J-complex in B-overly so

I am not the person who stepped off the plane last August, for better and for worse. I've lost some of me and gained some parts I never knew were there. I'm less confident that what I'm doing - at any given time - is the right thing (and I never needed any help in the overthinking department). I'm less conviction driven. I often feel (and fear) I am less intellectually curious. Emotionally...I am all over the place.

I feel more like a global citizen - a certain inherent respect for the places I've seen and will see. I have a greater comprehension of the little underlying differences that most tourists never see. I've finally started questioning what I want to receive validation from, and not just seeking it from safe though ultimately unfulfilling sources. After several years of hiding from the New York social scene to avoid the awkward silences people gave me when they learned I was still getting my BA (after which I often took pride in introducing them to some intellectual whoop ass), I feel like I am finally honoring that extroverted and social part of me that was trying to claw her way out (I mean, I wasn't online earlier and a friend texted me to ask if I was ok. Um, yeah. Chat addict.).

Through the process of becoming both bigger and smaller, I have also become - a bit to my own dismay - more complicated. As I speak I add clauses and qualifiers to nearly everything. God help me if I learn to footnote my blog entries! We are a product of our environment though, and this is a complex one indeed. No one fully understands this experience like another volunteer, but speaking to someone about your complaints or fears or secrets opens the highway for gossip and misinterpretation. Having issue with another volunteer, something bound to happen, is the worst. Something that would typically be a personal issue - sometimes very personal - and would rest with close, trusted friends has no place to call home. Keeping the feelings and quips internalized isn't healthy, and your choices of who to lean on are those in the distance (and with great distance from your present life) or those who are also the friends, colleagues and support of the other. There are no noble or right options there. Throw in some emotional instability (often towing her ugly friend Bad Judgment) and confusion and you may very well have a disaster.

I came here to make mistakes and test who I am. I just wanted to do it tucked away, in a provincial environment. One that somehow managed to not to close in on itself. I want this to be both smaller and bigger.