Avoidance

When I neared the end of my New York tenure, I envisioned a life of politics and policy, a DC apartment and jogging along with all the others. Something about all the navy and beige suits, standard haircuts and general homogeneity - not to mention the workaholic I-am-what-I-do mentality - filtered into signing up for Peace Corps and bypassing the need to decide right away. When all else fails, just avoid.

Yesterday I stopped avoiding and after nearly three hours of phone interviews, I was whisked off to DC to wow the office in person. The treatment was first class - great hotel room, free air fare and meals, cars to and from the airports. Even the people were kind and lovely. I wow'ed as best as I could and kept the energy level as high as I could muster, but something wasn't fitting. From the moment I stepped off the plane I was just reminded how... plastic it all is. Inhabited primarily by people passing through as leisurely tourists on vacation or professional tourists building a career, the streets and buildings lack any real character or charm. A gritless city. Places that come close to being interesting or unique give off the distinct feeling that they are a product of a focus group or a copy of a copy of a great idea. Day or night, the District appeared to be populated with people in suits and ties or their slackerdly cousin, the polo and khakis ensemble - something that seemed so glaring coming from a town where people can be seen going to work in ballcaps and flipflops.

Coming from a city where everyone seems to take themselves with a grain of salt, where serving on a community board or volunteering is quite common and where every apartment seems to be in a neighborhood that's within walking distance of something great, the seriousness of people's self-interest in 'serving' national causes from their suburban dwellings was not particularly alluring, bordering on non-human.

While the specifics are interesting (including a wardrobe malfunction leaving my breasts exposed all over Constitution Ave), you know I tend to get something more general from experiences and this is no exception. There are two major things connecting people who join Peace Corps - the interest in becoming a part of something greater and the interest in leaving something. The rhetoric that is spewed emphasizes the former but not the latter. On a personal level, remembering the latter is all too important.

When we return it's all too easy to walk back into old places, to see old faces and to pick up where we left off with only a momentary lapse - like a needle on a record that skips but keeps playing the same recognizable song. We left in many ways to let ourselves grow and expand and to step back far enough to realize why what we had wasn't enough. I assume there are a few who find that is was enough and just learn to gain appreciation for it - but I think those cases are few and far between. It's important to keep this goal in mind - the goal of a fresh start - because returning is its own bewildering journey and it's so easy to just find comfort in the old haunts, the old habits... the old rut. Without taking the time to figure out what one wants, where and all the other assorted details its so easy to pick up the default choices and return to a non-jarring, non-growing, non-threatening life. In the period of one's life where they most want and need safety, the challenge is, well, to avoid it.