Getting Back

You may wonder, 'How can I leave it all behind if I am just coming back to it? How can I make a new beginning if I simply return to the old?' The answer lies in the return. You will not come back to the 'same old thing.' What you return to has changed because you have changed. Your perceptions will be altered. You will not incorporate into the same body, status, or world you left behind. The river has been flowing while you were gone. Now it does not look like the same river.


I flew out of Guatemala on May 13th and I feel like I've had little time to regroup since I've been home. I flew straight to DC for a Bachelorette party, spent the following week entertaining a friend who was in town, and then the day he flew out, moved to Pittsburgh. I had no job, just an apartment and a best friend there. It became my mission the first week to find a job to pay the bills...which was hard to do!! Jobs, especially in social services (that pay more than 20000 a year) are hard to come by in this economy. Having been essentially "on vacation" for the better part of a year, this transition into regular, American life has been very stressful.

I worked for 2 years and lived at home to save up for my Guatemala/Honduras trip. I spent literally every penny I had down there. Having to dive full force into worrying about money was a lot to handle.

Not to mention life is completely different here. The things I got used to in honduras/guatemala are not here. Life is just different and without having firsthand experienced it, its hard to explain the difficulty in now coming back to life in America and feeling unsettled.

It seems silly, I know, but I was gone for nearly 9 months...longer than ever before so im feeling all out of sorts and im not sure quite how to get regrounded here. However the question in my mind is do I want to get resettled here?

At this point in my life the only thing I have keeping me in one place is a car. I'm 25 years old and have all the freedom in the world to pick up and go again. Part of me wants to leave again...go back to Central America and finish learning spanish, teach english, and live another good 6 months to a year down there.

But then another part of me wants to set up roots...find a job here in the states that I love and work my way up the ladder...save money, invest, buy a house, get a dog...do all the "adult things" that as a 25 year old, I should be doing.

But then I also know, if I don't take on these adventures now, i'll be knee deep in a job I love and won't want to leave. If I leave then, i'll have to work my way up all over again.

All of this is battling in my head everyday and it makes it hard to know which direction to head in next.