G A P Year(s)
As a new group of Peace Corps Volunteers make their way to begin their 27-month journey here in Ecuador (BIENVENIDOS 121!), I find myself reflecting on how the last 20 months have turned out as I hit the downward slope towards completion of this journey. My official close-of-service (COS) date is August 15, 2019, which at the time of writing this blog, is exactly 7 months away. Wow.
With my brother the day before I left NYC <3
I went down memory lane last week of my life just before Ecuador and got a little bit lost in the highlight reel. I started looking at photos from my going away party in Houston, TX, my last days at work at the Dow Chemical Plant in Deer Park, TX, the trips to Los Angeles, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang & Hoi An, the bachelorette party-cruise to Cozumel, the beautiful wedding for my lovely friends Kirk & Kristen, and my final weeks in NYC saying goodbyes to family. It was a really great season of rest, relaxation, celebration & preparation for the life I am living today.
Here's a few of my favorite moments:
Okay, I'll admit: It was also pretty scary.
I'd never had the privileged experience of a "gap year", a time that some young adults take away from responsibilities like career and educational goals in order to look inwardly and decide the direction in which to take their future lives. Black-ish has been following Junior this season, who decided upon moving into the dorm at Howard University, that he needed a Gap Year instead. A year ago in Quito, I met one such young guy from NYC who put off a year before enrolling at Columbia University to travel around South America. I was not that brave at age 17, nor did my family have the means to support such explorative endeavors. All I had the time and funds for were to make the most of my education the best way I could: to work every summer or study extra coursework in my downtime.
For a second-generation college student, my role was clear: I had to carry the legacy of college-educated Black folk. Onward & upward, as they say. Well, after 10 years of adulthood, I ran that rat race directly into burnout abyss.
So close your eyes and imagine with me, the surprise of my loving parents and brothers when I told them I wanted to take a break from my career aspirations and join the Peace Corps. Bless their hearts. It was Summer 2016 when I made the decision, after realizing that everything I had been instructed I needed to work for wasn't at all what I thought it would look like. After uncovering that success would always be elusive for a Black woman millennial if I kept relying on others to validate it for me. After tasting the bitter herbs of reality that I could never be enough in a space not initially created with a body like mine in mind. After years and years of grinding and all I had to show for it was my own pulverized spirit and a dimming light of passion.
In other words, I was woefully unfulfilled. I was ready for a S H I F T.
Still the level-headed 27 year-old that my parents raised me to become, I kept working hard at the job I had at the time, preparing for a few big projects. I also didn't throw all of my career eggs in the Peace Corps basket. I am NOT that carefree, friends. I went on interviews for engineering positions around the Northeast, staying agile in my gifts and talents and knowledge base. I was a woman with a plan. But deep down, I knew that Peace Corps was the only way to access the change my soul required.
So I turned down the job offer, knowing that if I could live abroad and give the rest of my twenties to a more altruistic cause, I could always return to my original passion of STEM with a more focused vision towards promoting social good and community responsibility through the methodology of scientific problem-solving. Almost two years after submitting my resignation letter to my boss, I firmly believe I made the right decision.
Of course, these twenty months in-country have taught me that no growth is linear -- a lofty concept that the current state of American education lends you to believe. In a way, I have skipped some grades and got left back in others when it comes to the lessons life in Paján has taught me about work, community engagement, project management, and leadership. Like the semester I chose to repeat Heat Transfer with Dr. Ganley in undergrad, I've had to experience some of the same coursework in resiliency & people management more than once. But like Heat Transfer, sometimes learning a skill the second time around unlocks a level of clarity I would have never experienced if I accepted the D and moved on. I graduated an entire semester after most of my peers, but I finished strong.
Celebrating a birthday of one of the women in my exercise club last weekend <3
Finishing strong: this is the story of my life.
My Dad likes to call it “Finishing Style”, like Simone Biles at the end of a floor routine. After the flips and turns and high kicks — even if I land outside of bounds throughout the set, trip up on a run, or forget a spin — I remember that every experience is worth it.
Thankfully, real life is not a competition, no matter how many corporate jobs, academic class rankings, facebook likes or twitter retweets try to convince us otherwise. My soul rests in knowing that by running my own race, I will always get to break the ticker tape of completion with my head up, hands raised high, and a smile across my face. There is no rush to defeat anyone; only freedom to lift others up to break the tape of their own stories.
I didn’t get to experience the clarity that a “gap year” is said to bring 17 and 18 year olds as they embark on adulthood. But in ways, Peace Corps has given me the space — a gap, if you will — to clear my mind of the burdens I’d heaped on myself. Through shifting my work to community-based activism and project development in the world of healthcare, I’ve been able to operate in my gifts and talents while tapping into passions that had lain dormant in my pursuit of recognition and validation in Corporate America. I always told people that I was more than an engineer; Peace Corps has given me the opportunity to actually walk in that truth. I am so free.
In the Bible, Jesus says: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Well, it’s been the best power nap I’ve ever taken.
☼
