes around. A friend finally sat down and explained Snapchat to me
recently (which was invented after I left, I might add), and the only response
I had was that people send a lot of stupid shit with that app, and after
attempting to be a good millennial and use it for a few days, I gave up, finding
nothing but useless information being fed my direction with it. I’ve been told
I should get instagram, but I’ve yet to feel a draw towards it….
And finally, as I finish this post up, listening to it starting to rain
outside, all I can seem to think is this: For all the times I longed for a
Seattle rain while I was sitting out in the middle of the Sahara, there is very
little I wouldn’t give in order to experience the smell of the desert after the
rainstorm just once more…
