I'm off to somewhere in the world this August or September....waiting to find out where exactly. I got accepted to VSO!!!! I'm starting to get excited, but it's been a long and hard road getting to this excitement.
Without having to re-live all the details, the short of it is that Brian is not coming with me through VSO (just didn't work out), but will be coming and living with me for portions of the two years.
This is not what we initially envisioned - we planned on moving somewhere together at the same time - but this is what life has thrown our way. And I can only trust that everything happens for a reason and will be for the best.
In addition to applying to VSO I have also applied to a very competitive program that I may or may not get into teaching at a women's university in Bangladesh. There would be SO many cool things about this opportunity, but the Islamic law is so stifling around gender in Bangladesh, I wonder if it's an experience that could truly work for me. I'm a feminist that has been very shaped by my western surroundings and the liberal culture of the northwest, and while I personally define feminism in an extremely broad way intellectually, in practice in my own life, it plays itself out in pretty specific ways. I appreciate being able to be around others and speaking my personal experience and not being questioned, I appreciate having "voice" and power within my community - community that also includes men, I have a wandering, adventurous spirit and like to be able to follow my whims and intuitions without hindrance and fear, and, well, I could go on and on. Really - I'm just an outspoken, visible woman in the world who enjoys defying at least some gender stereotypes. So - being in a country where I couldn't go three blocks away from home without an escort? Yikes.... But working with women - YES!!! I would love that aspect. So - we'll just see what happens there.
In the meantime, the folks at VSO have my CV and are shopping it around on their world-wide database that will match me at some point with a position within a developing country (could be one of 45) who think my background is a good fit. I know things are happening, but without hearing anything, it's hard to have to sit and wait. I am so excited and nervous at the same time.
I feel like my fate is in the hands of the universe right now - literally. Like I have willingly given up certain control over what happens to me. Not that I usually have that much control, but I like to pretend I do. And this process amplifies to me, I guess, how much fate there is in our lives as well as how much we do have control over choices, where we direct our energy, what we say yes and no to, and what *is* given to us.
Transition is tough for me. I have this terrible dynamic between an intense love for adventure and traveling, along with a desire to have "home", real roots and community. I am working to see how these two things can come to some sort of peace with each other and in my life - hence living somewhere for 1-2 years and not 6 months or a number of weeks. But making a temporary home somewhere else means leaving my home here, and that is hard. I LOVE my home here - my literal home, but I mean more my symbolic home of my life, community, connections, and movement through life in Portland.
So - for all of you reading this - I welcome any good thoughts you can muster to send to the universe for a great placement in a country I will love (and that maybe you'll want to visit) and the luxury of doing work that I am talented at and will love, as well. If I have those two thing - and maintained connections with everyone in my life who is already present as well as those who will come - I can't think of anything else I could ask for right now.
