Random Ramblings

     Sometimes I think too much. And I have been thinking a lot about where I thought I would be at in my life with my 30th birthday looming on the too-near horizon. Before I went to college, I didn't think too much about 30 because it seemed so far away. But, if pressed for an answer to the "where do you see yourself" question, I would have said, "Oh, well by the time I am 30 I will have a nice house, a sweet husband, and a kid or two. I will have a great well-paying job and life will be bliss." I think I just assumed I would find Mr. Right in college, as cliche as that sounds. Four years later and Prince Charming failed to show. I didn't know what to do as graduation day crept closer and closer. I just wasn't ready to move home, find a full-time job, and work the 9 to 5 grind. So, I joined the Peace Corps. Three months after graduating, I was plopped down in hot, dusty Nicaragua. And everything changed.
     I have shared my Peace Corps stories with my friends, family, and acquaintances. There are a lot of stories! My first impressions of a developing country, living with a host family (who changed my name - which stuck to the point that my in-laws still use it), the first time I got on a bus, going to "my" community and living with a second host family (who fed me ants), moving out on my own, finding a bat in my latrine, teaching in the local school, getting bit by a dog with the ensuing staph infection, the hurricane that never came, and of course, the story of the end of my stay and Flaco's proposal. I have 4-5 journals full of all that I experienced during my stay in the land of lakes and volcanoes. I learned as much about myself as I did about Nica culture. While I am not opposed to sharing my stories here on this blog, I feel like it is beyond the scope of the reason I started writing in the first place. Perhaps some of the stories will leak out over time. It was a rather pivotal point in my life, thus far.
    So, I came home from the Peace Corps with the one thing I was sure I would not find - a husband. The Peace Corps asked us on a questionnaire in the first week in-country, do we think we would be willing to date or have an intimate relationship with a Nicaraguan native. I think they gave us a 1-10 scale with one being "oh hell no" and 10 being "bring it on." I believe I chose -5. It seemed completely inconceivable to me, since I didn't speak Spanish and I didn't understand anything about Nicaragua (other than what Google and Wikipedia told me). Fast-forward a year and a half and I am investigating how to legally get my Nicaraguan "husband" to the U.S. And, again, things changed.
     When I was graduating from college, I remember being asked where I thought I would be in 5 years. I took solice in knowing where I would be for the next two years, but the remaining three were still a mystery. I assumed, since Mr. Right was not in college with me, he might be harder to find than I thought. But, don't think I was obsessing about this. I was young and really more interested in experiencing life. Plus, I had already fell in unrequited love. Oh, yeah.
     My junior year of college I spent a semester abroad in Greece. I absolutely loved my three months there! I lived in an apartment in Athens, with 7 other women. I made a terrific friend and had the best adventure bopping around the island of Crete in a tiny stick-shift car with her. And I fell in love. Tragic love. I studied abroad with the Brethren Colleges Abroad program, since the college I attended was a Brethren college - makes sense, no? So, with other students also from Brethren colleges throughout the U.S., we were scattered around the same community in Athens and attended the sister college to a school in L.A. - La Verne University. It was in a swanky community in northern Athens (about a 45 minute commute one way from where we lived). One of the sons of the college President (they were American ex-pats) lived in the apartment below mine and served as a guide to the students and an assistant to the director, Aphrodite (no made up name here!). On the weekends we would take trips out of Athens to see more Greek history. I loved it all. And I fell in love with Abe. He was insanely tall (6'7" - or something unbelievable like that) and really goofy. I fell hard. He knew about it too, I'm no good at keeping my emotions hidden (I would say play poker with me, but I am a terrible card player and it just wouldn't be any fun). As you guessed by now, I ended up leaving Greece and crying for nearly the entire 12 hour flight home (I certainly didn't sleep much!). It took me a long time to "get over" this first love of mine and it managed to deeply scar my already delicate self-esteem. I think of Abe from time to time and wonder about what might have been - although admittedly, I think less and less about him since I have Flaco now.
    So, perhaps this experience was what had me thinking, "Five years from now, I will be back from the Peace Corps for 3 years and either in grad school or working a great job I love." I gave next to no thought about being in a relationship. The reality is, I came home from the Peace Corps a little early (I had an issue with a woman in my community, the Nicaraguan woman the Peace Corps paired me with, and Flaco and I actually broke up - it's a really, really, really long story) and I came home married. Within 8 months of returning home, I was working two jobs and bought a home. I was 24 years old. I was in the home alone for about 6 weeks until Flaco's paperwork was finalized and he received the appointment to go to the U.S. Embassy in Managua to plead his case for a Visa. I flew down to facilitate this appointment and guide Flaco through the very grueling process. I did this without batting an eye; just marched right through the process and got it done. It was hard to do, it was a nail-biter right to the end when the woman at the Embassy said, "ok, come back on Friday to get the Visa," the day before we were scheduled to fly back to the States. So, this changed the picture of my future again.
     Flaco arrived in the United States on October 19, 2006. It was a cold and windy day when we drove home from Baltimore to our house. And, if you had asked me this day where I would find myself in 5 years, I would have said something like, "Flaco and I will have moved or be in the process of moving to a bigger house in the country to make room for our growing family. I assume we will have at least one child by that time." And here we are. We are approaching the fifth anniversary of Flaco moving here and officially starting our lives together, yet things are once again different from how I imagined them.
     I suppose, if we could go back in time to ask me at the time if I felt things would work out, I might say "no." When you are in the midst of an issue, it is hard to understand that it will end at some point. When I was leaving Greece, it was hard to imagine less than two years later I would be in Nicaragua and less than three years later I would have met the man I would marry. It was next to impossible to imagine when Flaco and I broke up, that less than a month later he would propose and we would be making plans for him to move to the U.S. So, perhaps in another couple of months or years, I can write about the new change in my life - becoming a mommy. My story is not complete, the final chapter has not yet been written. . . .