mid-service overthinking

Today the volunteers that came before me are saying goodbye to Albania. I spent the weekend saying my own goodbyes and realizing some very hard truths. My own journey is nearly halfway over. This past year has been an absolute blur, and I know it will feel like just a few short moments until I start my own journey home.

I spent $110 dollars on electricity this month, and now I'm counting my grains of rice. Photo feat. my new free heater and the burn on my forehead from my old, expensive one.

I had a moment this weekend, a moment like many moments I have had over the past several months. What was different was that, this time, I voiced it. I have said a million times how much potential this place has, how many things I wish I could do if I just had the time and the resources. I have said how much I wish I was able to move a little faster. Much of that is simply due to the fact that I am an American, and I am simply not used to moving at this pace, but over time I have realized that it’s more than just that. It’s the want to make a difference, to have this time mean something more than just one more volunteer in the annual Peace Corps report. It’s the potential that I see in this place, in these people. It’s the want to jumpstart that potential energy into its kinetic brother. It’s the frustration that time isn’t on my side.

So in that moment this weekend, I voiced what I have been contemplating. Walking around Tirana, waiting for the goodbye festivities to commence, I was talking with a friend about how little time we have left here. Many times I have been tempted to stay. As a volunteer or private citizen, I am not sure, but I do know that I don’t feel like I have finished what I started, and I am terrified that I will walk away in a year and carry that with me for the rest of my life. That I will always know that I had an opportunity to make a difference in a place and for people who have such potential to change the situation if only for a spark. That I will know that I could have been that spark, but perhaps I just didn’t use my time wisely or perhaps if only I had a little more of it.

Didn't do much worth picturing this week, but please be awed of my homemade poptarts.

I have wrestled with this for many reasons, admittedly some of them entirely selfish, but others simply out of authentic want to finish what I started here and see this place be what I know it can be for the people that depend on it. So then there’s this gnawing feeling that it would be an irresponsible decision. Can I really justify staying as a volunteer, knowing what I know about the limitations of it? More than that though, can I really justify staying as a volunteer without having tangible projects that warrant my presence? Can I really justify staying out of hope that another year will magically bring something different than the frustration that I have experienced until now? I realize that I signed up for this frustration. No one ever said this would be easy. In fact, everyone said it would be exactly like this, work on so many roads just to realize they are dead ends, frustration at every corner, and a feeling of swimming towards a paradise island, but never getting any closer because the tide is so much greater than my own strength, or is it my ability? I’m not sure.

So then there’s the other option, the wildcard option with more potential, but infinitely more risk. What if I just stay? What if I realize my own dream for this place on my own terms? What if I open that tourist agency and do the things that I want to do every day, but can’t with the cards I’m currently holding? What if I start that nonprofit? But also, where am I going to get the money to make that happen, and what if it doesn’t work out or takes off slowly? How do I support myself? How do I pay the bills, or my student loans, for that matter? Can I really justify that decision logically? Financially?

Niku is a business owner now, so that's cool. Chickens are cute and delicious, by the way.

The problem is that I know the potential. I know this place. I understand the current trends in tourism. I know that Albania will be a part of that both soon and in a very large way. I know that this place has the opportunity to be a part of it, reap the economic benefits that it desperately needs, but that it also will be left out if someone doesn’t do the work to make that happen.

I’m not sure to what end I am laying all of this out for you. Like many things in my life, it’s easier for me to sort out what is written down in front of me, so perhaps the words that flowed today were simply what I needed to say. I’m not sure what the answer is, and it seems increasingly certain that I won’t until the weight of life’s decisions have made me old, gray, and thoughtful of what could have been. Returning to America has potential of it’s own, but it’s a potential that feels scary to me in a way I’m not quite comprehending right now. It’s tied so deeply to the things I have learned and the ways I have changed in this past year, but it’s also tied to fear that those thoughts about what could have been when I am old and gray will tell me that I made the wrong decision.

So for now, I will keep moving forward as it is the only thing I really can do. I'll continue hoping that the next year will bring with it the clarity and answers that I so desperately desire. Until then, here's to the dreamers, and to those dreamers who summon the courage to become doers.