Exit Signs

Where is the exit sign?

Have you ever been sitting on an indoor roller coaster, and you hear the chug chug chug of the gears as you are being lifted up at an alarming angle? Maybe the fall of the roller coaster will end you up outside and so you see the daylight streaming through a small hole at the very top. All I could keep thinking was - what goes up must come down. Where the heck are those exit signs? Well maybe my 11 year old brain wasn't thinking that…but I remember looking at the black stairs accompanying the track skyward and the discreet doors leading to safe freedom. Sweet escape. Not always worth missing what's ahead, but it's nice to have the option.

This unfortunately has been a topic on my mind lately as I near the year mark of my Peace Corps service. This blog/my personality was made for full disclosure. I promised not to hide my fear or my disappointment or my depression while I was here so I have to say that last Sunday was my worst day yet. One of those awful days where you wake up 'in a mood'. I hadn't slept well. I didn't even feel like eating. In fact getting out of bed at all seemed pretty ridiculous. There were tears, anger and plenty of self pity. I've never wanted to go home more.

And there was a certain beauty to it. I am able to exit the Peace Corps whenever I'd like. I make the call. They book the ticket. Hasta luego. Game over.

After a couple days passed and 'the mood' passed as well, three things came to mind: refugees, old age and marriage, in that order. There are certain things in life where there is no easy way out. Commitments that take more than one phone call to get the heck out of. Things that are out of your control.

So let's play a game I've been really into lately with you the reader. It's called using your imagination. Close your eyes (figuratively blog reader, figuratively!) and imagine you were born and had a family and things were going swell. Not hard to imagine. Let's make you a teenager. You suffer through school. You've got a crush, of course. You love playing (insert favorite sport here). But amidst all of this, you are actually living in a pretty horrendous country. No, it's not the US. I don't care how much you don't appreciate politics and decisions being made. I'm talking really horrendous. People are being targeted, killed. Freedom is squashed. Your life is at risk. You've had a few family members and acquaintances killed or jailed. Your future is looking grim. But then with a stroke of luck you are allowed to flee, as a refugee. Sure you have to start all over in another country and your entire family may not be able to go with you, but you get to be safe from the terror happening in your birthplace. So you get thrown into the United States. You need to learn the language, the customs, the taboos, how to get food, how to get around, how to still go to church, how to make an income especially if your education means nothing here. So time lapse - two years have gone by. You are surviving. You can handle yourself. Life is pretty great compared to where you came from, but some days are rough. You don't want to speak English, you don't want to get out of bed, or prepare food in the bizarre way you have to here. You just want the familiar. The stuff that matches your childhood memories. Your safe place. Well guess what? There's no special phone call you can make to go home. There is no exit. There is just establishing a new normal. Refugees didn't chose to be persecuted. And most are trying their darndest to make this second chance a real new beginning. If not for themselves, then for their children or children's children.

I was just reading a Time magazine article where a futurist was talking about people being a little squeamish about extending life expectancies, saying they don't want to live past 100. It's pretty difficult to sell the allure of aging. Besides the whole physical degradation, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a great uncle of mine. I was wishing him a happy birthday of a particularly high variety. He became uncharacteristically serious and said - you know, it isn't what you think it's gonna be. It's not some marathon race that you are proud to win by being the last one left. All your friends die, the love of your life dies, and it just becomes a big cesspool of suffering. Alright, I added that last part myself. But I bet at some point in aging everyone utters the statement - this isn't what I signed up for.

and if that wasn't a perfect segway into the topic of marriage, I don't know what is. I'm not going to pull the concept of marriage through the mud but I'm imaging that any lifelong commitment leaves you with at least a handful of days where you say - this isn't what I signed up for.

I'm not even going to attempt to wrap this post up after I've gone on my 'flow of consciousness' tangents. I just wanted to rant and make your brain move in the same convoluted way mine does. Wasn't that fun?

As a sign off I will tell you a completely unrelated story of today. After work I ended up carrying my screaming two year old neighbor down the street after she rolled down a couple concrete steps in my front yard. It gave all the people at the water pump something to stare at for awhile. She was fine after I calmed her down and then my three year old neighbor offered her some sugar cane in the best distraction move I've seen yet. My newest plan if I lose my sanity here - just hanging out with the toddlers and eating sugar cane.