Since returning to the states I have been a bad YAV. Un/consciously wallowing in sadness for how I was unable to carry out my full time abroad or end with intention or the ever-illusive "closure." No one's fault - just a reality. Still, as I look back on my departure from Colombia, it felt like someone took a package of dried spaghetti in their hands and snapped it in half, fragments scattering in every direction. One piece of myself in Colombia, one piece here, and a million bits lost in between. Those early weeks and months of the pandemic were so painful; I felt aimless, powerless, and utterly awash in the lavish superficial comforts of home, void of the intangible yet infinitely more comforting community and connection I'd found elsewhere. It took time before I could make forward motion through that process, and jump-start a new chapter. Fast forward to fall of 2020. In the span of several weeks I moved into an apartment just a zip code away from my mom's and began a new job at a local inpatient mental and behavioral health hospital. Transitioning to working in such an organized, professional, high-stakes clinical setting has required time and patience - adjustment is hard. Yet when I’m kindest to myself I remember that I’ve chosen a job -- a career path -- that continues to serve those on the margins of our world.
In most arenas of life I experienced significant reverse culture shock - or maybe something more akin to reverse disillusionment? I saw with fresh eyes the wastefulness and disconnection that are rampant in my everyday surroundings in the US, the latter only amplified by the pandemic. Excess was (is) ubiquitous. I floundered away from consistent faith community, struggling to restore a sense of connectedness in my hometown during quarantine. Racism and white supremacy claimed yet more lives and I was ashamed to belong to a nation so broken and backward.
Lord have mercy.
Truth be told I include much of this detail because it's been sitting in a draft blog post for a year and a half - and I don't have the heart to skip over what felt so necessary to share at the time. Now entering summer of 2022 there are different things weighing on me - and a growing sense of quiet pride for how I showed resilience navigating a lot of unexpected circumstances at the end of my YAV year. And still a question that sits with me is this: in looking back on my time with YAV, how do I hold all that went well and hold with equal honesty and tenderness those parts that were completely unexpected and disappointing? Another instance of "both/and" thinking pushing me to acknowledge the full breadth of my lived experiences.
Recently I was talking to a friend and he captured something I'd been feeling for a while: "la vida está hecha de etapas." I'm finding comfort in those words these days, trusting that a life made up of distinctive chapters is not a marker of failure or disintegration or indecision. A sense of incompletion seemed to chase me after preemptively having to leave my YAV placement - and I have continued to wrestle with how I might integrate a faith-based international/intercultural accompaniment experience with other aspects of my professional and personal self. Thinking about etapas - stages and phases - eases the urge to find complete unification between my past and present. So today when I still struggle to adequately capture my YAV experience for well-intentioned strangers, or grapple with the discomfort of working in mental health through a 100% Western,100% medical,100% individualized lens after spending transformative time in a collectivist, community-focused culture... I breathe a sigh of relief. Where did I get this notion of perfect alignment anyways? This is just one of many chapters to come. And as much as I'm learning to allow them to stand apart in all their imperfect singularity, I suspect there are invisible threads linking them together that I'll only be able to see in hindsight.
Some photo highlights from the ~liminal space~ that is these last years
Dare I say it? Goodness abounds in the in-between.
And so I am at an inflection point in my life. What do I choose for myself next? There exists a certain "script" for what a 25- year-old will do with the incumbent years - what she will prioritize, where she will live, the role of continued higher education in her life. I do not reject every aspect of that script for myself but I'm certainly untangling which ones feel right for who I am and where I'm at in life - and this questioning of the script is directly related to the ways in which my time in Colombia undid me. I came home different. I now live more informed and more inspired by a global worldview. I carry with me an awareness that people halfway across the world know and love me. I am categorically disinterested in accumulating things - and irrevocably invested in accumulating relationships and experiences. Gratitude is more present in my life and I find every occasion to celebrate life loudly and unapologetically. A sense of the bigness of the world has invaded the forefront of my mind and I feel a near constant restlessness to be more connected to that bigness. This past year I dedicated precious time and money applying to graduate school -- only to decide that this isn't the time for me. I'm reminded of that meme: "normalize changing your mind." Welp, here I am, letting go of (er, postponing?) a relatively comfortable and straightforward path in favor of something not yet known, hopefully with plenty of adventure.
And so in the unknowns, the in-between, the exciting and sometimes overwhelming and usually confusing searching, I come back to stubborn hopefulness. On the cusp of transition I find it helpful to articulate what exactly I'm longing for in this new chapter. My old journals are littered with entries like this before each punctuated experience of change in my young adult life. Quelling the many worries and threads of scarcity thinking, instead filling my mind with audacious hopefulness. After all, it's only when we've identified what we want that we can make space for that version of life to come alive. And so recently when a treasure friend also on the cusp of big change approached me, asking, "Hannah, you know me well. What do you hope for me in this next season of life?" I had a hunch how I might respond. It also got me thinking back to a pseudo-poem we used to share at camp in years past; inspired by the children's book by Lee Pits, there was a hand-me-down printable passed around that captured all that we as counselors hoped for our campers for their time at camp. "These things I wish for you" grew near and dear to my heart so at some point I adapted my own version for my campers - and now I'm adapting it again. No longer about campfires or friendship bracelets, but still a glimpse into what I hope for my friend - and, frankly, what I'm hoping for myself, too.
These things I wish for you (& me)
That you would surround yourself with people that bring out your silliest, kindest, truest self
That you would find opportunities to bask in sunrises & sunsets
That you would (re)discover a spirit of adventure in everyday life
That you would play with a friend's kids in the sloppy grass and feel fulness of joy
That you would put yourself in the path of beauty
That you would continue wrestling to understand what "home" means to you
That you would savor the ordinary moments of finding new rhythms in a new place, eyes wide open to hidden treasure all around
That you would care 10% less and have 10% more fun
That you would become a regular at a new neighborhood coffee shop
That you would reject the pressure cooker that tells you to go/do/be anything that's not wild and weird
That you would look at the stars and smile. And think of Mary Oliver
That you would find new, wholehearted ways to "take care" and unclench, unclench, unclench
That you would cultivate space for abundance in all pockets of life - work, play, family
That you would resist oppression in all its insidious forms and be wakeful to building community with people who share your same understanding of justice
That you would laugh often
That, rather than numbness, you would break open to the agony of everyday realities - fire & firearms. Supreme Court & Senate. Capitalism & all its discontents. And find solace in Anne Lamott
That you would find a job that simultaneously highlights your giftedness and challenges you into your growth zone
That you would know you are loved SO big - loved beyond measure
That you would give priority to creative pursuits, especially when it doesn't feel like the "productive" way to use your time
That you will look back on these last years with exceeding gentleness