Peace Corps Update

As many of you know, I applied to serve with Peace Corps. This is something I'd been thinking about for a very long time, especially since my short time in Malawi, and after spending a lot of time talking with friends who have gone through the program, it seemed like the right time. I have long been interested in the developing world and serving others there. I actually applied back in October and had my interview in December. And then I waited.

and waited.

and waited.

And about a month ago, I received an email from my recruiter. I was not placed. She has withdrawn my application.



This has been extremely devastating and deeply frustrating. The days that followed were full of tears and lacking sound sleep. My immediate reaction was that I didn't want anyone to know. At that time, it's honestly because I was embarrassed. Who gets rejected from Peace Corps? What's wrong with me? How did this happen? What am I going to do? All questions that I didn't particularly want to answer, and still don't. It took a couple of weeks for this news to sink in and not completely overwhelm me every day. I still can't get it off my mind though.

I want to apologize to those of you who have asked me about this in the past month. I carefully responded to almost all of you, "I'm still waiting" because in a way, I am. I'm planning on reactivating my application and going through the placement process again, in hopes of a better outcome. I am sorry for misleading you, but I hope you can understand how much I've been struggling with this.

Eventually the embarrassment gave way to a nasty cycle of self-doubt, which continued my strong feelings of not telling anyone. While I've been rejected from tons of jobs in the past year, this one really hurt. This is something I was really excited for, really confident about and really looking forward to. I've been feeling rather low about myself. I know I am totally blessed with a lot of loving, encouraging people in my life, but in spending all of this time thinking about this whole situation, I also realized that what I need right now in my life is not pep talks, which is what lead me to continue not telling anyone. I don't actually think I'm a terrible person, in fact, in general, I think my education and experience are pretty great and that I'm a relatively qualified citizen of earth. I'm ok. But I am struggling with this, and trying to convince me that I am not loser only makes me feel worse for feeling bad in the first place. It's an ugly cycle, I know, but I'm being honest-- that's where I am with this.

If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you care enough about me to just keep being who you are in my life, which is what I really need right now. I still don't really want to talk about this, and I'm really hoping that this reactivation leads to much happier news soon.

I have written and rewritten this several times now, and the words never seem quite right, but I think I'm just going to share it as is, because it's quite a weight I've been carrying and I'm hoping that unloading it will be the first step into the next awesome part of my life, whatever it may be.