I’ve been told that this is a common phenomenon among volunteers completing their first year of service and gearing up to begin their second. I’m in good company – most of the volunteers I’ve asked about this have told me they are feeling the same way. Company helps but it is a very strange mash-up of feelings.
On the one hand, I can’t believe how fast the first year went by. I hear the second one goes even faster, which I can’t even fathom. I’m feeling excited and fully capable – I get to start a second school year only this time I know my partners, I know my directors, I know the kids and I can speak Romanian fluently. Naturally I’m excited about this, knowing that my second year teaching will no doubt be even better than my first.
But then, despite being so excited to get the chance to do it all again one more time, seeing all the older volunteers leave Moldova this summer was really hard. Not only is it hard because you know that your life here won’t be quite the same once you’ve lost half the people you meet up with when you’re both in the capital, or who you call when you need to vent a little bit, but it’s also hard because you get to hear all their plans for heading home. Going to grad school, getting a job, going to freaking Taco Bell for shitty imitation Mexican food that you have not had the pleasure to taste in over 12 months. It makes you start thinking about what you’re missing at home and then you start getting really antsy and suddenly another year is a LONG time. You worry about what’s going on at home without you when in the middle of last year you were fully immersed in Moldova and it didn’t affect you. You start fantasizing about the first thing you’re going to say or do with all the individual people that you miss all the time – parents, friends, the guy who used to work at the Starbucks by the house I used to live in. Going to go out for Italian food, to the beach, swimming. Going to call up everyone I’ve ever met and go to New York City. Going to lie in my parents’ backyard and just think about how it’s all over. The problem is, that then I get overwhelmed thinking about how it’s going to be and how it’s going to feel once I’m done and I wake up and I’m still in Moldova. Which is great. But now it’s not as fun for the next 10 minutes and I end up brooding.
I know that once school starts up and I get rolling into my school year routines again that I’ll be on track like last year and I’ll be throwing myself into work and the Moldovans. Until then, though, I and many other volunteers, are just trying to keep our heads out of the day-dream haven that is America, lurking just around the corner.
