The Peace Corps Tunnel

“We’re in a freefall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective and that’s all it is… joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.” — Joseph Campbell, Sukhavati

On December 19, I received word from the Peace Corps that I have Medical Pre-Clearance. They are now perusing my application to decide where they would like to send me. This is the first word I’ve heard from them since I was told on September 4 by my recruiter that she had submitted a nomination for me for Eastern Europe for June 2013. More than three months of silence. A freefall into future. All around me, my life has taken on this feeling of freefall. I earn my living these days at a job in which the number of hours fluctuates almost continuously. I wake up some days to seeing half of my schedule disappear. One week, I had three hours on my schedule! If I weren’t in the process of heading into the Peace Corps, I would have downsized my living situation long before now. However, with my eye constantly on my bank account, willing it to grow along with all the other abundance I am experiencing, I keep hanging in there, preferring not to make big changes before making big changes.

What this requires of me is to see this freefall as a choice. I am choosing the freefall of going through the Peace Corps application process, not knowing when or where, or truly even if, I am going. I choose the freefall of my job because, despite the nail-biting vertigo, it is teaching me so many life lessons that will be very useful to have in place during my service. I am choosing to love my cats every day without dwelling on the short time I have left with them, again, not knowing how short. This is all such new behavior. When uncertainty has come along in my life, my pattern has been to dig my heels into something, anything, to make the uncertainty go away. But there is only relief in that, not joy. And I am after joy. It’s not paradise, but I sure do feel alive!