I've been home for about a month and a half. I say home, and I really do mean home. Evidently it's suggested that people tell a former international volunteer "welcome back" instead of "welcome home," in case their definition of home has changed since their volunteer year. I really do feel like this is home because this is where I'm from, where I started before I went down to Ecuador. If I hadn't been home first, I wouldn't have been able to spend an entire year away from it, learning everything that it was through the people I lived with and my neighbors in the community. Their voices still ring in my ear and my heart.
I've been seeing an inordinate amount of friends and making new ones up here in Boston. I've spent time with my family and reconnected with them in a new way. I've been three weeks into a graduate school education that has been demanding, challenging, but exactly what I'm called to do. My job is a wonderful way to live out the values I learned in Ecuador by bringing first year students to weekly and community service. All in all I've been riding pretty high.
Yes, I do have my low points. I've been realizing just how different I am after the year in that I feel awkward in social situations of people from the United States. Sometimes I just don't know what to say or how to act. I feel like people look at me differently or think that I'm a little big unhinged after I tell them that I was down for a year in Ecuador, which is usually immediately followed by a short question and answer and then a small silence. I appreciate these questions, but I realize the difficulty I put on other people by telling them that I was out of this country for a year to live in a developing nation. I wouldn't know what else to ask, either.
It's been an up and down experience so far. I have the support of my wonderful girlfriend, Christine, who's been willing to listen to me and encourage me to be more open about everything. There's a great contingent of former volunteers here that has shown me that one can live a great life after Ecuador and meld those experiences to one's own life. The School of Theology and Ministry is giving me many lenses in which to see my experience, and opportunities to live that out through masses and choirs and other things. I suppose, as I write in this relic of the past year, looking back on everything, and looking at where I am now, I feel pretty good. God's grace and love is with me, and if I continue walking in God's path, I will not falter.
