Հետո կտեսնվենք (See you later)

My first month in Armenia My last month in Armenia

In the months before I left for the Peace Corps, I had a recurring dream that I was already in Armenia and had forgotten to say goodbye to everyone in my life. I would wake up in a panic that faded into relief when I realized I was still home for a bit longer. I’m having that dream again, but in reverse. I wake up in my bed here in Armenia after a dream of being back in the US without having fully bid my farewells. The anxiety melts into calm when I remember I still have some time left. But I really don’t anymore. I’m writing this on May 6th, less than a month before my official Close of Service date. 

Serving in the Peace Corps has been a dream. I say this because it’s been dreamlike in many ways. Becoming a Peace Corps volunteer has been my dream since I was 12. I spent so much time leading up to this imagining what it might be like. It’s also like a dream in that there have been so many times throughout my service when the life I was living just didn’t feel real. Like in a dream, when an environment feels familiar but slightly foreign. I have had so many moments where I seem to step outside my body and look down at myself and think, “Am I really here?” I remember one of these moments was at the top of one of those big theme park rides that take you up and then drop you. It was a cold November night, and from the top of the ride, I could see all of Yerevan glittering underneath me. It hit me so suddenly in that moment that I was here and I was living this experience halfway across the world from everything I knew. I’ve also been so lucky that, for the most part, I have had a service free from too many significant roadblocks. Of course, there have been some challenges, but I’ve managed to overcome them all. Because of that, I think I can say that my service has been a dream. It’s been my childhood dream, as surreal as a dream, and now it’s time to wake up. 

I’m not just having similar dreams to when I left the US, but I’m having similar feelings of incompleteness in my goodbyes. My first blog post was all about how I was trying to wrestle with how goodbyes always feel unfinished. That I was trying so hard to make everything seem final, and was coming up short. I’ve been reminding myself of this over and over again. But the feeling still creeps up on me. When I left my training family’s house for the final time last week after I visited their village, I stepped out into the street and almost immediately felt the need to turn back because I didn’t do a good enough job hugging them goodbye and wishing them well. I’m in that phase where every time I part ways with a friend, I have to go through the Rolodex of our schedules in my mind to confirm if I’ll see them again or if this is it. 

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that very soon, Peace Corps will be something I have done, not something that I want to do, or will do, or am doing. I’m going to miss speaking Armenian with strangers and watching their surprise as I explain that I’m American but live here and speak the language. I’ll miss watching the horizon to see if Mount Ararat is visible through the haze. I’ll miss my students running up to say hi to me in the hallways. I’ll miss coffee breaks with my counterpart and the other teachers. I’ll miss crowded bus rides and long shared taxi journeys. I’ll miss my host sister jumping out to scare me when I walk through the house (and doing the same back to her). I’ll miss nights spent at a friend's apartment with other volunteers trading stories from our sites. Before the Peace Corps, Armenia was a country I could barely point out on the map. During the Peace Corps, it was a mystery unfolding in front of me until it slowly became my home. After the Peace Corps, it’s going to be the thing I talk too much about and annoy people with the same stories over and over again. I’ll forever be on high alert for anything Armenian to pop up unexpectedly so I can say “I lived there!” 

These past two years have changed me so much as a person. I don’t think that I can ever fully articulate it, but I just feel so different. Things that used to terrify me don’t as much anymore. I’ve unpacked mythologies about myself that I always just accepted as true, but now know I can challenge. I’m learning to be patient with myself and that the speed of life doesn’t always have to be full force ahead. In situations where I previously would have remained silent, I stand up for myself and others. People’s opinions of me hold so much less weight now that I feel like I know who I am. The unique experiences I have accrued throughout my time here in Armenia are innumerable. I’m sure that I’ll keep remembering it all in bits and pieces that spring up randomly in my brain. Last weekend, I knocked out my list of souvenirs to buy from the Vernissage, including paintings from my favorite artist who hangs out in Saryan Park on Saturdays (shoutout, Igor!). I plan to decorate my future living spaces with Armenia, the same way that Armenia has decorated my heart (and my ankle, thanks to my freshly healed tattoo, shoutout Haroot!). 

There are a lot of tasks you have to complete as a COSing volunteer. We have a checklist of them all that we have to get signed off on to officially finish our service. My schedule is packed with PC events, trainings that I’m helping with, school activities, final hangouts with friends, goodbye visits, job interviews, grad school information sessions, and I feel like I barely have time to mentally and emotionally process this stage of my life ending. I guess that’s kind of what I’m trying to do now by writing this. Unlike when I left for the Peace Corps, I’m not just saying goodbye for now to something I’ll return to. I have no idea when I’ll return to Armenia. I hope in at least a couple of years. More so than just the physical location, this is the conclusion of such a significant chapter in my life. It’s been a period that I’ll never be able to recreate. It’s like graduating high school and college combined into one, and also you have to get on a plane the next day and take all of your belongings, and also you have the responsibilities of a real adult now, and everything is about to be completely different. 

In a time when programs designed to spread goodwill globally are being attacked and destroyed, I consider myself so incredibly fortunate to have been able to spend this time abroad doing as much good work as I can. If the Peace Corps has taught me one thing (it’s taught me so much, but I’m trying to wrap this up before I start crying all over my keyboard), it’s that everyone at some point in their lives needs to travel. Travel abroad for a week, a month, a year, however long you can. If you can’t get outside your country, then try and meet people from other places and travel through building relationships with them. The world is so much bigger than your hometown, your home state, your home country. But it’s also smaller than it feels. People are people everywhere. We all want to live our lives in peace, spend time with those we love, and ensure a better future for the next generation. When we see the whole world, we see whole people. That’s when we can start to understand each other, to love each other beyond language, beyond culture, beyond borders. 

My hardest goodbyes are yet to come. My brilliant students, my dear host family, my inspiring fellow volunteers, my wonderful counterpart, the incredible Peace Corps staff, every remarkable friend I have made here, and the country itself. Thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout this journey. I think I will spend the rest of my life realizing how impactful this experience has been and how lucky I am that this was my life for these 2 years. And so as endings fade messily into new beginnings and as I wake up from my childhood dream and start imagining new goals, I won’t say goodbye, but always see you later.