Americaland (Part II): Jason returns to the Emerald City

I’m walking up to the ticket gate at Qwest field for the Sounders season opener, wearing my retro NASL Sounders hat.
Ticket lady, “Nice hat.”
Me, “Thanks.”
Ticket lady, “Repping the 206.”
Me, “Always.”
It felt good to be home.

A word to the wise this will be more of a touchy-feely personal post than normal. Talking about me spending time at my home for the most part wouldn’t be that interesting, but I figure possible future volunteers might be interested in what going home after be out here feels like.

Home
The familiarity and comfort of family and friends is great. Its amazing how 10 months later you can fall into the same rhythm with people, places, food, etc. In one way nothing had changed, it was like slipping right back into things.

But while that feeling of home was there, it wasn’t quite there. I described it to people as that life feeling like vacation, and my Peace Corps life was “real life.” But that’s an oversimplification, and after some more thought I was able to nail it down. I know for me, what I want to do with the rest of my life isn’t going to take me back to the Northwest permanently. I also know the life I had before I left I will never really have again, even if I went back there and started living like I never left. I realized the way I think about home and that life, isn’t homesickness, its nostalgia. That love and longing for something I’ll never really have again. Which is fine, I will still have great times with my old friends, my family will always be amazing, and the Northwest will always be home. What more could I want. I realized I like to live my life on the move and never settling down, its how I thrive. That isn’t stopping anytime soon.

Ups and Downs
Whenever I get the question, “How is Peace Corps?” or “How is Kenya?” I always respond with “You know, not bad, ups and downs.” Which is true. I had another friend who got back from the US at about the time I was leaving and said that she found herself talking about mostly the good things. For whatever reason I didn’t find myself doing the same. I eventually found myself talking more and more about things I don’t like. When I say we have ups and downs I really mean it, but I thought I was in an up before I left. Maybe I just needed to vent, who knows.

It sort of came to a head when I met with someone who was coming to PC Kenya in the summer. After awhile he asked me something along the line of “wow, does it ever get good?” I then went on to explain all the awesome stuff. It kind of shook me out of it, and in the end he was pretty physced about getting out here too. I think being put outside of the experience was a good way to come back to my sort of equilibrium. I’m back to being content, not ecstatic, not miserable, just living life as I know it now.

And now I’m back and starting to expand what I’m doing. But more on that later. In sum, America=Awesome, but not my life anymore. At least not right now.