Mile 26

Most of you who know me personally know I’ve been back in the States for about a month and a half now. I knew I left Peru with this blog unfinished but I wanted some time to decompress from Peru before revisiting the end of my experience for the blog. Anywho, I’ve successfully decompressed and I’m ready to share these last three posts with ya’ll.

Let’s start with COS shall we?

Close of Service (COS) Conference is the ceremonial end of the long marathon that is Peace Corps service. Now I’ve never had to run a marathon… In fact I hate running. The only time you’ll catch me running is if I’m running for my life and I hope no one ever catches me doing that – but I digress.

However, I can imagine that running a marathon is much like serving in the Peace Corps. There are adrenaline rushes, moments of elation and eagerness, and others of clarity where you get your second or third wind. But you also experience defeat and doubt, you teeter on the edge of resignation, and sometimes allow anger and sadness to get the best of you. Its an endurance run that tests you on levels you never even knew existed and finishing the race can be an exhilarating and emotionally overwhelming experience.

By the time I got to my COS conference, I was ready. A lot of people have mixed feelings because this is the last time you’ll see the majority of the people in your cohort and in-country staff. You are also starting to realize that you have to begin to prepare for life post-service. I can say that I particularly felt extremely happy and a deep sense of relief. The end of my “marathon,” my mile 26, was the hardest for me and reaching the finish line was a like taking a long awaited breath of fresh air and a huge weight off my shoulders.

I don’t know if any of ya’ll have seen The Book of Eli but Denzel has a monologue and I think it describes exactly how I was feeling towards the end. He says:

Thank you [God] for finally allowing me to rest. I’m so very tired, but I go now to my rest at peace. Knowing that I have done right with my time on this earth. I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.

Okay, maybe that was a little melodramatic but when they say Peace Corps is “the toughest job you’ll ever love,” that’s no lie and it was comforting and exciting to know I would be starting another chapter and re-connencting with friends and family soon.

On the other hand, despite being completely spent by two years of ups and downs, you are also deeply appreciative and happy to have been able to spend two years learning a new language,  navigating a new culture, making lifelong friends, and coming away with stories that will last the rest of your life. And when I think of all of those things, I think of the last lines from the Robert Frost poem The Road Not Taken:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

… And let me tell ya’ll something, my Peace Corps service has made all the difference.