Thinky thoughts

I'm taking my GRE on Saturday. I'm nervous, and I probably (definitely) haven't studied enough, but it's my second time 'round and I think I'll be fine. Biggest thing is getting to Quito tomorrow-- 4.5 hour bus ride, then waiting around until Sunday so that the Peace Corps Ecuador director can drive me back to my site. Why he wants to do this, why he's even visiting my site...I have no idea.

I'm freaking about getting into grad school, of course I am. I realized the other day that I've been sort of blindly assuming that I'll get in to American, or Denver, but there's a good chance I won't. I thought of how depressed I would be to not get into grad school, and how much that would suck to have a whole year of just working and waiting to reapply. And then I thought of a conversation I had with a fellow volunteer a few days ago.

We had both lived abroad before this. She said:

"It's weird, you know, all the places I've lived I have such a desire to go back to, to live there again, but with Ecuador..."

"You want to get the hell out and never look back?" I supplied. She nodded.

"I can't even put my finger on why. It's a perfectly nice country. I like it here. I just... I want to leave."

And all I could say was: "I know exactly how you feel."

I'm not unhappy. I'm not crying myself to sleep or pining away or drowning my sorrows in chocolate. The place I live is beautiful, the people are nice, the work...could be better, but whatever, I have internet and a great sitemate and a hammock. But I just want to leave. I want to board a plane and never come back.

By the end of my time in Spain I was calling it my second home, my second country. Ecuador never was, and never will be, my country. It will never accept me, and I will always be a foreigner, and outsider, a thorn in its side.

If I get into grad school, I will be the happiest girl on the planet, no lie. But if I don't get in...it won't be the end of the world. I'll still be happy. Because no matter what, I won't be living here anymore. I'll be living in the United States, in a big crazy city with water that I don't have to boil and food that won't give me amoebas and people who look like me and speak my language. I'll find a job, and an apartment, make friends, date, go out on weekends, apply to grad school next year. I'll start looking for an agent for my book. I'll be near my family, and see the change of seasons, and just be so wholly there and not here. And you know what? That's all I need.