Homeless, Jobless, and Content

written on August 6th

Ask the Google for advice or support to reach your goal and you will be utterly overwhelmed with quotes, photos, blogs, how-to formulas, and advice. These are helpful references for life, and I love to collect the quotes. They inspire me to keep going.

In November of 2009, I started applying for the Peace Corps. Today, the 6th of August, 2015 that adventure ended. For the last 6 years, the driving force of my energy has been to reach this very moment. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful it has been and how much I have learned. I am incredibly grateful and overwhelmed by the amount of love and support shown to me by Panamanians, Americans, and fellow Volunteers. Peace Corps really is the toughest job you'll ever love.

But what happens now?

Let me be real with you for a bit. I don’t have a plan. I don’t know where I will live. I don’t really know what kind of job I want to do, and I am grateful that I qualify for medicaid for health insurance. I don’t know how to use a smart phone, let alone set up a plan for one and pay the bill. I don’t know what city, state, or country I want to live in. I don’t know if I want to go to grad school and if I did, what I would study.

What am I working for? What is my goal? Where am I going with my life?

Three years in Panama has changed the way I look at everything, and potential life plans I had before no longer seem to fit. More unsettlingly, I realize now how dramatically a person's values, desires, and perspective can change in just a few short years. Perhaps there is no such thing as a life plan.

Reaching a goal comes with a great rush of dopamine, but it is very short lived. The reality is that after a few minutes or hours, maybe even give it a day or so,  you’re left with this unnerving feeling of...nothing. It’s like being lost in your hometown, or having to give an impromptu speech on a foreign topic. The anxiety is real. I hesitate to publish this post because I am afraid of the ulcers and cardiac stress it will put on my parents, whose primary goal has always been to keep me safe, secure, and provided for.

However, for a woman that has been incredibly goal-oriented and driven since about ten years old, there’s another feeling too… freedom.

I don’t have an office to be at on Monday. I don’t have a supervisor to report to or a deadline to meet. I don’t have a house to clean or rent to pay. I have no bills to pay right now at all. I don’t have clients or children or pets to care for. I have a backpack, hammock, and shoes. I have 2,236.4 miles from the Darien to Mexico City and nowhere to be for a few months. I have enough money for bus tickets, food, a flight home, and maybe even a few other adventures. I have at least one good friend with whom to share the journey, and know I will make more along the way.

For now, not having a plan IS the plan, and I love it.

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